# Can money really compensate what goes into woodworking?



## George_SA (May 4, 2012)




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## SirIrb (Jan 12, 2015)

I am a die hard capitalist. Yes, yes it can. If it comes in large quantities. Preferably in gold.


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## jmartel (Jul 6, 2012)

Eh, call me cynical, but I don't think the customer is buying anything other than the finished product. And yes, it can be compensated for money. The customer probably doesn't care about any of that stuff. They want a well made product that fits their home and does what it needs to do.


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## Ocelot (Mar 6, 2011)

I saw an article on the web about a guy who makes large-scale puzzles - puzzle tables and a puzzle desk. The desk took him at least 4 years. It was reportedly for Paul Allen (big Microsoft honcho), but the price was only someting like $55000. So a year and a half of a very talented guy's life for about half what one fairly low-level microsoft programmer makes in a year (not counting stock options).

When asked about how long he took to make it and how much he got for it, the puzzle maker said "Well, sometimes I lose track of time…"

Oh, here it is. I probably got all the details wrong. This article is less detailed that the one I read earlier.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/45110/a-woodworkers-musical-masterpiece

http://www.kagenschaefer.com/

-Paul


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## Earlextech (Jan 13, 2011)

If you want to earn your living from it, yes it can!


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## Ocelot (Mar 6, 2011)

Some customers are willing and able to pay for a story. The story goes with the piece. They can tell their friends "This was made by a former astronaut" or "This was made from a tree that was cut down to build our school" or "The wood this was made from was cut in Madegascar in 1922 and stored in an old guy's barn for 80 years." or …

In most cases, the piece is not purely functional. If it were, it could be made from plastic. It is something to look at, something to feel, something to show to others.


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## BLarge (Aug 29, 2011)

You can say that about almost any product or service being developed, all that's the same is the person developing loves it.

Yes, a check makes me happy.


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## becikeja (Sep 12, 2010)

I agree with BLarge. Any professional who has mastered his trade has made plenty of mistakes to get there.


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## 280305 (Sep 28, 2008)

I do it for the enjoyment, and no monetary compensation is needed.


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## longgone (May 5, 2009)

Woodworking has been around for a very long time. It is like any other business and any situation in life…some people will starve in a grocery store and others will get fat in the wilderness.


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## Lsmart (Jan 1, 2012)

It's nice to get paid when you work and I love taking commissions and earning a living from woodworking but if the money dried up I would keep doing it… the love comes first for me… the money will follow. (If you want it to)


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## devann (Jan 11, 2011)

To answer your question. Yes, the more compensation the better. The tool makers, insurance sales people, electric co, etc… are wanting their compensation. Let's not forget the taxman, he wants his $1.298 too.


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## JAAune (Jan 22, 2012)

Sure, if I get paid enough I'll spend all day in the shop.

The decade of mistakes, frustration and what-not will eventually be compensated when I'm at the level where a 6-figure income becomes possible. It's achievable, just takes a long, hard road to get there. But in my opinion, if a person is going to spend years at subsistence wages to build up a business, they should be earning 6-figures eventually to compensate for all the risk and lost income.


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## George_SA (May 4, 2012)

The other day My wife and I visited a second hand shop in our area. Actually it is more like a warehouse. On one off the dusty tables I saw a hand crafted item. A beautiful figure carved out of wood and the thought came by. How much time and effort and dedication went into that and now it is just lying in a second hand shop lost in the jumble around it.

For me there is a difference between making something to sell and just making it. At one stage I made some garden ornaments for a local nursery (trellises etc.) and the fun went out of it. The pressure was on to get production out and there was no time to fiddle around and experimenting. I decided to stop as the money I was making wasn't really all that much. For me, as long as woodworking is a hobby, I enjoy it, but when I have to start making stuff to sell it becomes work. This is a personal thing and I understand that the professional woodworker can enjoy his work just as much if not more than I do when I fiddle around in the shop. For me however I really don't want to do woodworking on a commercial basis. I enjoy it as a hobby.

I always struggle when one of my wife's friends sees an article that I made and enquires how much to make one to sell? I really don't know what price as it is difficult to add monetary value to the intangibles in the process.

What I have also found is that in a lot of cases people aren't really prepared to pay for the effort that goes into the making. I suppose mass production where unit costs are driven down to a fraction of cost of custom making contributes to this.


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## jinkyjock (Feb 2, 2014)

George,
in a world where we all have bills to pay,
cold hard cash can go a long way towards easing the pain and stress of bespoke woodworking.
Perhaps we are sometimes too precious about our craft and should concentrate more on "selling the idea".
It's up to us to educate the less informed about some of the processes involved.
Getting a client more involved, in at least the design process, 
gives them greater empathy with the finished product and can yield a financial windfall.
As for those who are just looking for something on the cheap,
I have lost count of the number of potential clients I have (politely) told "Go to Ikea".!!!!
Bottom line, although we all love what we do, having enough cash is nice.
Cheers, Jinky (James).


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## SirIrb (Jan 12, 2015)

Here is my story real quick.
I fell head over heals in love with wood working when I was in my early teens. I worked in two cabinet shops and learned a ton. But i ended up hating it. This was hard because i loved it still but hated it. It was because I was doing it all the time. This is like the feeling of cheating on what you love. So it wasnt the money that made me hate it, it was doing everything and anything all day. I made everything from furniture to planters (planters in vast quantities) and this not being able to pick and choose what I was making made me feel like a whore to the wood.

So things happen. I had to make changes due to unforeseen circumstances. I end up in engineering. I "like" what i do. I dont love it. That, dear sirs, is the key to me.

Now I can pick and choose what I build. If I choose to make something for someone who is family i will probably not seek compensation in any form. And they better not seek deadlines. I have plenty of those in engineering. If I make something for someone and demand compensation then it will be on my time.


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

First, I learned people will not pay me thirty-five an hour for a project, but, if I bid it, will pay me seventy.

My hobby does pay, when I want it to. However, that is because I have a lot of tools and can do anything I need to do.

Just for reference, the tens of thousands in tools I own all came from a simple B&D drill and saber saw. As I sold things, I invested in other and better tools. From that, I was able to make more, thus, sell more. What I didn't own, I rented until I could buy it.

Part of the reason I was able to succeed was, I ran a handyman business. It allowed me to do what I enjoyed much of the time, gave me an excuse and means of buying tools and built my expertise. Often, doing one job led to several others.

Painting an interior or exterior resulted in opportunities to offer wood working repairs, or to refinish a deck, floor or piece of furniture.

I made a free flicker page and posted some of my work so people could see what I did, which covered a variety of things.

Some of the most lucrative work was painting. Acquiring the ladders, poles, spray systems (HVLP and airless) and good brushes, rollers and handles made that possible. Too, those things proved very useful in the woodworking end of things.

I learned to play with formulas to crank up deck and fence life. In the Pacific Northwet, knowing how to protect wood from the weather and how to make quick work of a fence repair can be lucrative.

You will make more money bidding than working hourly.


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## rwe2156 (May 7, 2014)

First of all, I am not an anti-capitalist. I am anti greed and anti consumerism.

In a film called Escape Fire about our medical system, one doctor made the statement "Our fathers and forefathers in medicine were all about patients and caring for patients. When medicine became a business, we lost our way."

My point is, if you're doing something you love, the money will take care of itself. But you also have to be content and thankful with what you have and make do with it.

I've got a couple friends whose woodworking hobbies morphed in to businesses and now they say they hate it, similar to SirIrb's story above. The reason was, they thought they needed to get bigger and get more equipment, etc. in order to be "successful". Both ended up hating it, but were so heavily invested they couldn't quit. Both ended up forced into production cabinet making to make ends meet, albeit with the occasional piece of furniture for a business, friend or acquaintance just to keep the juices flowing.

I think just because you charge a fee or sell something you make, it doesn't have to turn to drudgery.

Fine furniture is definitely not for the masses. It is an almost impossible field to break into because in order to get compensated, you're going to have to charge many times what the factories do.

Who is willing to pay $1500 for a dresser? Or $5000 for a dining room table and chairs?

Yes, there are people out there who will pay a premium for fine furniture, there just few and far between. Therein lies the problem.

So we get forced into making planters to feed our family our passion turns bittersweet.

Bottom line if you're in it for just the money you will probably be sorely disappointed whether you fail or succeed.
Because if you succeed, then when is enough enough?

The paradigm for success in a secular humanist society is based on consumption and accumulation.

Didn't used to be that way.

I've got a friend who runs with a crowd of heavy hitters that bird hunt and he wants me to start building some gun cabinets. I've worked up a project but I'm really scared to do it because what if I end up with 6 orders? And what do I charge?


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## SirIrb (Jan 12, 2015)

The man I greatly respect, who taught me about the trade and the business told me one day that he started building cabinets with a skill saw. That was about it. He worked out of other peoples shops later and paid to use the equipment. He never took a real check for the first 5 years. He basically ate and lived. He dumped every dollar back in the shop. He would ebay for more equipment, leave on a friday afternoon and be back monday with something new. By the time I got there he had 2 large planers, 2 large table saws, 4 shapers, 2 radial arm saws, a large jointer, etc, etc. All that to say, you can start small and get where you want to, if you want to.

When he closed the doors-by choice, which I never figured out, but he is a strange bird-he was clearing 150K in profit a year.

For me, I dont want it. I have a family and the time preference between skill saw (ok, i am better set up than that) and 150K profit, is too great.


> First, I learned people will not pay me thirty-five an hour for a project, but, if I bid it, will pay me seventy.
> 
> My hobby does pay, when I want it to. However, that is because I have a lot of tools and can do anything I need to do.
> 
> ...


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## George_SA (May 4, 2012)

James, I expect that when you do woodworking for a living that you will have a different approach to it. If you enjoy it and you make money from it as well then it is good.

For me (and this is a personal thing) I enjoy woodworking as a hobby to take my mind off my general day to day activities making a living. SirIrb sums my feelings up nicely. I like to choose what I want to work on. Also I have a safety policy. Some days things just go wrong in the shop and don't work out the way I want it to. Then I just lock up the shop and go and do something else as I believe that when you start getting frustrated, it is the time that fingers are cut off. If I had a deadline, then closing shop for a while is not always an option.


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## Finn (May 26, 2010)

I make and sell artsy crafty things that I sell at local festivals and markets. I have a pension so it started as a hobby. The reason I sell my stuff is the only other option I have is to burn it. I will be making it so why not sell it?" I enjoy the 30-40 hours a week I spend in my shop making sawdust. What I really have is a self funding hobby.
Life is good.


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

One way to make woodworking pay is for a young couple to buy a good set of hand tools and a few portable power tools and go to work on the side and build a house and a house full of furniture. It's not for everyone but it's certainly and rewarding option for many IMHO.

helluvawreck aka Charles
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com


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## jeffswildwood (Dec 26, 2012)

I am purely a hobbyist. I do take orders and sell a few items and I also give many away as gifts. All my projects are small items and I don't plan on making lots of money from them. I have done one craft show and didn't sell a single item! I then gave most away as gifts.

If I take an order I do get compensation for it but basically get my wood cost back and a little for my time. My wife and many people I have done orders for even say I don't charge enough. An example is my latest project, the picture box. The one shown is a gift but the next five I have orders for are $40.00 each. With what I make I can buy more wood to make some more stuff.

To me it's still the shop time I enjoy. I have a lot of peace in my shop (which is what I need) and thrill watching a piece of wood turn from raw wood into something beautiful. The joy and challenge of trying something new like a new joint or style. I also love the looks on peoples faces when I deliver a gift or an order. The look of "I can't believe you made this"!

What would happen if someone came to me and said "Jeff, I need 50 of your picture boxes"? I don't know, but even that would be a new challenge I would have to try. I would tell them don't be in a hurry to get them though.

Just me, crazy or does this make sense.


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## SirIrb (Jan 12, 2015)

Jeff, you would have to say "You need to speak to my manager, SirIrb. He can assist you with your next purchase." 
I take 10% off the top for project negotiations.



> I am purely a hobbyist. I do take orders and sell a few items and I also give many away as gifts. All my projects are small items and I don t plan on making lots of money from them. I have done one craft show and didn t sell a single item! I then gave most away as gifts.
> 
> If I take an order I do get compensation for it but basically get my wood cost back and a little for my time. My wife and many people I have done orders for even say I don t charge enough. An example is my latest project, the picture box. The one shown is a gift but the next five are $40.00 each. With what I make I can buy more wood to make some more stuff.
> 
> ...


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## Ocelot (Mar 6, 2011)

I respect the folks who make a living with woodworking.

One of my old favorites on LJ doesn't come here anymore.

Lookup "Rogue" if you are interested. He and his family live in an apartment he built into his shop, which is a metal building. He makes everything from bedroom furniture to stairways - and makes a living doing it.

I think he also has a proper woodworking education - which I believe helps.

http://lumberjocks.com/rogue
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rogue-Fine-Woodworking/117869944926868

-Paul


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## Puzzleman (May 4, 2010)

To make money with woodworking, I believe that you have to have 2 interests. Woodworking and business.
Can't do one without the other. That is why I believe so many woodworkers don't succeed. They have one of the interests but not the other.

I started out as a hobby because I liked the woodworking. Then I started applying the business side because I was always interested in how much per hour I was making. So when I went full time into woodworking, I had two of the skills done. Had to learn the sales skill. Did that and now making decent money with over 10 employees.

Best job I have ever had!


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## SirIrb (Jan 12, 2015)

One of the reasons I didnt go into business for myself was one thing: taxes and other government mandated things. I dont mind the business aspect. I hate working to pay someone who is undeserving: the state.

So my early years were as a conservative woodworker. I ended up being a well versed Anarcho-Capitalist because of the main reason I didnt go into business for myself.

Remove that barrier and I may one day reconsider.

Nothing but praise for you. You started small and ended up as a good sized shop. Big praise.



> To make money with woodworking, I believe that you have to have 2 interests. Woodworking and business.
> Can t do one without the other. That is why I believe so many woodworkers don t succeed. They have one of the interests but not the other.
> 
> I started out as a hobby because I liked the woodworking. Then I started applying the business side because I was always interested in how much per hour I was making. So when I went full time into woodworking, I had two of the skills done. Had to learn the sales skill. Did that and now making decent money with over 10 employees.
> ...


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## SirIrb (Jan 12, 2015)

One of the reasons I didnt go into business for myself: taxes and other government mandated things. I dont mind the business aspect. I hate working to pay someone who is undeserving: the state.

So my early years were as a conservative woodworker. I ended up being a well versed Anarcho-Capitalist because of the main reason I didnt go into business for myself.

Remove that barrier and I may one day reconsider.

Nothing but praise for you. You started small and ended up as a good sized shop. Big praise.



> To make money with woodworking, I believe that you have to have 2 interests. Woodworking and business.
> Can t do one without the other. That is why I believe so many woodworkers don t succeed. They have one of the interests but not the other.
> 
> I started out as a hobby because I liked the woodworking. Then I started applying the business side because I was always interested in how much per hour I was making. So when I went full time into woodworking, I had two of the skills done. Had to learn the sales skill. Did that and now making decent money with over 10 employees.
> ...


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

HINT: Ignore that part of life demanding you take the orders.

I have a very nice shop with a lot of name brand equipment. I have toys that few others here, if any, have. It all came from a hobby (while others bought ski equipment and new cars, I bought tools that helped me do more, and overcome some of my limitations).

My hobby, over time, paid my way, both personally and as a business.

Even shortly after starting out, I focused on doing what I wanted to do. No one ever held a gun to my head and forced me to do a job. However, taking some I didn't want to do, or was intimidated by, insured I'd have the means to do what I desired.

Fifty years after my first, marginal quality project, I still enjoy my shop. Too, I still take on jobs. I call it life.



> First of all, I am not an anti-capitalist. I am anti greed and anti consumerism.
> 
> In a film called Escape Fire about our medical system, one doctor made the statement "Our fathers and forefathers in medicine were all about patients and caring for patients. When medicine became a business, we lost our way."
> 
> ...


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

I should add to my story the fact I wasn't out to sell the first thing I made. Someone asked to buy it. That sparked a future.

Early on, I realized there wasn't a huge market for what I was doing at the time. I had always heard the word "diversify," and figured there was a voice of experience behind those who rambled of it. Because of that, I kept doing what I was doing, but started adding other things l liked to do.

After I had enough different things coming out of the shop (e.g., unique picture framed items, plaques, walking sticks, shelves, etc.), there was always someone who wanted something I made.

When my mostly unused basement started getting full and swapping out my decor was getting to the point of being taken for granted, I noticed little stores that were hurting for wall decor. I approached them and "offered to decorate their place with things they could sell on consignment and my storage problem went away. At the same time, the start up store was happy to get inventory without putting out the nickles, until after the sale.


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