Category Archives: BlogNotes

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” 🙂

It’s hard to find an advantage over mass retailers of furniture; after all, they have floor space, traffic, advertising budgets and sales people. Me? I’m just me, with a website, and venues like CustomMade.com. If anything, I’m severely disadvantaged – or am I?

Actually, I have some advantages over mass retailers.

• Made to order: Perhaps my biggest advantage. When a consumer walks into a store, they look around for something that appeals to them. Many times, they won’t find that. With wooden furniture, that may be the wrong color, wrong height, wrong wood, and so on. I can usually accommodate any requested changes. With the big-box places, they may be able to change a color or wood, but never a mechanical change like an extra drawer – or no drawer. What I’ve also discovered is a distinct emotional advantage – the desire to love what I make for them. When a customer places an order, I often hear comments like “I’m so excited to see it!”, or once they get it, “I really love it!”. When a customer from a big-box store gets a piece home, it’s usually a pretty bland emotional response. Think about it – how excited were you to have purchased a piece from a store that is turned out by the thousands (if not hundreds of thousands), and someone else can have too? A distinct advantage I have is the customer wants to love what I make for them. They will even overlook issues to do that. And it makes sense; what would be more thrilling to you – something you bought off the shelf, or something someone handmade just for you?

• Relationship. I can establish a personal relationship with the customer that the big guys can only dream of having, which translates into more sales – not only repeat sales, but word-of-mouth sales. The only big company I can think of with such customer loyalty and excitement is Apple. Who gets excited about Ashley Furniture, Raymour and Flanigan, or other such big retailers? In fact, it’s almost a necessary evil to go furniture shopping (as it is with car buying).

• Nimble. It takes the big guys months – if not a year or more – to add or change a product or product line. For me, it can be days, or maybe a few weeks. Big ships take a wide swath to turn, but little runabouts like me change course quickly, adapting to new ideas or trends as needed.

• Multi-faceted. A large furniture store usually doesn’t have that large of a genre variety – they will have contemporary, country, and maybe some bad mission or period furniture – all home or home office stuff. I not only do that, but can jump into liturgical (furnishings for churches) pieces, custom cabinets – even toys.

• Product Quality. Unquestionably, my greatest advantage, which is value, really. I’m sorry, but big store furniture is generally crap – with the exceptions of Stickley and perhaps Bassett. All the other stuff is poorly made, poorly finished “furniture”. The worst being the finish of this stuff. When you can scrap off the color off a piece with your fingernail, that’s a crappy finish. When an ad circular for the big box stores describe a piece as having a “cherry finish” or the color is “cherry” what they are doing is using a little psychological trick – you hear the word “cherry” and your mind just associates the piece as being made of cherry.

• Made locally. Of all residential wood furniture sold in the United States, only about 31% is U.S.-made; most of the other product is made in Asia. Most furniture manufacturers and companies we think of as quintessentially American are making their furniture overseas (for example, Bassett, Broyhill, Lane, Lazy Boy, Ethan Allan, Thomasville, Pennsylvania House, Drexel, American Drew, Stanley and others). Over the last 30 years, tens of thousands of jobs for highly skilled furniture makers have been moved overseas, as so called “American furniture companies” have moved their manufacturing operations to China, Vietnam and other third world countries. When you buy locally – or even in the US – you help out fellow Americans. Not only myself, but my family, the places I purchase my wood, and the money I spend from my profits.

I have some advantages over retail they can never match; in educating consumers about the furniture of today, I can increase my sales, and give the consumer value for the furniture money.