Woodworker's Journal 1983-7-2, страница 12

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Workshop Income

by Paul W. Kellam

Woodworking for Fun

versus

Woodworking for Work

Woodworking as a sideline business, for those of us who love to work with wood and with tools, is the best of all possible worlds.

It's a way to add to income, and enjoy the adding. It's a way to develop skills, and have someone else finance the process. It's a way to justify the investment in all those tools we "need", as well as pay for some we don't need but would like to have. And it's a way for those of us who can't outgrow the work-ethic syndrome our parents stuck us with to justify some play-time.

But when the fun-work becomes work-work, as it is becoming for many who are turning to woodworking as an income alternative in these difficult economic times, this best of all possible worlds can take on some different and unfavorable qualities. Our friend Bill, whom we have described in this column in the last two issues, found this out when he sought to turn his woodworking hobby into a fulltime business.

Bill, you'll recall, had a hot thing going making 19th century step-chairs as a sideline. Then he lost his job and thought he'd make step-chairs for a living. Great idea, until he did some figuring and discovered that in order to make a living he would have to make more step-chairs than he could make and sell.

Worse, he discovered that his costs per chair were going to be more when he built them as a full-time businessman than when he built them as a sideline. In order to get the cost per chair down he would have to build even more chairs. And still worse, he could see that if he was going to get rid of all those step chairs he would have to sell them for less.

The only way out of this three-horned dilemma of cost vs. price vs. volume, it seemed to Bill, would force him to hire others to do the woodworking. That would force him to concentrate on managing and selling, which was not what he wanted to do. In sum, getting into the business of woodworking was going to cut Bill out of the business of working wood, which is what he enjoyed doing most.

If all of this sounds abysmally bleak, take heart. There are ways to make a living from woodworking, if you go about it right and with your eyes open. It isn't easy, nothing is any more, but it can be done. Ihe point is simply that you have to consider the facts, and you have to consider them realistically and in a business-like way. Otherwise, you're going to be kidding yourself and you're likely to go broke before you realize it.

What ever happened to the old-time craftsmen, you say? Is there no place for that kind of skill and quality and expertise any more? Well, there probably is. There are a few fine craftsmen still around. The market for their work, which is highly individualized, is good. But the market for craftsmen in general is extremely limited. That's why there are so few of them left.

The fact is that we have become a marketing society, a marketed-to society, and extremely price conscious society. People will still pay astronomical prices for "in" things that are unique, well made and hand made. But you have to find those people, or better, they have to find you. Craftsmanship alone is no longer enough. Like everything else, it has to be marketed. And the marketing realities are the point at which one has to begin.

(continued on page 14)