Author Archives: pashley1916

Sam Maloof

Are you the type of woodworker that wants to make it big? That is, have clients waiting for months from a piece from you; will pay the price you ask, and be featured in magazines? Many of us aspire to be; I know I do. Some of us are just content making nice things for ourselves and family. Nothing wrong with that. The guys that do well in this business are far and few between – at least it seems that way to me. Not that there isn’t a lot of talented guys out there, there certainly is. I’m speaking of the guys in the vein of a Sam Maloof, James Krenov or even Kevin Rodel. I have an aspiration to be in that league.  Let me make it clear – I’m not “making it big” right now in woodworking – either in standing or monetarily;  but I am continually working my way up, improving my skill sets, and wanted to share what I am doing – and trying to do – with you.

Like all professions, successful people in this field have certain traits and skill sets that, in my estimation at least, take them to the very top. In fact, it’s a pattern, of sorts; if you follow this pattern, you too may find yourself on top of the woodworking world. What I’ve listed below is probably not all-inclusive, but I think it does speak for a great part of that pattern I spoke of.

Originality. A lot of guys can take a plan and make a good piece from it, just as competent musicians can play great established tunes; but a great woodworker will be able to design a great piece, and carry it out, just like Lennon and McCartney wrote good songs and performed them.  Plainly put, if your design stinks, you’re going nowhere. Would we have heard of Sam Maloof without his rocker, or Krenov without his cabinet? Maybe not – they may have been just another very good – but not great – woodworker. Charles Limbert, Greene and Greene, Charles Rennie Mackintosh – all took from the Stickley Brothers; they designed along the same lines, but put there own design flair on the craftsman style.

Technical skills / Perfection. You need to be a proficient, if not an excellent, skilled craftsman; if you’re not, don’t bother selling. I’m not saying you need to be able to hand cut blind dovetails, build award-winning federalist furniture, or be skilled in the way of the Jedi Masters, but you need to have a piece that has solid joinery, and a very good, if not great, finish – at a minimum. Be proud that your name is on that piece of work. Personally, I try to be a perfectionist, at least in areas of a piece that are readily seen. If not, and that piece is going to be in my eyeshot, that little imperfection is all I’ll ever see on that piece, even thought it may be a great piece otherwise. In fact, I find that I have to not look at the piece for several months (if not a year or more), then go back and look at it, with “fresh eyes”, and re-evaluate it again, before I can say, “Yes, that one’s ok.” Aim for perfection.

Passionate. You need to show you have a zeal for woodworking. How do you expect others to get excited about your pieces, if you don’t? So how do you show passion? Well, you can show it in your descriptive text concerning the piece, or when you are showing it to a possible patron.

Photography. What good is building a great piece, if you have crap photography? I see so many guys with just abysmal photography. A white bed sheet draped over your couch as the backdrop, and a cheap cell phone camera, seriously? I get you may not have decent equipment or be trained in how to take a good photo – nor do you wish to learn how to do so – but get somebody who can. Maybe a photography student from a local college that is looking to beef up their portfolio. Doesn’t your piece deserve to be presented in the best manner possible?

Marketing. Forget craft shows, unless you just want to sell cutting boards, or other cheap items. Let’s face it, there isn’t, unfortunately, a big market for good woodworking. You need to leverage the power of the Internet, because a national, if not international market is required. My advice? Yes, you can have your own website – and not spend much, if any money; just use WordPress for your platform. Alternately (or in addition to), get an account at CustomMade.com. I’ve done fabulous on that site, and their fees are decent. I don’t see any benefit of selling thru a retail location on commission (seriously, you want 50% of my take? I’ll give you 20% max; you’re putting no money into stock, just a little space in your shop; sorry lady).  Etsy is ok, but that’s very much a craft woman’s place. It’s not much for expensive furniture, though smaller wood pieces do ok.

A Story. People love to buy into a story, whether it be the piece, you, or both. I’m not saying you have to write Moby Dick, but give the people something for their imagination to bite into. Here’s an example of what I mean, for, let’s say, a mantle clock:

Small craftsman clock, all maple, from a classic Stickley design. 17″ x 12″ x 5″.

Snooze. Now how about this….

I took the design of this clock from a piece I viewed at the estate of George Eastman, founder of Kodak. I asked the curator to let me take photos of it for design purposes. The wood used for it was actually from a tree that was blown down in a storm from his estate’s property, right here in Rochester NY.

So, which is more interesting to you? Same clock, different description. As for yourself, can you add anything? Something like this, perhaps:

My shop is located at the base of Whiteface mountain, in the Adirondacks of New York state. I buy my lumber from a local sawyer, as I like to support the local economy. Wood crafting has been a passion of mine since my grandfather took me into his shop some weekends, when I was only 15, and together, we made some simple, but useful pieces. I still have a small side table we built together…

Or, would you rather have something like this:

Woodworking since 1989. I’m a mechanic by trade, but I do this on the side. My shop is over 1200 square feet, and I have all DeWalt power tools, and is in the Detroit area…

Well, do you see the difference? When people spend money on a quality piece – and let’s face it, the stuff the better guys make is several times more expensive then what you’d buy at a retail furniture store – they don’t want just a piece of furniture, but a story behind it as well.

Reputation. Having one helps – a lot. I’m talking about being in Fine Wood Working magazine, or on a show, magazine, or other prominent venue. This will come in time – if you are good. My mentor is such a man. He can have all the commissions he wants. Thing is, he doesn’t do practical pieces, like furniture, but he does art woodworking – sculptures and such. When you think about it, a great idea. For one, not many guys do it, and for another, clients who want art usually have a ton of dough to be able to blow on it.

So there you have it, my observations on how to make it big – or at least, bigger. If you have any ideas on this topic, I’d love to hear it.

Bill Keyser

I’m pretty involved in my church; in addition to going to Mass every week, I’m also the website guy,and a player in the church’s play group. I’ve made a lot of good friends, from many disciplines of work. One of those people is Bill Keyser, who I like to consider my mentor. He’s a world class woodworker; he studied directly under the famous danish woodworking professor, Tage Frid, a major player in the studio furniture movement, at RIT’s School for American Craftsman. Bill has also had his story recorded at the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution. He’s also been in Fine Woodworking magazine. He is known in the Rochester, NY area for his liturgical work, and his abstract art work – both in wood and painting.

In other words, a hell of a resume!

I was over at his studio in Victor, NY last night. I asked him to show me how to properly do a 4 sided taper on a short column for a candlestick. I tried several times to do it on my own, and couldn’t make it happen, despite researching it on the ‘net. It’s not as easy as you might think! Bill of course, made it happen quickly, using two jigs. It was quite the shop he has too – mostly older power tools, like a Delta Bandsaw that seriously had like a 14″ cutting depth, and probably 12″ resaw capability; a Delta cabinet saw which had a router table extension on it, and then a shaper added on to that as well. Plenty of clamps and carving tools adorned the walls. Lots of projects simultaneously happening.

I was then graciously invited into his home by his wife Joan, a very nice lady, who specializes in – for lack of a better term – food staging. She’s the lady that makes food look so good in ads so cameramen can photograph it. She told me a few of the tricks of her trade – like making something like a hamburger look juicy – it’s coated with vegetable oil. Their home is a contemporary style, and adorned with Bill’s sculptural work, and practical work as well. We had a few refreshments, and great conversation, then I made sure not to make a pest out of myself, and left in due time. Very nice people to chat with.

I hope I can learn some more from Bill in the future; I don’t want to be a pest of course, but perhaps I can pop in from time to time, and have him show me some other interesting techniques from the hands of a master.

I believe in God; if you don’t, keep reading anyway. I didn’t believe either at one time.

Not only do I believe, but I’ve considered what He does with what we would otherwise consider bad or unusable things, and uses them to His greater Glory. The greatest of all, is of course, what happened with Jesus. Here God took the worst thing man could do to God – killing him – and turned it into the greatest thing God could do for man – saving and redeeming him. Then we have examples of figures in the Bible of less-than-perfect people being used to do great things – such as Moses and King David, for example. God is quite a turn-around artist!

Yes, but how does this all tie into woodworking?

Many woodworkers look for the best woods – the most desirable figure, pleasing grain patterns, color, no defects (such as knots) and so on. You can’t blame them; it makes for a much smoother project completion.

Then you have guys that want to take what others wouldn’t even consider using for something beautiful and useful, and turning it into something that is just that. The table at left was built from …a single 2 x 4. You know, the things normally used in carpentry work, such as making walls? They cost about $2.50 at Home Depot. They are usually knotty pine, but also Spruce fir as well. Many are far from pristine – knots, twisted, bowed; small chunks missing and pretty ugly. Few are straight and true. They are to the woodworking world what Doritoes are to a chef.

But this fellow  took on the challenge, and had a dream to do it. To get those gentle curves, woodworkers steam the wood to make it pliable to fit around a form, and secure it there until it cools. Softwoods, like pine, are a real bear to bend, and he makes an accounting of almost giving up it was so difficult. Hardwoods like oak, not so bad.

And look what happened. He took an otherwise run-of-the-mill piece of lumber – something that otherwise would have probably ended up in a wall, and made it into something beautiful and useful. Well, that’s what God does a lot of the time too, takes situations and people that we would consider hopeless, useless and senseless, and turns it into something useful, helpful, even healing. In fact woodworking, on any level, is much like what God does, because by definition, we are taking something raw, and making into something beautiful and useful (usually), or at least utilitarian.

Thinking about it, it’s kind of interesting how the Bible tells us that Jesus was a carpenter. In His day, he not only took wood and transformed it into something great, but men’s hearts as well.

And that makes Him the true master craftsman.

Okay, we all know as woodworkers that measuring is part and parcel of our trade; we have to measure lumber in order to get things to fit. But is measuring a severe master that must be always obeyed?

Obviously, some measurements must be strict; a door has to fit into a cabinet, for example, and has an 1/8″ gap – that you have to measure carefully.

But how about when you screw up? Maybe that top of a table that your plans called for was to be 1″ thick. You plane the pieces down to…OOPS! 15/16″! I know that I (and I’m sure, some of you guys) would go mental and toss that wood aside and starts on new pieces, because, dang it, that’s what the plans called for! Besides that, the length of the boards were supposed to be 6′, and you screwed that up too, and cut them to 5′ 11 1/2″ ! Obviously, you need to pay more attention to your measuring. But my point is, does it matter? I’ve come to the conclusion, that in many cases, no, it doesn’t. Nobody is going to notice that your table is a freakin’ 1/16″ thinner than it should be – unless you have some psycho customer who will go over your piece with a fine tooth comb. That’s up to you to find out.

As for me, I’ve learned that measurements aren’t always king – that aesthetics and function are; obviously, a door has to be perfectly rectangular, or one side the top of a clock the same as the other, but you don’t have to sweat small, almost imperceptible measurements. Sweat tight joints, if you want to sweat something – but not a table top being 1/16″ less than plans called for. Don’t get me wrong – you always want to follow plans as precisely as possible, because what you think a mis-measurement of 1/16″ won’t matter, sometimes, down the road in the construction of the project, it will – and then you’ll have to get really creative; but many times a little screw up is not such a big deal.

I’ve had a lot of bad jobs in my life; whether that’s a low-paying position, bad work, or a combination of both. Digging ditches? Done it. Washing dishes? That too. Muffler repair, McDonalds, grave shift at a cheese factory, photo-lab manager, computer repair – check, check and re-check. Some jobs involved working with real jerks; others were back-breaking; some paid squat. Most were a combination of all those. Some were boring beyond belief; others frantic. One thing I learned: nothing makes you as miserable (save an awful spouse) as a job you have to go to every day that you hate.

I left the traditional working world about 11 years ago because my job was being moved out of state, and my daughter was just being born, so we made the decision for me to stay at home, and nurse along my woodworking career. No, it wasn’t easy, though it sounds like it might be. There were emotional issues to deal with I won’t share here. Nonetheless, I did it, and we plodded along. Now my woodworking skills are becoming increasingly in demand – I’m busy all the time. My work is my passion, and not a lot of people can’t say that about their work. I can work all kinds of crazy hours – or not, and you can’t beat the commute.

If you do very well at your job, people will see you out, and pay you well, especially in this line of work. It’s very gratifying to have people be very pleased with your work – as opposed to slaving away in a cubicle and rarely getting even a “Great job” comment. I personally delivered a set of nesting tables to a customer a few days ago (my Mission Nesting Tables), and received some great comments; moments later he was mentioning he would be wanting six chairs for a dining room table! How great is that?

Things are moving in my direction; I guess there is something to that maxim, “Do what you love, the money will follow” 🙂