WC - After being in business for myself for almost 30 years as a Sign Carver in different mediums, the CNC craze started and every vinyl sticker shop got the ShopBot and started pumping out CNC routed signs for half the price of mine. That is when I made the decision to hang up the shingle on the shop and go strictly internet based (website) and only made HandCrafted signs that could be shipped via UPS or FEDEX. I did that for 10 years and hung it up for good. So there are several here that have been in your shoes and definitely feel your pain.
Wishing you all the best in your new adventures.

 

Strangely enough, my experience in the past two years has been different. Shipping delays from China allowed us to convince a client to buy bulk wood boxes from us to replace their Chinese supplier. Demand for other products is higher than our ability to produce. This past week we've been working on a wholesale order for items that were put up for preorder. Everything sold in two hours. It seems to me that demand for durable goods and useful services is increasing and rising energy costs are making it easier to compete with foreign labor.

That's not saying this is an easy climate to run a business. Overhead, material, labor and energy costs make it a challenge to maintain margins. I've also noticed money velocity is slowing down. It takes longer on average for our commercial clients to pay us than it did 4 years ago. That means the risk of not getting paid is increasing.

I believe the difference for me is that I enjoy the the business and organizational aspect as much as the woodworking itself (maybe more). So I'm always looking for ways to cut time off production and am willing to work overtime and sacrifice a paycheck to build machines, fixtures or even reorganize the entire shop if I know that will increase efficiency. If we had not been doing that, we'd have gone under for sure. We've raised prices to cover material increases but everything else has been paid for by increased efficiency rather than passing costs onto customers.

The best advice I can give to anyone wanting to stick with it is to stop thinking of yourself as a woodworker. Become a businessman that happens to be doing woodworking. Invest in a stopwatch and time yourself doing different things and look for ways to shorten those times. Read about value streams and process maps (basic knowledge is all that's needed for the small shop). Learn to recognize wastful activities and eliminate them.

 

The best advice I can give to anyone wanting to stick with it is to stop thinking of yourself as a woodworker. Become a businessman that happens to be doing woodworking. Invest in a stopwatch and time yourself doing different things and look for ways to shorten those times. Read about value streams and process maps (basic knowledge is all that's needed for the small shop). Learn to recognize wastful activities and eliminate them.

AGREED. I started my 40-year corporate communications career behind a camera. Best advice I ever got from other photographers, was same as this. Be a really good craftsman that solves your clients' business needs. But more importantly, be a really good businessman. In the end, I was a better craftsman than businessman; so I want to work for a big company.

 

Like you said have a great business plan on how you are making the product, time on making each step, price of each step, marketing, delivery, customer satisfaction, be a SALESMAN. Without the last you will never suceed even if they tell me they can buy it cheaper somewhere else and then the SALES comes into action of kind of wood, how smooth the turning is and yes they can eat from it not like the ones in store. IF you can not point out the best product and YOUR high standards of building over the poor workmanship then you will go under and soon. Do not forget the saying of a "Better mouse trap" Also mention and carry with you all the WOODS you can build with and ask them what they are seeing in the store. Mostly Cheap soft hardwoods like poplar, pine, or other lower quality woods. Since I has a masters and PhD in business I helped a friend in making cabinets and went out with him on some sales with what he called tough customers. I did what I mentioned and out of the 25 customers I get him 19 sales. Two of them already selected someone else (I told him to ask why they went with the builders from woods, price, and when they could be delivered hand how they got the sale. If they all ready did not make a down payment they would have went with my friend, Why because we make a face to face and brought samples and guaranteed them for 20 years against workmanship and even some if they damaged it also but not carelessness.

China can make some OK stuff but they can not custom make it to fit the walls and floors. Just like those who want a turned item for 20% of what I am making due to them seeing the exact some thing somewhere else but with a $2 piece of wood and not a $50 to $100 doller piece of wood. The customer sees the cheaper one but did not buy it, they seen mine and it provoked a reasponse. Make a name for yourself and find what everyone wants, needs, and they not live without. I just sold a nice figured cherry bowl that I got for free 6x3 but priced it as if I did buy it and added my time and materials and without question she bought it. Thing was I had to be a salesman as well and point out all the neat things about it.

 

Over the years I have engaged in several hobbies. In most I have met others who tried to make money through the hobby. It rarely worked for them, and I adopted the motto, "If you want to enjoy a hobby, don't make it a business!"
My main hobby now is woodcarving. I like to tackle challenging projects that sometimes take four to six months. I love the process of analyzing the next steps and proceeding slowly. I have never considered selling my work because I could not expect a price that covers the hours invested. Why do I continue? Because I love the process, not the product.
My working career? I retired 26 years ago from 40 years in the U.S. space program.

 

JAAune what type of wood working?
I was mainly doing furniture. Beds, tables, chairs, and case work. All by hand no cnc’s. All custom one of a kind. We did all we could to streamline and make it all efficient, but hand work is hand work. When a customer can buy a bed from a mexico importer for $800 ans that barely covers my materials, what margins do i have?
Now if i were producing 30 pieces off a cnc and was moving volume it would be a different story, but i dedicated time to learning this craft and not CAD. Guess Im a fossil lol.
Glad your business is flourishing. I hope it continues that way for as long as you wish.

 

I am



I am never going into business but if I did I'd go for the high end high design high price end of things. China et. all. ate the non-discerning end of the business. All that stuff ...you can't compete......

 

We do custom furniture (mostly churches) and small batch production. When my old employer went from booming to no sales over a 6 month period (2011) I realized that predictable repeat sales are necessary and custom furniture sales are unpredictable. So I advertised custom furniture but established a clientele of commercial repeat customers. The production work keeps steady sales going so we can survive even when there's little custom work available.

It's surprising at how many large firms search for a small shop to supply them with components. I forget the name but some company associated with Waymo approached us once looking for wood racking for their autonomous delivery vehicles. We declined to quote due to it being a large undertaking and us being too busy.

In my opinion, not using CNC's and laser cutters is a huge disadvantage for most fields of woodworking. More than half our leads approach us for CNC services and even the small buyers can be valuable if they do repeat purchases. Some clients only do $1,000-$$3,000 per year of business but their products are pre-programmed and we just place sheets on the CNC, stick the parts in our sander and ship them out. We can work on bigger projects similtaneously. Several of those clients add a lot to the bottom line and they are happy to find us. Most CNC shops don't want to talk to small buyers.

The custom jobs are a bonus. We did our first set of 5 chairs this year. I could have done them by hand but we opted to use CNC to build a slot mortiser and a set of jigs for that mortiser to do all the joinery.

 

You're the kind of shop that I wish there was a LOT more of on here. I have zero interest in doing anything by hand. Learning more about CNC and machine work in general is my focus!! I don't hold anything against the guys that want to do it by hand (even though some of them do hold working with machines against me). But for my purposes, building it accurately and quickly is more important. And I want to spend my limited time in the shop learning machine operation instead of hand methods.

 

I do some custom work here an there, but not enough to live on. I do take on projects when they come around, But in most cases folks do not want to pay the price when they can find it cheaper, there is the exception when folks want a good quality product.

WC, Send me a PM about some of the items you may want to sell. It sounds like you are close to my location and I may be interested.

 

Sorry to hear that but I understand your pain. I worked as a carpenter the first half of my life and had my own company for 18 years. I went through 4 years of bad economy in the early 80's and a big influx of people form out of the country that were willing to work for $5.00 an hour. I wasn't willing to fire my people and hire them but my competition was.

The up side to it was that I got into a completely different industry and working for other people gave me more time off and money than I ever had working for myself. Now I'm retired and can afford to enjoy woodworking. I hope it all works out as well for you. Now is probably the best time in my life to change occupations and find a good job, Good luck.

 

Alot of people i dont think understand quality. Ive had numerous people bring me tables to refinish and i tell them I cant due to it being veneer on top of mdf. Them they get upset because they heirloom $2500 table is glorified cardboard, but balk at the price i quote to build a top for them.

 

So true! I think 1 in a 1000 people are capable of recognize quality furniture, much less any idea hat good wood costs! Other than “it’s real wood” or ”oh, dovetails”. The few times I’ve perused the “antique” furniture at consignment shops, I smirk half the time and chuckle half the time.

This makes a custom furniture shop a very niched market. One acquaintence of mine had a shop, built cabinets for decades until…..before he passed he was out of the cab work entirely and doing built-ins and conference tables.

I remember he said he could make more on one conference table than he thought should be legal.

 

The day of the craftsman is over. The era of the artist Youtube craftsman has begun.
Epoxy tables are my proof
Over complicated designs without any roots.
In my area I can buy a whole bedroom set of furniture for 800. We have hundreds of small and few large furniture stores. Living spaces, Mathis brothers ship stuff from China and India the small stores are getting furniture from Mexico.
Then there is cabinet shops they compete with homedepot and Lowe’s.
Good Luck

 

Lumberjocks has 50,600 members and all of them including me are doing pretty much the same stuff. In rarely acassions I can see something that stands out or people thinking outside the box.
Its the same out there when people is making a living out of wood. You need to REALLY think outside the box, plus the marketing today is basically 100% online, if you really want to make decent money. Take a look at Etsy, people is doing all sort of stuff worldwide, many of them with thousand sales.....the thing is, again, creating products that are competitive and sell quick.

 

The recession of 2007-8 put me out of business. I was a general contractor and had a small cabinet shop. We did mostly kitchen remodels, interior remodeling, bookcases, mantels, etc…and I had 2 or 3 steady employees. We could get work, but the competition was desperate and the price the customer would pay didn’t cover our costs.

So one sad day, I pulled the plug on the money-losing operation. Sold off all the larger equipment (spray booth, sliding table saw, etc), kept what I could put into my garage, and went back to being strictly a 1-man operation charging time and materials. No more fixed price contracts.

Chinese cabinets were beginning to hit the market about that time. A typical ad would be $5,500 - $7,500 for 10x10 set of cabinets with solid wood doors and drawer-fronts (genuine plywood cases!) including granite counter-top, including demolition and installation. I rarely did a kitchen remodel for less than $15,000, not including countertops, flooring, plumbing, painting or electrical. Did not have enough high-end clientele to make it work. My friends who stuck it out did have a much larger base of referral business from architects, designers, larger general contractors. They had been at it longer, and were better at business than me.

Moral of the story? Lessons learned? My customers loved the work we did. I loved the work but it didn’t pay the bills. Having to pay worker’s compensation, taxes, liability insurance and employees salaries and rent for shop space before I got paid was fine while business was booming. But in a down market, it’s a total drag.

 

Right there with you.
Some incredible challenges. And battling. Thank you.

 

Im a luddite and have a disdain for online marketing. I have no social media at all, yes i know this very well is the problem but i have my principles and have been told that is my issue. It seems everyone now a days is a wood worker and original ideas are few and fsr between. The old saying, “theres nothing new under the sun” rings true.
I got in on the first round of wine barrel furniture back in the early 2000’s, saw a guy on the front page of the local paper putting poly on a barrel cut in half and they were singing his praises like it was the newest thing coming. I just laughed, been there, did it, dont wanna go back.

 

Heh, speaking of barrels, my neighbor and I recently came across some hoops, but probably nobody is thinking what I was, ... buying cooper's tools to make some staves to form a new barrel just to see if it was possible to recreate a barrel (I'm on the chapter of coopering in John M. Whelan's book on wooden hand planes; learning about howels, croze, and sun planes to fashion dry/wet barrels -- talk about jointer planes ... wow, some coopers had 6-foot long planes and the way they used them was fascinating).

I am probably one of the only people on here to say something like this:

If an EMP hit tomorrow and the country lost power for 20 years, I would have no problem seeking out a career at colonial Williamsburg.

 

About 15 years ago, my wife and I looked at new cabinets for our kitchen. We received prices from numerous sources ranging from full custom to off the shelf. Apart from the assemble yourself category the least expensive prices were from fully custom outfits!

 

The cabinet industry is a thing of its own. From what I've seen on big box store pricing, we could easily undercut them on the whole cabinet/installation package and deliver a better product. I suspect those stores use name recognition to their advantage so customers feel more comfortable handing $15,000 to Home Depot than to some small cabinet shop.

But doing cabinets well requires focusing on that market and that's not what we want to do. There are already two cabinet shops in the area and I'm not interested in competing with them.

 

I am just starting my woodworking business. A business that I intend to hand down to my offspring. This is bound to be an interesting read because I am a beast of contradiction.

I am a professional computer programmer, and have been-so for over 25 years now.

I have been buying up texts and tools, new and old, for one end:

To determine how to make things that CNC cannot make or cannot produce easily.

John Whelan is so far my favorite author as he cites many others, allowing even more knowledge to spring-forth (versus others that do not cite, causing the last chapter of their book to be a dead end).

I am trying to position a business to sell things that CNC owners have little interest in making not because it doesn't sell well but because the margins on Level-of-Effort far out-weight the demand.

One of my neighbors restores classic furniture and sells it and she has no problems finding clientele. Each customer pays several hundred to have an old piece sanded and painted (I am over-simplifying; her pieces look amazing). I think there is still a market, but it is high end clientele that:

1. Knows solid wood from manufactured wood
2. Appreciates things that cannot be "churned" out

Studying 18th and 19th century furniture making, personally, has changed the way that I look at furniture. I am constantly shaking my head at classics sitting on the sidewalk in disrepair, made of solid wood (this is where my neighbor comes in; she's got a garage full of rescued classics).

CNC -- flat bed, hand-held, robotic, whatever -- appears to have a flaw ...

There is a massive gap between 2-axis and higher when it comes to $$$ which in-turn influences what people with 3-axis-plus capability are even willing to produce. That's a good thing for the hand tool worker that can, for example:

Buy a pattern maker's vise as a one-time cost and not have to waste time with setup like a CNC operator (if a part requires 4 setups in the CNC because you have to operate on 4 sides and you only have a 2-axis machine, you're probably going to optimize out some setups and just forego some details -- compared to someone putting a piece of wood in a pattern maker's vise where it takes less than 20 seconds to just rotate the vise and grab the next tool).

Do I own a CNC? I have a Shaper Origin. Aside from the odd sign to placate relatives and neighbors, I am focusing on making hand tools. Hand tools don't go obsolete. As long as you have the help of either written texts or living human, the hand tool will always serve (and even in some cases, without instruction, someone can just fumble their way to figuring out how it should work).

I still don't see a lot of CNC lathes in hobbyist shops which is a good thing. That means that anything that requires a regular lathe will produce results that are hard to reproduce on a 2-axis gantry CNC which has hit all the home hobbyist garages.

Try not to despair -- there are those of us trying to carry on a torch of non-CNC work in a world that is gravitating toward CNC (and I am devil-ishly exploring CNC to find its weaknesses and also have it curate its own obsolescence by tasking it to make hand tools)

 

Self employed woodworking. My wife and one of her friends were visiting anther friend recently. Their friend told them her husband was quitting his job to pursue a woodworking business,

Other friend whose husband owns a woodworking business told her, be sure you don't lose your job so you can make enough money to support both of you.

 

Sorry to hear it Watercolor. In my opinion it’s rarely a good thing when a shop closes. I also hate to see the artistry lost from the market place. It takes all kinds and budgets but anything mass produced can’t take the place of something a craftsman builds. Sure the price might be higher but look at the product and quality after 20 years and tell me which one looks better and has enough life to take it another 20 or more years.
Best of luck on your change of life and hopefully you’ll start making stuff you love but never had the time to build!

 

Im in Northern Georgia. As far as cabinets goes, I've done my fair share, unfortunately I dont like the population growth in our small town and refuse to help facilitate that. I did cabinets regularly for around 4 years before that it was furniture and i went back to furniture. I know of at least 20 cabinet shops in our county alone. I had a man tell me…” someones gonna do it and get paid, might as well be me”. Thats great if you wanna sail yourself down the river for a dollar. I for one couldn't stomach the subdivisions over taken our beautiful land scape and decided i had enough of the cabinet/carpentry field.
Now Im on the outward side of furniture also, hey if that EMP ever hits business will be booming lol. I do use table saws, jointers, and planers lol but i have done grunt work by hand also.

 

I had a small shop that did commercial work for about 12 years, during that time I made a lot of connections with designers and contractors. In 2006 I closed the commercial shop and became a one man shop. What worked for me is having those same designers and contractors that still use me today. I have had my own little niche with them doing whatever small jobs they need, enough to keep my bills paid. The always changing products that I build, although it's all woodworking, is what keeps it interesting for me. Kitchens, Wall units, Furniture, Closets and Garages....and everything in between.
Having a good reputation has been the best thing for my career. I've got 2-3 more years before retiring then I will be on the corner with a sign asking for change.

(even though some of them do hold working with machines against me)
Statements like this make you look petty. You should let it go.

 

Wish you the best or luck DevinT.
My daughters love making things and one says she is going to own a fabrication shop. I plan to hang on to my main pieces of equipment for her. She a young kid so technology is part of her life, so the cnc stuff will probably become a thing for her, much to the chagrin of her old man lol.


Most of our custom cabinet prices for standard kitchens were between 25-40k. Remodels were often the same.

 

It takes a sharp business mind to also recognize when the solution is not to go out of business, but to do the opposite of your gut reaction and sharply raise your prices to what the common person considers to be insanity.

Lesson one, quadruple the unit cost to produce one.

Cost x 4 ...

1. The cost to make it
2, 3, 4. Pay yourself three times:
1. Your past self
2. Your present self
3. Your future self

Of course, we can talk about "cost to build the next one" but that can change. Just don't tell your customers what it cost to make, and don't tell them how to make it, and don't tell them you are paying yourself 3 times (because you are not going into what that entails in legitimate terms, if it ever came down to it, that's the structure and you don't argue with it).

And if they start saying "what? that's crazy, ... Ikea ..." then you know you're on the right track.

The rich people that can pay for the type of product you are making which has an individual unit cost that the lay person considers it uneconomical IS IN FACT WHAT ATTRACTS IT TO RICH PEOPLE.

In other words, if you price it too low to pay yourself 3 times in the process and don't RAISE the price to eliminate the lay person, you won't make it sufficiently attractive to wealthy buyers.

 

Trust me i know the price for value scenario. I was taught that at the age of 16 by an okd wood worker who scolded me for not charging enough….
As he said, if people think it's cheap, then no matter how good it is its cheap. Rich folk like to talk about how much money something cost.
He was a smart old man. That sentiment worked for a long time.

 

Prices for luxury goods in general seem to be dropping. Bloomburg and the Wall Street Journal have been reporting a substantial drop in prices for Rolex and Patek Phillipe over the past few months. Same thing is reported on luxury real estate. Luxury furniture is probably undergoing the same trend. Most likely it's the small-fry millionaires that are feeling the pinch and tightening their pursestrings.

 

Prices for luxury goods in general seem to be dropping. Bloomburg and the Wall Street Journal have been reporting a substantial drop in prices for Rolex and Patek Phillipe over the past few months. Same thing is reported on luxury real estate. Luxury furniture is probably undergoing the same trend. Most likely it's the small-fry millionaires that are feeling the pinch and tightening their pursestrings.

found this thread somehow, you were right even in 2025 there are models which are getting cheaper, but still most of Rolex models maybe even Fake rolex are good investment in 2025 you just need to know what to buy
P.S your work on your website is kinda good tbh!

 

Absolutely agree.

 

So after 26 years working in wood working Im changing careers. For the past 4 years it seems like I've take a beating. China, India, and mexico made stuff hits the price point and i get looked at like Im crazy when i price something.
Selling off some things but as of now i plan to keep the basics and do this as a hobby not a profession. More importantly choose what i do, rather than doing it all to make a living.
Any one else hitting this spot in your career or life for that matter.

I am dismayed to hear so many professional woodworkers are calling it quits. Its is definitely tough out there. For example, if you had a private shop and wanted to earn 80K in profits annually, you could build 80 office desks and sell for a profit of $1000 after material, labor and overhead. You would need fewer desks if you can sell at a higher profit margin. Most small shops do not have that kind of capacity or pricing power.

However all is not lost. I am a recently retired materials manager and software engineer (went back to school). Woodworkers in North America have many advantages over Chinese and other foreign competitors. The cost to ship goods to the US is extremely expensive and getting more expensive. Additionally, the lead times to ship the goods to the US is long and is increasing. The wood products used by foreign companies is often inferior when compared to the quality of wood found in N. America. Finally, the furniture that is sent to N. America must be designed to be broken down into kit form in order to allow for efficient shipping via a cargo ship. The only cost advantage China and Asia have over products made in America is their reduced labor costs (which is also increasing).

While labor costs are low in Asia, the businesses in the US can compete effectively using efficient automation. Small shop owners need to learn to leverage the microprocessor to their advantage. Here is how you start:

1. Identify the primary bottleneck operation in your shop.
2. Reduce the bottleneck operation by upgrading tooling, changing procedures
3. Identify the next bottleneck then go to step one again.

Ok, that is a start, but here are the next steps:

1. Arrange your shop to minimize material handling.
2. Collapse your shop and equipment into function work cells. This is accomplished by making your equipment mobile then clustering the needed equipment together to form a production line or a production cell (U-Shaped Cell for example). This may only be a temporary cell, but it should be standardize configuration.
3. Minimize material handling by implementing point-of-use organization. Setup your production cells so that tools, material and parts are available at the point of use. A large majority our time is wasted when we go searching for tools or material so make sure everything you need available before you start production.
4. Within each cell, there are a series of steps called operations and each operation contains one or more tasks. Each cell has a bottleneck operation. If possible this should be the first operation in the cell as it sets the pace for the cell.
5. Time each task with your watch, then reorganize the tasks into operations that are slightly faster than the bottleneck operation. This is called assembly line balancing. Assembly line balancing can be configured for one or more workers depending on your setup. The time from the beginning of the first operation to the end of the last operation is called the production cell's Cycle Time.
6. Within each cell identify one or more operations or tasks for automation. Start with something easy using mechanical jigs or fixtures. When ready, convert one or more selected operations to be controlled by a microprocessor. Keep it simple and use a cheap Arduino board and stepper motor(s) and simple cylinders to begin with. You can get more sophisticated later.
7. Once you have completed your automation upgrade, rebalance all the tasks and operations within the cell. Your new cycle time for the production cell should now be reduced and should give you added capacity.
8. Avoid producing more parts and assemblies than you will need over the short term. Excess inventory is costly, it includes material costs, labor costs and overhead costs and eats up your cash flow.
9. Repeat these steps continuously.

When you have a lull in customer orders, use that time to improve the automation in your shop. Focus on getting rid of the bottleneck tasks, highly repetitive or annoying tasks and any dangerous operations. General purpose CNC machines like CNC Router, CNC Plasma and a 3D Printer should be added to your operations earlier rather than later. Parts created on your CNC equipment can also be used to help automate your productions lines.

Our foreign competitors understand the only way they can compete today in the face of increasing shipping and logistics cost is to automate as much as possible -- but so can we. Even the smallest shop can start automating. While it may seem daunting, creating and building automated processes can be just as fun and rewarding as making a fine piece of furniture.

Sorry for rambling on. Hopefully this will give some small shop owners out there some ideas on how to get started with automation and survive in this tough, competitive environment.

Scott

 

Thanks for the comment scott.
Most shops are set up for flow and to maximize space.
cut to length
Joint
Rip
Plane to thickness

all set up for a natural flow in operation.
Lumber is stored at the first machine of the operation. Joinery is accomplished on a bench and done in cycles…
For example
Case work carcass first
Drawers get processed and built

assembly is performed with all tools mounted on the wall or under the table within hand reach…..

etc etc etc…..

good laid out plan until you threw in automation. That has been covered earlier in the post as to why and the death of the fine wood working shop in favor of cnc produced plywood cookie cutter ikea stuff

mexico doesnt have the shipping cost or china. When you have companies bear the border that skirt the system, well thats where you get a bed that sells for what it cost me in material. A good example is MIM fender guitars.Do some research on how thats ran!

 

My comments were not necessarily directed at you and your shop specifically, but to all woodworkers and small fabricators who work in a "job shop" environment.

So the nice thing about automation is the automated processes can be run autonomously and internally to the cycle time of your fabrication process without increasing the cycle times.

It seems that many people feel like they are selling their souls to the devil if they embrace CNC technology. However, CNC technology has been around for 60 years and it is only becoming more prolific and less expensive. Owners and operators can create a hybrid shop where the CNC machines do the grunt work of cutting panels, flat stock and small parts. That gives the woodworker time to focus on the artistic side of her business

Products can also be redesigned to make production more efficient. Hidden parts and assemblies can be consolidated and shared across many product bills-of-material.

This level of change is extremely difficult for small companies to adopt. I am simply saying everyone needs to take that first step so they can start competing in a virtual marketplace.

Scott