What to build to sell????

Boxes

nothing

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

It will be a whole lot easier to sell the lumber than anything made from it. How many bdft are in a box? Or a chest of drawers for that matter?

Gift idea

Jim Matthews

Large capital letters in a Font that appears like cursive.

First names - simple signage

Gifts need to be priced under $100.

Re: What to build to sell????

Yonak

Barry, this is an answer I've given a number of times in response to similar questions. There are a few things a person has to get over if they want to make a go of using one's woodshop to make some money. First, you're not going to make a fortune .. income will be modest. Second, except for a few very talented and, possibly, lucky woodworkers, design work and one-offs doesn't really make money. One will be spending more time looking for someone to sell to and then, when you do, either the project will grow, for which one can't recover the costs and/or it'll be do-overs and modifications. One-off customers are difficult to satisfy.

I've found that repetition, that boring doing the same thing one after another over and over again is what brings in the most money when the final tally is calculated (plus it gives me the time to ponder life's contradictions). In the last eighteen years (really, the last fifteen years, after I got rolling) I've been able to make a modest living, in addition to my wife's income, a couple of rental houses and, lately, Social Security, making a limited catalogue if items. In the second-best stretch, until recently, I sold them to one customer who, in turn, sold them in mail-order catalogues, on-line and at trade shows, until he passed away a few years ago. Then I started selling them on-line, under my own brand.

It's a matter of finding a niche, I believe. This was my tack : I looked around at all the wooden items and wooden components that exist and thought about how I would make them and who would buy them and who I should contact. Believe me, if you really look around, there are many such items. I found a few, made the contacts, made and presented the prototypes, worked up pricing (hint : go low, especially at the start, until your work quality, attentiveness and reliability is appreciated) and logistics. A few didn't work out and a couple did. Another good resource is local woodworking bulletin boards. That's where I found my best customer.

It allows me to work from home, work when I want and need to, be my own boss and allows me time to help out my wife and friends when needed. It doesn't satisfy my creative urges, but it does allow me to use the tools and woodshop resource that I have to make a few bucks. I separate my business woodworking from my personal woodworking. The latter gives me the creative outlet I need.

Re: What to build to sell????

John in NM

Practically speaking, I agree with Bill Tindall.

Although I sell a few specific products, it wouldn't support me without a day job. The other thing is that the niche I fill is one I kind of stumbled on - it's not something I would have set out to make for income, just a market I wasn't aware of but enough people asked me to make for them something I made for myself.

After a few years of working in a couple of cabinet shops, I concluded that the hard part is marketing the stuff. Neither of my boss's were particularly good at building, but they were very good at getting people excited about what the shop made. Those guys could have sold whatever they got excited about, it didn't have to be furniture (one of them is now in the micro-distillery business, selling whiskey that they make).

I hate to be such a downer about it, but this is a really tough nut to crack.

A panel gauge (see below)......

roger lance

just has to compete with the new one from Lee Valley......there are folks thinking of buying the LV......there must be a market.....good luck!

how much lumber do you buy a year

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Barry's business model is to convert an excess of lumber to marketable product. Indications are he has thousands of bdft. This potential product must involve a large amount of lumber per unit of labor.

We used to have small cabinet shops for customers who made custom kitchen cabinets. A two person shop would not go through 1000 bd ft of oak in a year.

Re: how much lumber do you buy a year

Yonak

Yeah, maybe only 400~500 bf a year when I was at it full time (20~30 hrs a week)

Re: nothing

Ray Newman

I think Bill T is onto it. From what I hear and see, seems that as a result of the pandemic, everyone is doing home crafts and trying to sell them -- operative word is "trying"....

Re: What to build to sell????

Dave Bair

Shaker-style benches: used as benches, plant stands, displays, end tables, etc.

Adirondack furniture: salable and use up lots of lumber.

Bill's right.....

Barry Irby

I have thousands of feet of lumber. At least a thousand BF each of white oak, walnut, red oak, poplar, and cherry. About 30 red oak slabs big enough to make single slab tables. Probably another 1000 BF of Odds and Ends.

The thing that kicked off this question was that my big red oak in my yard died after struggling for about five years and I am having it sawed. It will yield something between 800 and a 1000 bf. I am shuffling stuff around to find a place to put it.

I am officially a wood hoarder. Time to quit acquiring wood.

I think Bill may have had the best answer. I am 71. No need to work myself to death trying to consume this wood. I will just build what I want.

Another thing that started me thinking about this was I had a good friend that liked my stuff and paid me handsomely to make things for him. Monday He went to work and went out to lunch and walking back from his car across the parking lot had a heart attack and died. He was younger than I am. I miss my friend.

Re: What to build to sell????

Dick Coers

It better have a natural edge on it to sell anything consistently now. My best repeatable selling item was these necklaces. Probably sold 200 over the last 15 years. But now it's a rare sale. You aren't going to burn up a lot of wood with these either!

Re: Bill's right.....

Yonak

In that case, I agree, Bill's right. You should do well to market the lumber.

Re: What to build to sell????

William Duffield

You might be better off building CGI BEV Humvees

I have a CGI bridge to sell you that you can drive them over

Something beginning woodworkers would buy

David Weaver

I'm not sure what's easy to make that the open market would buy, but if you could build something that beginning woodworkers would buy, they seem to be the easiest sale.

OK, that's an observation, I haven't sold a lot of anything to beginning woodworkers, but it does seem to be the place where people who want to sell things go.

Re: Something beginning woodworkers would buy

jessecloud

I think the product that uses the most lumber and least labor is a simple table. Now finding a way to market them is easier said than done.

Sorry for your loss

Jim Matthews

"Monday He went to work and went out to lunch and walking back from his car across the parking lot had a heart attack and died. He was younger than I am. I miss my friend."

As Men we're lucky to have friends, as adults.

Not hopeful

C John Hebert

Good luck with that. Years ago I was hounded after seeing what I could do, to join a craft organization that did malls and was told that there would be no 2 set ups alike. In other words...only one woodworking vender. HA Of course...I had to pay a fee to join and they would put on shows all over the state. As much as I hated the thought...times were tough and the family kept pushing me to do it, and they would help. I gave in and started making all sorts of things including mantle clocks. We'd load up all the merchandise and head out to do our mall display (for which we paid a fee, besides joining the craft alliance). I figured I had to make at least 1000.00 per show to make a profit. Well...I barely made 500.00 by the skin of y teeth...plus, I had to discount pieces that got damaged packing and unpacking...little dings and such from the ride. I did this for at least 6 months...and never once made it over 500.00 per show!!! I ended up giving the inventory away as Christmas gifts and quit that fiasco. The only way you can make any money is to have a storefront where people can come and look around and shop. I knew one guy who had a cabinet business and did this on the side with some scraps he had, between jobs. He too...didn't sell all that much, but gave some items to entice customers to bigger things like hios kitchens. IO remember seeing a wood tea cart he did for 250.00 (years ago) thatroped in several kitchens. The store was run by his wife, while he was out back working on either kitchens or do-dads for the store.

Coffins...

question

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

How did you shape them, not that I intend to make any, but curious? They are pretty to my eye.

Mark may have been kidding..

Henry (Raleigh NC)

Mark may have been kidding, but cremation urns (and coffins) are a real market (alert - that is an opinion).

Coffins are likely harder to get into (generally need assistance getting into a coffin - sorry the double entendres just seem to flow here), because you are marketing to businesses that want a regular supply chain and options.

But cremation urms you can market to individuals - and these are (mostly) one-offs. Etsy or many of the other online market places should handle this well, and shipping is nowhere near as difficult for an urn as for a coffin (size and weight differences).

Lots of opportunity for unique and creative pieces - or simpler production pieces.

Searches on woodworking boards, I believe including WC here, will reveal some more details.

Henry

Amen

Etsy?

Henry (Raleigh NC)

I just looked on Etsy for urns, and I think many of us would be hard pressed to make much money making (finishing!) and selling urns for <$100 - at least if they were much more than a 'generic' box. But still there may be opportunities there (niche markets - sorry double entendres just keep popping up as I write).

Henry

Re: question

Dick Coers

Started with a sawn wedge, then double back taped to an angled wood block in a lathe chuck. Then a second axis to put in the hole and radius it out. So all lathe work except for sawing the wedge.