Doug Scott's Blog at LumberJocks.com

Years of Woodworking #5: Experience with budgeting

Doug Scott — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 04:50:21 GMT

Try budgeting in this economy is not an easy task, but over the years one learns to do just what he has to do to keep his head above water, ( Go without ) As you all know it has not been easy since this economy has taken a down turn. Not to point fingers at any one person or persons is what most of us lower income people have to do most of our lives is budget our money. ( should this have to be explained any more to make my point )

Now , I am self-employed, and how long would I have my job if I didn’t do the work I was hired to do,
So without pointing a finger, you know who it is pointing toward . How hard is it to pass what Government is asking for from the RICH to pull their load and keep this Country moving ahead.
I always heard my Grandfather say the government need cleaned out and put in some new blood in.
Or maybe some are afraid to take money out of one pockets that might by giving them Kickbacks or campaign
monies.

It’s not bad enough that this economy is bad enough with high prices, and now with this on top of it how
is the lower income people going to survive.

( Just my opinion ) If someone has the answer, let us know.

Years of Woodworking #4: Replacing , repairing equipment

Doug Scott — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 20:17:44 GMT

It’s bound to come some day that the equipment is going fail and or need repair, but a small amount of preventive maintenance would have saved this one. I’m going to point this out this so that this might not happen with you, Blow the dust and over spray out of all your motors periodically , make a list or a schedule for this, like I have for the bearings on the equipment used a lot , Band saw, belt sander, and many others.
Because I had the Air compressor motor catch fire just before the last job was finished for Christmas, and it was a good thing I didn’t have to put a finish on it, But it cost $350.00 to replace the motor.
Their were no flames , but it went poof when I hit the switch with a puff of smoke after that, then nothing.

Some of us can’t afford many costly expenses now days, I’m one of them.

Years of Woodworking #3: overwhelmed with woodwork

Doug Scott — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 00:50:01 GMT

I don’t know if it because of the election coming up , but a week ago I had a months worth of work ahead of me , and now in just three day it has doubled, I hope it’s because of the satisfied customers referring me to other people. I just wish the monies would come in as fast as the customers have, if your self employed you know that don’t happen , it goes out faster and not to always going into your own pocket.
Ya, we have all heard , you got to spend money to make money, Well I have had NO problem with that,
if I would not have invested in the woodworking equipment I would not been able to get as far as I have .

A few years ago I invested in the Legacy woodworking machine and just a few months after I got it set up I
got a staircase spindle job for a new home . It consisted of 167 spindles and 12 posts, and it made enough to cover the cost of the purchase of the Legacy. Now if i could only invest in the next machine I’m looking at to
purchase and have a job come in and cover the cost of that , It would make my day, Then I would not be afraid to stick my neck out to expand more and more.

I haven’t looked at it as luck, it’s helps with the experience I’ve acquired in woodworking.

Years of Woodworking #2: Delivered 4 Tables

Doug Scott — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 14:01:22 GMT

4 more tables as of Oct 19th. I haven’t got any word if the other ones have sold. but it sure makes me happy that I’m getting work for the business. If the orders get doubled I might have to look for a larger space to work out of, Thats just a small problem that I would not have a problem dealing with.

Next project is a cherry 6 drawer dresser, Photo’s will follow on this suite.

Years of Woodworking #1: Paid off.

Doug Scott — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 14:51:02 GMT

Delivered the first set of Coffee and End tables Tuesday the 2nd .
the store owner was very satisfied and So they ordered two more tables and 4 child rocking chairs.
So now the work begins, spent one day digging out more lumber out of the drying shed (Now I need to restock that) but that is good.

When I was in the Furniture store , I was approached by one of the sales people about learning some woodworking skills and possibly working with me part time. This should help with having a person see how and what goes into building Quality furniture .

This is something One waits for some times a life time, Well I’m 56, it’s about time. Ya think.!
The feeling that come over me when this happened was almost like winning the lottery.
I just hope it’s not long before I have to expand and have to start putting more people to work.
That has been one of my goals too.
I have Photos of the furniture I built , entered it under Furniture By Douglas album on my face book page under my name ( Doug Scott ) and on this site too.

Years of woodworking , Paying off

Doug Scott — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 01:18:32 GMT

For most of my life I have worked in the Furniture industry, until the Economy took a down turn.
I had to turn the woodworking hobby into a business, after 2005 when employers stopped hiring us old timers with experience, Well it has taken a turn around for me, I have had some of my furniture in stores in my area and have had to go pick up some when the store would go out of business, And last January I lost one of the stores and I went out searching for another that would handle my furniture, One out of the three would take in my furniture and paid for it up front. And now after they have seen what I can build and do with my skills,
It has finally paid off, I has landed me the opportunity to place more in the store and to custom build sets of end tables and coffee tables with them and on a continuous agreement.
This is the BIG BREAK I have been waiting for. Don’t ever say that skill and experience never pays off,
without it I would have NEVER got this opportunity.

I’m not celebrating yet , still working on the first sample and until the store sells the first set I’m going to hold off
celebrating, and then after they order another set, and the check is in hand.
Look for my updates of photos and where my furniture is: Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Lost in woodworking #6: Been to busy and Hot .

Doug Scott — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:24:51 GMT

For the past few months I haven’t had time to get on LJ , between the New Girl in my life and the HOT
weather here in Michigan, I started building a storage shed for my Girlfriend and because of the hot temp’s she didn’t want me working out in the hot temp’s, besides she is a LPN, so I listen.

Still have lot of work to do on the storage shed before winter and now her list is getting long along with mine.
Along with the motor-home I just got done repairing the whole roof and rafters inside, we should never have
any more trouble with that leaking. And then I have to work on the home she owns 100 miles north of where we live and work before winter.

Well all you home owners know the work around the house is never done .
I think that is the reason she grabbed me up, Like Red Green puts it, If your not hansom, ya got to
handy.Or something like that !

Woodworking is picking up !

Doug Scott — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 13:52:47 GMT

Look’s like some people are spending a little , So far the work coming in the shop , And it’s coming in closer together than the past two years, hope it pick’s up for everyone, And I hope that the girl I’ve been going out will hang on with me, with the schedule I work. But I do make time for her when she has a day off work,
it changes every week for her, She is a staff nurse in a vet’s hospital, And things are going great between us.
Maybe it will be a good year, For all

Lost in woodworking #5: Love of woodworking , found me LOVE

Doug Scott — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:48:56 GMT

Their are some things in life that are unexcepted. Or maybe a dream come ture.
Devoriced 12 ears ago, and I barried myself in my woodworking. Then with the economy takeing a down ture I turned the ww hobbie into a full time business. when the custom build furniture slowed down I started repairing firnture and 1 year ago she dropped of a Antique rocker off for repair.

Then the first of Febuary she called to ask if I was single and rest is ?.
Well so far so good, we hit it off. We are both in our 50’s and been through bad marrages.

GOD dose answer prayers.

This economy ?

Doug Scott — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:49:59 GMT

I”m sure most of you have had time to watch TV and what the news stories have been reporting,

New york city tested someone to TRY to live on 50.000 a year and now in Miami Fla, they are talking about someone that can’t live on 75,0000.
What kind of life style do these people expect to live on in this economy, Some of us have to cut back and do without luxuries. That means living like some of us poor people live all the time.
I have been brought up with this pounded into my head, This is the way Mother put it: Can we do without it, Can we afford it, and do we have to have it.
And I still live by that today, and most of the time I walk out of the store without buying a thing.

Some people need to live on what I have most of my life ,I have averaged only 18,00 to 22,000 for many years and only one year did I make over that , and as a supervisor for a small Company. I made 27,000 and lived comfortable I haven’t had a wife to help with expenses.

Take the Auto workers for an example , If they are not making 20 to 27 an hour , they claime they can’t make ends meet. OH ! Boo Hoo.

I wish I made 50,000 to 75,000 . I would be living like a king. But maybe here in Michigan where I live isn’t as costly as it is in N. Y. or Miami, It could be all in the way one budgets themselves. I’m just glad that back in the 80’s after I come home from the military I started buying woodworking equipment with the money I made on the side, I wanted to have everything I needed by the time retirement rolled around. I worked 12 years in a furniture factory and it closed in 1995, Then worked 3 years as a dept supervisor , until the owner dipped into the investers money and caused our payroll checks to bounce,. I quite before more things happened.
Then after 9/11 the job market went down hill and I think it hasn’t been good since. nd the Courprite greed hasn’t helped this country at all. AGREE !

Friends , think you work FREE of charge

Doug Scott — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:52:40 GMT

I’m sure most of us have one of these or maybe a relative, they think you can do a project or fix some thing for nothing. I have a retired neighbor that his hobby is to bother me ( he said ) but really it is finding furniture at a bargain price and resell it, But in between that have me fix what is broken or needs repaired.

Plus he barrows my pick-up truck to pick the used furniture up, and replaces only the amount of gas or less that he uses. And he brings junk metal and aluminum for me to take in to the scrap yard, thinking this makes me enough money to cover the cost of using the truck. I have a woodworking business and furniture repair so I don’t always have time to take scrap stuff in every week.

I would like to find him behind a broom or the yard rake around her some day, or maybe a new hobby.

I got rid of all the fair weather friend I used to drink with,by not drinking with them.
You know they say that as long as your buying drinks , you’ll always be your friend.
Same goes here too ! I guess !

Lost in woodworking #4: Experience has paid off

Doug Scott — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 17:07:12 GMT

As we all know all about this economy and the down turns it has caused, I have been forced to close down my furniture business, due to the lack of customers. How this economy can change, last year I was working 12-14 hours a day, and since June it has dropped off drastically.

Well getting to the point , About three weeks ago I sent out three resume’s to woodworking company’s
I knew of, and less than a week I got a response from two, And have had two interviews .
Now I have to decide what one I’m going to take.

One is doing contract work out of my shop for the Company that is already established doing Mill work.
It would involve special woodwork for the Legacy woodworking Machine I Purched two years ago.

And the other is a forman posision . over seeing Mill work for a well established Company over 12
years, and want me to work on product devolopment, witch I have already thought of 4 items made from
the scraps they already discard, I know there product line.

I haven’t discused money with eather Company, I have a second interview to go to yet.
I’m leanning towords working for someone else for the next 20 years, Had enough of dealing with customers one on one.

SO. The point is with what you think of the small amount of woodworking you do ,I would still put it on your resuma as work experence. I have been working in the furniture industry for 18 years, and have work in my own shop building custom furniture since 1985. As the years go by you can learn more and better teckniques
in your woodworking.

Lost in woodworking #3: Holidays and Winter apon us

Doug Scott — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:10:55 GMT

Are we always prepared for this season, this year I guess ,but not for heating the shop. If you don’t generate enough scrap wood to have a wood stove like me, but then look at the fire hazard with heating with wood. And then Kerosene is $ 4.29 a gal and then the smell, Propane is another alternative I have used, but I haven’t priced that this year yet, and then it’s the money that isn’t coming in as it has in the past, along with the work orders either, We just need to pray for this econamy to turn around for the better and hope all of can hold on untill it happens, I have been in business now since 2001 and this is the first time I have had to close the shop due to lack of money and paying customers to pickup their finished projects, I don’t have a slush fund to help keep the heat on, Now with said , it’s going to be hard for me to find things to keep my mind occupied and my hand without being in the shop, Should have taken up wood carving too, could have done that inside the house, ( Not Married , Ha , Ha ! )

Lost in woodworking #2: Trouble with the computer,OH Well !

Doug Scott — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:59:53 GMT

I’m re-entering this suite under a new name, C ought a virus back a few months ago,Watch what your clicking on. I didn’t have every thing backed up, so I had to reload every thing, and I’m not done yet. the business comes first.

HAPPIER DAYS AHEAD, I HOPE!

Lost in woodworking #1: A self employed woodworker

Doug Scott — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:28:31 GMT

I got say that it isn’t all what a person would think self employment is cracked up to be.But now is not a very good time ether. Let me explain what I mean or have experienced. for one thing no one ahead of you can tell you how many hours you might put in ,and then how much you might make an hour, don’t keep track, It might scare you. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy what I do, but not always is the money coming in fast enough to keep up with all the bills and expenses. Over the past few years I have had some people ask about going into business for themselves, and now isn’t a good time , I was well established for years before the economy took a down turn. I was told that one should have a 6 month cousin saved before starting in business, That is very tough to do. Well for the past two month I averaged 14 to 16 hours in the shop,just getting ready for a sale of some furniture that was repaired and customers didn’t come back to pick it up. It didn’t go as good as thought
but I did land some work. So it has had some positive out look , Now maybe I’ll do one in the spring.
that come to me.
BE THANKFUL FOR ALL WHAT WE HAVE OR HAVEN’T WENT THROUGH. AND THE GOOD WE HAVE IN LIFE !

SO, ON THIS DAY OF MORNING FOR THE ONES THAT LOST LOVE ONES , THE REST OF US SHOULD

THANK YOU, for taking the time to read this commit.