Scraping wood for finish?

I feel your pain...

John in NM

I used to suit up with two shirts (T & long sleeve, buttoned all the way up), gloves, tape around the wrists, goggles, dust mask, face shield and a hat - still got sand down to the skin almost everywhere. Its amazing how it works its way in.

Just when I thought I was done with a piece of glass, the boss would come out and point out all the spots that were light on the frosting

Other Option

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Use a Oxy/Act welding torch to burn the surface, the use a soft brass brush with the grain to take off the heavy char, but leave some of the "toast". Light sand with a 320 synthetic wool pad. Depending on the color you get, either stain or not and then finish as usual.

Shou Sugi Ban?

Barry Irby

Interesting idea. Then I flashed on the smell. Burning wood or ammonia? Then Varathane floor finish for the top. My dog will run away.

Exactly

Re: Actually ...

Brian Holcombe

It’s been my experience that many clients are looking for suggestions more often than then being hard fixed on something. They present an idea as a starting point typically but they’re looking for a custom piece.

I make to suit my house style and customers, that helps me to maintain my portfolio rather than to constantly gear up for odd jobs which may be a one off. Being able to focus on joinery work and work in my own style allows me to accel at those things.

This does occasionally cost me work but just as often people come to me specifically because I do a certain type of work.

Re: Actually ...

TomD

The key thing with contract work is to arrange things so you get good clients. There are regional preferences, and regional patterns of spending. Locate in the ten ring. I remember back before Amazon, reading a piece in the HBR about how people would go to LL Bean to get info on how to set up their mail order. Even as good as they were at it, nobody better at the time, I was amazed that some very high number of their clients were still walk-ins, something like 80%. Location is in most cases pretty close to destiny.

An equally important factor is how good you are at sales. Maybe nobody got it better than Nakashima (from the artist craftsmen vs pure design background). He had a good location near Philly, a great style of life as advertisement going for him, and an exotic backstory...