DIYbanter - View Single Post

dpb

On 12/20/2014 12:57 PM, wrote:
....

Trying to recoup more than your costs on anything that distantly
resembles something that can be purchaced made in Japan, Korea,
Mexico, India, or VietNam is basically a fool's errand.
....

There are quite a number of folks who specialize in the crafts markets;
some of them do so quite successfully. It takes approaching it in a
manner appropriate to the genre, though...if you take a weekend on a
"one-off" item, that doesn't cut it.

I had a good friend in E TN who make "rustic" toys, yard ornaments and
the like and made a decent living at it for years. It was "junk"
wood-working by the standards of virtually everybody here, but it sold
at a net profit in surprising volume.

To do so was, however, a job, not recreation and definitely not fine
cabinetry.

I've not been to one of the types of shows/markets he frequented in 20
yr; at that time others did pretty well with the turned pen/pencil sets
and other decorative turnings.

Others who were successful concentrated on green-stick furniture,
basket-weaving (not so much actual woodwoorking but a cellulosic raw
material) and boxes so not sure how it's evolved but I'd think probably
the same items probably do about as always did. The advent of the laser
engraver has added new niches, of course...

But, fine woodworking as a hobby and selling higher quality products is,
as noted, highly unlikely to be profitable on an 'on-spec' kinda' basis
of making something you like and then hoping it'll sell.

Guys like Brian Boggs started out sorta' that way but they worked
exceedingly diligently at their craft and turned it into a specialized
high-end business over a long period of time. I remember Brian when he
wasn't yet a name in Berea, KY. All was, of course, exceptionally fine
work but not all was successful even for him in the early going.

He's since moved to Asheville and has reinvented a business model based
around the cooperative. There's a survey article in FWW on that from a
few years ago...let's see....ah, there it is--

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/32471/can-brian-boggs-change-the-world-for-pro-furnituremakers

--