Is there any woodworking you can make money at?

[nosoup4u]

I'm a woodworker of average talent who is about to sell my business and "retire". I have a good line of woodworking equipment, shop space, average woodworking skills, and land with a lot of ash and walnut trees. (I have already cut and had trees milled so I know how that goes). 
I know that every fool with a tablesaw and a hammer dreams about making a living woodworking, but is there anything that actually pays? 
I'm not looking to make a living doing it, I'll have social security and other investment money, but I would like to have something to spend some time doing and at least break even on.

[wing nut]

I'm a woodworker of average talent who is about to sell my business and "retire". I have a good line of woodworking equipment, shop space, average woodworking skills, and land with a lot of ash and walnut trees. (I have already cut and had trees milled so I know how that goes). 
I know that every fool with a tablesaw and a hammer dreams about making a living woodworking, but is there anything that actually pays? 
I'm not looking to make a living doing it, I'll have social security and other investment money, but I would like to have something to spend some time doing and at least break even on.

I was in the same boat, but you go on amazon urns 30 bucks keepsake boxes same.  Now I just make stuff for my family its much more enjoyable.  My mission now is to have everypiece of furniture in my house made by me.
but good luck with whatever you decide.

[Bob Vaughan]

Back when I was doing woodworking for money I found a couple of rules of thumb.
1. Any project that has its largest dimension under four feet, you'll lose money on.
2. Be willing and able to make what the customer wants and not what you want to make.

[jteneyck]

When I first retired I started doing odd jobs for a really small remodeling guy, install some custom made trim, build a custom cabinet to fill in a run of stock ones (which taught me a lot about color and finish matching), replace cracked stair treads, etc.  I also did a few jobs for former colleagues, building custom cabinets, mostly.  Those jobs led to word-of-mouth jobs for their friends and acquaintances.  I got to do some really interesting work, like building a balustrade on a wave shaped balcony, several mantles, porch columns, lots of furniture repair work, where I learned a lot, a set of curved French doors with true divided lite glass, several non-stock size house front doors, and an oval window with workable sash, to name some of them.  I did what larger shops did not want to take on because the custom nature of the jobs would make their quotes far too high.  I did some of the jobs because of the challenge, and I might have made only $10 an hour on them but the total was still good money.  And the stars aligned a few times where I made north of $50/hour.  I really didn't care because I didn't need to live off it.  I never lost money because my quotes always had all the out-of-pocket costs included, plus however much I thought the customer was willing to pay.  And that's an important point that many will disagree on, but it's true.  What you charge for something has nothing to do with how much it costs you to make, it's what someone is willing to pay for it.  Figuring out how much that is is the hard part, but you will leave money on the table if you just consider your materials costs, shop rate, and profit.  If you think that's wrong, just consider the cost of perfume, or high-end coffee or wine, or 1000 other things where the price has nothing to do with the cost to make it.  

Someone earlier mentioned not doing anything smaller than 4 ft.  I'd change that to, don't do anything someone can buy at a big box store, Amazon, etc.  You can never compete. Only do work where you solve someone's problem.  Then you can charge what it's worth to solve that problem and not have to worry about competitors.  Quote what you think it's worth and don't lower your price.  If every quote is accepted, it's a sure sign you aren't charging enough.  If every quote is rejected then you know you are asking too much.  I had a quote rejected only to have the guy contact me a year later to ask me to build it at the price I quoted.  Don't do work on a handshake.  Write up a quote and have both parties sign it unless it's a really small job and you know the people.  Oh, and always provide finish samples and have the customer sign the one they choose.  Give them half of it and you keep the other half.  Nothing leads to grief more than a misunderstanding about the finish.  

Most of all, have fun.  

John

[FS7]

Generally speaking, it's very difficult. I mean, you can look at Etsy. There's a lot of competition, and people will sell relatively intricate things (like the 87-step patterned cutting boards) for a few hundred. I am sure it works out to pretty marginal pay per hour spent. And for that matter, Etsy is *also* full of imported stuff. Someone inclined could get stacks and stacks and stacks of bamboo cutting boards from China, and then quickly engrave them as gifts.

Basically, you have to do custom jobs. As mentioned, anything that is mass-produced, you aren't going to compete. Even if it's not, if you've got a large operation nearby, you're out of luck. My mother bought a dining table from an "Amish" place near her that does custom work (I use quotes because that's marketing speak as often as anything, but that's another story). It's a large dining table with extra leaves (seats 8 or 10 when extended), all in maple, with a split pedestal and a flawless stain job and satin precat lacquer. She paid a little over $2000. I'm not touching a job that size at that price. But they have cheap labor and factory-type automation. My neighbors, who have commissioned me a few times before, just decided to buy a little accent-type desk from Wayfair because it was $200 and they would've given me $1000. What's worse, I wouldn't have made much on it even at that price anyway.

And then there's the problem with custom jobs, and that's that it's challenging to make a living out of it. You can operate a hobby business using word of mouth (as I do), but I've been within $1000 or so of breakeven for the five years since I've incorporated. It's never been my main business. 

The guys on YouTube might make money, but their product is the video, not the wood. That's an important distinction.

[lincmercguy]

I took a bit of a stab at it during COVID.  We were banned from the office and all projects were on hold, so I spent my eight hours a day learning new technology for work and went out to the shop once the clock hit 5pm.

I did a mix of things, some items to sell and some custom work.  It was almost all small stuff.  I did the usual cutting boards, jewelry boxes, crosses, etc.  People I knew bought quite a few things and we gave a couple as gifts.  I had zero luck on Etsy, not one single sale.  I actually had better luck on Ebay.  Sometimes things took a while to sell, but there's no cost to leave a sale up as long as your totals are under a certain amount.  I still have some things up.  But I think I need to split some of my auctions up, I don't think people understand the variations thing.  I need to just list separately.

The nice thing about that was no deadlines and I would make things as I had time and did batches for efficiency.  Sales just meant boxing it up and dropping at the post office.  Most everything I did was small enough to use the priority mail boxes.

I did some random custom work where I lived at the time.  It was all small stuff and didn't really pay that well for the time involved.  I was trying to get my name out there more than anything without having to pay for marketing.

A friend of ours had a pretty serious soap business going at the time.  She requested a few items to help speed her production up.  She would show me a video of some cutter or mold setup and I'd find a way to improve it, and she would buy a few from me.  That stuff was pretty easy since it didn't have to be pretty.  My wife bought soap from her as well.

I didn't have the time to do large custom projects in a timely manner.  I think I could have done better with that if I did.

I did get some space in a boutique in town for a while as well.  I learned how boutiques make money, and it's not from sales.  It was worth a shot.

[wing nut]

I was in the same boat, but you go on amazon urns 30 bucks keepsake boxes same.  Now I just make stuff for my family its much more enjoyable.  My mission now is to have everypiece of furniture in my house made by me.
but good luck with whatever you decide.

I need to qualify my statement, I do have a friend who's a retired engineer down in Baton Rouge he does a lot of odd stuff for people, doesn't have much of a setup but does nice work, pecky cypress benches for wedding receptions... he's got a little 3x3 cnc .  lots of odd stuff but most of his work is word of mouth and lots of friends, seems to keep him quite busy.  But every piece seems unique.

[R Clark]

I have sold a few things over the years.  I currently have a consignment contract with the local military base; the product line there are shadow boxes for retiring military members and any other small items I wish to sell.

It has not been a money maker and as soon as this initial one year contract is done, I will not renew.  I knew the odds of becoming profitable on that work were very slim.  The shop had contacted me before about doing work for sale in their shop, and I had always demurred.  Well, this time, I guess they caught me in a moment of weakness, and I agreed.  I think the contracting process with that outfit is a large source of my discontent; in a number of respects, I get handled by the contracting people as if I'm building an airplane.  But that's another thread, I suppose.

I can't receive a decent price for my time and still sell items; I can't command even minimum wage.  Forget about anything like depreciating machines or other very real costs in the shop.  The cost of hardwood lumber to me as a small shop is very high.  Even if I could rate wholesale quantity pricing, I still couldn't make a profit on it.

Last night I delivered a bid on a shadow box with some laser engraving; the bid was $200 for the woodworking portion of the box.  At that price, I won't even make $10 per hour.  But that still won't get the customer a finished presentation-quality shadow box.  He'll take the box to the specialty shop that does an outstanding job of fitment with museum glass, matting, foam board, and arranging the contents.  If he goes the way he desires, he'll have well over $500 in that box.  I don't think he really understands that and so I urged him to get as accurate an estimate on all that work before making a decision.  I may have tanked my chances of the business, but I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I sold him a $200 box that he didn't finish because he couldn't afford it.  

In short, the vast majority of people simply aren't willing to pay for craftsmanship.  In my case, people look at my products and like them.  They like the real wood, tight miters, and splined corners.  They also like what I can do with integrated flag frames.  But they can have the same shop produce a stapled box made from painted MDF framing material at less than half the cost, and that's how they go.

To the OP:  I'll be direct, so please don't take offense.  A couple of times in your post you said you're an average woodworker.  I would probably consider myself the same, overall.  But I have developed some skills in certain items.  You're going to need to do that first before you can reliably churn out products for sale and make any money.  You will also need to be able to work very efficiently.  Efficiency is probably my biggest problem area.  Perhaps you already have some things you do very well and efficiently, and that's where you will focus your effort.  However, I think you're better off doing things for yourself, family, and friends.  You'll enjoy retirement more, rather than dealing with the pressures of production schedule and then finding a way to sell product.

[jteneyck]

Another couple of comments. When I started selling stuff I would develop a detailed time schedule for each major step of the project, milling stock, joinery, etc. It drove me crazy when I didn't meet that artificial timeline, so I stopped doing it. Surprise, building something got a lot more enjoyable and the quality of my work improved, too. OK, I didn't make as much per hour, but I still made the same amount for the project, and some of those projects were in the several thousand $ range.

You have to be able to provide a factory quality finish. You can hide many defects in joinery, etc, but you can't hide finish errors. That doesn't mean you have to spray, though it certainly makes it easier to achieve.

Learning how to match a furniture finish will get you work no one else wants to do.

John

[Bob10]

I can make money building things like swarm catch boxes and nuc boxes for bees. Not a living but it pays for my equipment. I don't buy wood very often if ever. Craigslist and next-door app provides an abundance. I picked up a box of white oak flooring someone a few blocks from me wanted gone, plan on making hexagon coasters out of some of it I imagine that the people that buy honey might have an interest if not they will be gifts. If was looking to make easy money it would be installing water heaters. Met a guy in Pacific Heights in front of a mansion asked why he was there so often fixing the water heater I had seen his old truck at the place often he told me it was his house. He bought it by installing 2 a day. I don't think I will ever forget it