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Semi-offtopic; how's woodworking as a career? Seems the furniture market is largely cornered by large enterprises making VERY cheap furniture from laminated ca

by jabl 8y ago

Semi-offtopic; how's woodworking as a career? Seems the furniture market is largely cornered by large enterprises making VERY cheap furniture from laminated cardboard (e.g. Ikea). I'm sure there's a smallish market for handmade one-offs if you're really really good, but uh, is this enough to provide bread on the table? Similarly, at least over here, it seems houses are increasingly being made prefabricated in factories rather than built in-place as in ye olde days. Similarly, again, for boats. The market is cornered by all manners of plastic-fantastics. There's a small group of sufficiently wealthy and/or crazy enthusiasts building and maintaining wooden boats, but again, a very small fraction of the market. Finally, sitting at work staring at a computer screen all day, I can daydream about making a living working quietly with nice hand tools, no stress etc. But if the reality is working in a noisy dusty workshop full of dangerous machines, stressed out by meeting some deadline, well, no thanks, I think I prefer staring at my computer screen instead.. I mean, what were your thoughts that led you to switch careers? What market are you planning to aim at?

mauvehaus 8y ago
Uh, I'm still in school. I'll get back to you in a bit. Honestly, I fully expect that it'll be tough, and that I'll be picking up jobs that aren't in furniture to pay the bills. I just finished painting a deck, for instance. After I finish school, I'll look for a job doing most anything in woodworking that I think I can learn to do quickly and efficiently so that I have a set of skills that can pay the bills. One observation I've heard many times is that people are willing to put a lot more money into their houses than into furniture because they look at it as an investment. Apart from kitchen cabinets, that work is pretty much custom by definition. You're fitting the work to an existing space that probably doesn't adhere to any particular standard. TL;DR: not sure, and I don't know that I've really answered your question. Pete Galbert (and others) have carved out a niche for themselves building Windsor chairs. This works because making really refined ones remains something you can't do by machine. This is for a variety of technical reasons mostly related to the nature of wood as a material. Short version: if you want thin spindles, you need to split them, not saw them, otherwise the grain inevitably runs from one side to the other, and the piece breaks along the grain at some point in the future. Pete got into chairs because he hated making boxes using loud machines. I mention Pete not only because of that niche, but also because he wrote a series of blog posts about woodworking as a career. Thanks for reminding me to dig them up and re-read them: http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-part-1.html http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-... http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-part-2.html http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-... http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-pt-3.html http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-... http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/08/its-two-ferplus-letter-to-woodworker.html http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/08/its-two-ferplus-lette...

by jabl 8y ago

mauvehaus 8y ago

Uh, I'm still in school. I'll get back to you in a bit. Honestly, I fully expect that it'll be tough, and that I'll be picking up jobs that aren't in furniture to pay the bills. I just finished painting a deck, for instance. After I finish school, I'll look for a job doing most anything in woodworking that I think I can learn to do quickly and efficiently so that I have a set of skills that can pay the bills. One observation I've heard many times is that people are willing to put a lot more money into their houses than into furniture because they look at it as an investment. Apart from kitchen cabinets, that work is pretty much custom by definition. You're fitting the work to an existing space that probably doesn't adhere to any particular standard. TL;DR: not sure, and I don't know that I've really answered your question. Pete Galbert (and others) have carved out a niche for themselves building Windsor chairs. This works because making really refined ones remains something you can't do by machine. This is for a variety of technical reasons mostly related to the nature of wood as a material. Short version: if you want thin spindles, you need to split them, not saw them, otherwise the grain inevitably runs from one side to the other, and the piece breaks along the grain at some point in the future. Pete got into chairs because he hated making boxes using loud machines. I mention Pete not only because of that niche, but also because he wrote a series of blog posts about woodworking as a career. Thanks for reminding me to dig them up and re-read them: http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-part-1.html http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-... http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-part-2.html http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-... http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-pt-3.html http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/06/letter-to-woodworker-... http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/08/its-two-ferplus-letter-to-woodworker.html http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2015/08/its-two-ferplus-lette...