I've bought a lot of furniture (some custom) on Etsy and people have been surprised by that / think there isn't necessarily high quality work there.
In addition to the larger pieces, if you have work that's easily repeatable you can make a lot with e.g. tissue boxes or cutting boards, etc...
For example this shop made these beautiful boxes with brass inlays and I was able to commission a custom box with dividers for individual tea packets: https://www.etsy.com/shop/SawdustProductionsCo/sold
I've definitely seen quality work on etsy, and I appreciate your perspective as a now former employee.
Secondly, if I can leave everybody with just one more takeaway (besides supporting your local craft organizations, wherever you may be), it's that the phrase "it takes a village" applies to businesses too.
Besides first and foremost my partner, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to everybody who has taught me; everybody who was a student with me at the Furniture Institute of MA, I've learned something from every one of them; everybody I've worked for, I've learned something from every one of them; anybody who's ever written a blog article I've read; anybody who's ever made a youtube video I've watched; my suppliers, especially the knowledgeable ones who've taken the time to not just sell me something but help me learn what fits my needs; my customers, especially the early ones who have worked with me as hiccups have arisen; countless friends both in the trade and otherwise who have provided moral support, gotten me out of jams, and been all around awesome; and finally my partner, who bears thanking way more than just twice.
I don't consider myself especially brave for having taken this step or having any particular wherewithal. For most of us in woodworking, there's an enormous number of people we have leaned on and learned from to get us where we are. I suspect this is true for most of us in software as well. There's a lot of companies built at least in part on open source projects, existing infrastructure, etc.
To be clear, I've never made a contribution of any significance to an OSS project outside of working a 9-5 salaried job. Your point is spot-on, but I can't rightly claim to have been on the sharp end of maintaining anything open source. Thank you to those who do.
Lastly, this all came about because I've been following the Fusion360 news on HN and looking into alternatives. I downloaded FreeCAD, started reading docs, and found a dead link in their README.md. I filed a bug, submitted a PR, and figured if I ever wanted it to be useful, I'd better sort the email account that github sends to. I cleared out a couple thousand github notifications for projects I no longer work on, and that many more bounce messages from my former employer.
Among the several hundred remaining emails was a slew of notifications about the bug that I filed 3 years ago. I figured I should check in, and the rest is (recent) history.
1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/fuller_craft/49837847346/in/al...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fuller_craft/49837855711/in/al...
imo whether you consider it art is irrelevant. the main cost is material (wood) and labor.
Oh man, the line between "art" and "craft" is ill-defined. I think of craft as something that has to fulfill a functional need as well as satisfying an aesthetic need, and art as meeting a principally aesthetic need.
Whether you view the cabinet on stand as art or furniture (craft), I suppose depends wholly on what your needs are :-) I built it as a piece of furniture that would suits my aesthetic tastes and also hold some stuff.
The price on it is $5,200 US.
The pricing on anything is a challenge. I have a woodworker friend who is married to a pricing analyst. She works for a sizable multinational corporation, and he feels as in the dark about how to price stuff as I do.
Broadly speaking, pricing for custom work is likely to be at least at the high end of factory made furniture, and by that I mean really nice factory-made stuff. Think like Thomas Moser[0]. Whether you like their look or not, the quality is excellent and as I understand it, there's a lot more hand work that goes into it than is common these days. I'm going to use them in the discussion below, but this applies to any high end commercial maker.
The reasons for this are complicated: On the one hand, my capital costs are (a lot) lower than any factory, I don't maintain showrooms in pricey locations, and I don't have a staff I need to pay.
On the other hand, Moser is buying lumber in quantities that I couldn't store at a price I can only dream of. They have well established lines of furniture that they're set up to make in quantity, or at least know how to build, whereas virtually everything I build is a prototype in some sense.
What you don't see in the final product is the test pieces or the jigs that I built to build it. Project recursion isn't just a software thing, I assure you.
Because it's unlikely that anybody will ever want exactly the same piece, that cost doesn't get spread out over a production run, or even stuck into storage in case somebody wants one in the future. Storage is a cost, and I pay it for stuff I know I'm going to use again and again (a table saw sled, for example). Project specific stuff gets either broken down and reused or put into my wood stove. At best you get the materials back; the time is a sunk cost.
I've talked to other woodworkers about this, and some take the approach of having a line of pieces that they're jigged up to build quickly and efficiently. This is a valid approach to making money at this. Putting some thought into whether it makes sense for me to develop a line at this point is on the list of things on my business planning TODO list.
Even woodworkers who have a catalog of pieces they know how to build have to make choices about how to design and build. Christian Becksvoort has a 15 drawer chest in his catalog[1]. Every tier of drawers is a different height. That means something as simple as cutting parts to rough size involves ripping boards to 20 different widths (for each of the 10 tiers: 3 pieces full height for fronts and sides, and 1 piece reduced height for the drawer back).
And then you have to keep track of those parts. And then you have to dovetail them. I'm willing to bet that Christian Becksvoort would lose money building one 15 drawer chest with a dovetail jig because he'd have 20 different set ups (10 heights, front and back). Could you make it cheaper by making some of the tiers of drawers the same height? Absolutely! Would it retain the charm of his design? For some customers, no.
Before anybody gives up hope on owning anything Christian Becksvoort has ever had a hand in, I'd like to note that he's an author as well as a furniture maker. He's written two books for Lost Art Press[2], and I recommend both.
[0] https://www.thosmoser.com/
The price on the piece is $5,200.
I have not read all the way down the over 800 comments, and if you shared kind words or asked a question outside this thread, I apologize if I missed it.
I'm honestly astonished at how much this seems to have resonated with a lot of people. If it's not blindingly apparent by my comment, this was the last thing I expected to see at the top of HN on a Monday morning!
If you're trying to learn woodworking or are interested in learning it, I'd encourage you to do so. We all started somewhere, and for me that was struggling mightily to get a board flat with a hand plane in an evening class. My first dovetails were as rough as anybody's. Whatever you want to build, go ahead and build it. There's room for all kinds of woodworking in the world, fancy and plain alike.
The instagram woodworking community has been a mostly positive space for folks in the field both as hobbyists and professionals. If I can take a moment to veer briefly into politics, it hasn't been universally welcoming to women and people of color. Laura Mays talked about losing followers every time she promoted a show of female woodworkers. This is, frankly, shameful. There is room in this field for anybody who wants to explore it, at whatever level they choose to. Shutting people out because they don't fit our preconceived notions of what a woodworker looks like makes us all poorer.
Lastly, there are really too many people out there sharing excellent woodworking content to hope to name without some omissions. In addition to everybody I've linked or mentioned in other comments, I'd like to add in no particular order William Ng, Richard Macquire, Paul Sellers, woodgears.ca, seejanedrill on youtube, and artofplants on instagram.
I've doubtless omitted any number of other highly worthy people I've stumbled across over the years. I'd encourage everybody to go down the rabbit hole as far as they'd like and discover those people and more.
Two things I noticed a couple years ago:
1. There is a quite expensive furniture maker near where I grew up -- in the more "genteel" area of course.
2. If I still lived there I'd totally shell out three grand for one of their chairs!
I've never spent that much on a piece of furniture, but it sure looks like it's worth it:
http://ericksonwoodworking.com/furniture/seating/sumi-chair-...
Your work is beautiful and I hope you find many buyers. I humbly suggest you include prices on your web site, as many people have no idea what handmade furniture costs these days, and many of those can actually afford it.
Those are beautiful chairs, and I would agree that the price sure looks worth it. Thank you for bringing them to my attention
For a point of comparison, Kevin Rodel designed the side chairs I built (from plans he published in Fine Woodworking). He lists a price of $1,600 each on his website[0]. I think that's also an entirely fair price for what is a simpler chair to build. Ignoring everything else driving cost in chairs, adding arms alone adds complexity.
The question of listing price is a difficult one. Christopher Scharz of Lost Art Press addressed this an an article he wrote for Core77[1]. He's very established (and rightly so) and chooses not to, but he suggests it might be an advantage for somebody starting out.
One challenge to publishing prices that I perceive is that it fixes a price in a potential customer's mind. I wrote to somebody last week about the question of pricing, and observed that a bookshelf for a child's bedroom is a very different piece from a bookshelf for a lawyer's office. The price varies considerably between the two!
What I (and other people doing principally custom work) can offer is the ability to tailor a project to a budget (within reason) by explaining what drives cost and letting them make choices based upon what they're looking for in a piece.
At this point, I don't want to turn anybody away with a price that's outside their budget, but I'm also mindful of the adage that "if you have to ask, you can't afford it".
[0] https://www.kevinrodel.com/showroom/item/dining-chair
[1] https://www.core77.com/posts/86153/Should-You-Publish-Your-P...
> I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season.
I believe all of the above is public information about the named people.
If I'm honest, I haven't yet read The Soul of a New Machine, but it's on my list. I did pick up House[0], also by Tracy Kidder and read it over the winter holidays a couple of years ago. I'm not sure exactly how I'd sum it up, so I'll leave that to the author, linked below. I've also read excerpts of Among Schoolchildren[1] and can recommend it (at least the parts I've read) as well.
[0] https://strobist.blogspot.com/ [1] https://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html
Everything on my site was shot with continuous light, but I'll take a deeper look at the site and see what I can learn. Some of the photos definitely make me want to! And let's be honest, strobes are a lot less hassle to deal with than studio lights.
When I look around, I feel woodworking now is what photography was 10 years ago to software people. A hobby that lets you get away from the computer into the physical world, but still tingles all the engineering/math/maker mindset that attracts people to software. Although I got into woodworking because of my grandfather, I see a lot online of software people doing the same just to "get away."
From an economic perspective, I hope you're able to capitalize on that trend of people with lots of disposable income willing to commission this sort of thing (or even classes), if that's partly your intention.
How do you price items?
How do you handle shipping, or is the work all local?
I'm told that shipping via specialist companies that routinely handle art and high end furniture is a much better experience for all parties.
I'm trying to keep jobs within a reasonable drive or the pieces small enough that I can double box and peanut them without driving the cost for the dimensional weight through the roof.
Any tips would be much appreciated!
For the dust I had a pretty powerful airfilter, but I would still have clouds of dust coming out of my pillow/sheets.
I would have said that general noise during the day was ok in my case, but that was before everybody worked from home.
For chiseling you can actually do a lot without hammering. If your chisels are sharp enough, you can push them through the wood for most techniques. That's what I did when I worked in the evenings.
It helps to have a very heavy workbench that doesn't move too much. Sawing still makes noise though, and planing kinda does too.
All in all, less than ideal, but for me it was great for a while! It really depends on what size and type of things you want to make. Feel free to specify and I can give more details.
I think it makes sense to explore other options as well: renting a garage, finding a community workshop, etc.
That’s good to know you can sometimes get by chiseling without a hammer! At the moment I’m interested in making a Danish Modern style chair, likely in walnut or oak.
Part of my strategy for keeping dust down is to do as little sanding as possible. I generally try to get a good surface off of a cutting tool (a plane or scraper), and then sand once at the grit I want to end at. Squirrelly grain, or tearout around knots sometimes requires pulling out the sander. Still I try to limit my use of it. If I can spend 5 minutes planing, and 5 minutes sanding, I'm a long way ahead on time compared to spending 5 minutes each sanding at 4 different grits to get the same surface (numbers from thin air, but the principle applies).
Noise is a challenge. You're right that chiseling is not a quiet activity. Anybody who thinks hand tool woodworking is a quiet and contemplative activity should spend a day in a room full of people chopping dovetails and then maybe reconsider their opinion.
All that said, there are a great many woodworkers who work successfully in apartments or other tight confines. Some of them are even married :-)
If not, use Fesstool tools and one of their dust extractors.
I built a wood bed for my truck in the living room some decades ago. And also a clavichord. Hand tools generate shavings, but little dust.
I have a very good collection of hand tools in a large tool chest. And, I have a very solid, large workbench. Both of these look great in the living room when not in use.
I am lucky enough to live in TN and have access to some great local woodworkers that give classes, specifically some amazing windsor chair makers.
Good luck with everything, I got a good chuckle out of the GitHub comment.
Congrats on the exciting career change, hope you're staying sane while out in the country!
Have you tried out CNC stuff yet? It seems to be a popular thing for people into woodworking too. :)
I'm not far from Lebanon.
“Look, the cabinet did not break down in my living room. So I’ll ship you the cabinet with the whole living room together.”
A couple things to clarify:
I posted the original issue as a minor complaint about the docker cli and promptly forgot about it. I never expected it to get any traction or follow-up. At the time I posted it, I was working as a contractor for my former full time employer. I had left full-time work there in early 2017 to attend the full-time program at the (sadly now-defunct) Furniture Institute of Massachusetts[0].
I finished that program in early 2019, and split my time between commission work and part time work for other woodworkers. Like software, in woodworking there are things you learn at school and things you learn doing it for money.
In early 2020 (which now feels like a million years ago), my partner and I left the Boston area for her to take a job in the northern hinterlands of NH.
It's been an interesting year to say the least: A lot of the opportunities I was hoping to have to publicize my business have been canceled (craft shows and fairs, open studios, etc) due to the pandemic. I'm fortunate to have brought a couple of paid commissions with me when we moved. Owing to the pandemic, the schedule on them has been protracted. I was going back and forth to Boston to fulfill a teaching obligation until early March. Then the pandemic hit, and all of my suppliers and my shared shop space[1] closed down for a couple months.
Just before the shared shop closed, I grabbed my workbench and set it up in my living room. The place we're renting doesn't have a basement, garage, or anything resembling shop space, so that was the least bad option. I bought wood for a couple of house projects, and got going working entirely by hand. The first project was a desk for my partner. I built it following the design for a staked work table from the Anarchist's Design Book[2]. She's been working at it since, and we've been doing our best to manage my noise and her Zoom calls separated by perhaps as much as 20 feet.
Sometime in late May or early June things started opening up slowly. I bought wood for those projects, and the shared shop space began operating with extremely limited hours. I've wrapped up those couple of projects, and honestly, the next thing on my TODO list is to spend some time doing some business planning, re-shooting some of my earlier work, and updating my website[3]. Bad timing on the pithy github comment on my part; had I known it'd hit the top of HN, I'd have made it after I updated the website!
If you're in the Boston area and would like to see some of my work, the Cabinet on Stand shown on my website is on display at the Fuller Craft Museum[4] in Brockton, MA through November 8th. It feels a bit weird to mention it, but that piece is also for sale through the museum. Purchasing it supports not only me, but also the museum. They were closed for a long time this year as a result of the pandemic, and like a great many of our cultural institutions, they're hurting. They laid off the curator for the exhibit my piece is in due to budget issues.
If I can offer everybody only one thing to get out of this, it's that our cultural institutions live a fairly fragile and perilous existence, particularly the smaller ones. The Wharton Esherick Museum[5] in the Philadelphia area is also taking a beating. Please, please, please take some time to support these institutions. A lot of our shared culture doesn't make it to the MFA. Those headline institutions show a limited subset of stuff; there's so much of value in the smaller museums, galleries, and historical societies.
[0] http://furnituremakingclasses.com
[1] https://claremontmakerspace.org
[2] https://lostartpress.com/collections/books/products/the-anar...
[3] https://longwalkwoodworking.com
[4] https://fullercraft.org/event/2020-biennial-members-exhibiti...
[5] https://whartonesherickmuseum.org