Forum for proffesoonals?

[dynax]

Regarding the op's opening post what does constitute a professional ?,
myself, i am an apprentice trained qualified C&G carpenter/joiner, and qualified in 1990, i was on house bashing for a few years, then worked for a shop fitting company for quite a few years, then went self employed for a number of years, but i have been out of the building game for over 10 years, but i still dabble with my own projects, and still do the odd bit for other people, so would i now be classed as a professional or a weekend warrior, also never had any problems pricing up a job, i worked on the rule of thirds and has worked well for me, might not be as credible nowadays but it would be a guide to start from,

 

[Jacob]

Sounds interesting; what is "the rule of thirds"?
I'm a more or less retired preffosoonle so maybe its too late for me.

 

[dynax]

Sounds interesting; what is "the rule of thirds"?
I'm a more or less retired preffosoonle so maybe its too late for me.

when i was s/e i priced up, total material costs multiply by 3, eg materials £100, then total price £300, like i said worked well for me on my jobs as most of them only took a few days, so was able to get 2 or 3 jobs a week in, and could take home a decent wage, might not work so much in todays financial climate,

 

[doctor Bob]

I'll throw my hat into the ring as a professional (by that I mean I get paid a reasonable salary to make furniture).
examples which stop me posting all my work up.

1/ I find it frustrating to post up a pictiure of my work, to have someone point out that one door in a kitchen looks gappy which is 8metres away on a small pic.

2/ very nice but not to my taste

3/ very nice but terrible colour

4/ I guess the client is always correct................... invariably not we do the design work so a kick in the bolloxs.

5/ Why do people spend X amount on appliances when Bosch is the same (no it isn't)

6/ can't stand granite, feels cold

7/ The biggest frustration is offering advice which is given from expert experience (10000hrs is what they say) only to be ignored for advice given by someone who's done that job once a few years back.

I come on here because I like the chat and banter, I don't seek advice very often and feel I give more back than take but honestly as a pro it can be a trying at times, feel free to pick the above to bits. I'm not going to spit my dummy out, I don't do that.
As a conclusion, I think the forum is great, just a tad frustrating at times for a pro. I'd like to think I treat most on here with respect and don't talk down to others or big myself up (too much).

 

[AJB Temple]

Interesting thread. I am definitely a professional - just not at joinery or woodwork. I make money for a living. That said, for things like timber framing and complex joint work, I know I am as good and as fast as most professionals. I can make a guitar that easily meets professional standards (though I it doe snot make money). Three decades of practice helps a bit - as does a lot of tips from pro's and enthusiasts alike. It's about attitude as much as anything.

I know from my "professional" life that people who are skilled tradesmen (or women) are not necessarily good at either estimating, accounting or negotiating. Often they are not good at conflict avoidance and resolution either. This forum contains a wide range of people. The derogatory term weekend warrior is applied to a few, but there are several real experts on here who genuinely share their knowledge. Custard is a good example. Never met the bloke, but I know we would get on as he has a generous spirit coupled with real skill.

If people post stupid stuff, as some do, then it's easy enough not to rise to the bait. The way we react says more about us than it does about the poster who annoys.

 

[MatthewRedStars]

This is an interesting thread, from a my (probably) paranoid view, I do feel that on here and in real life* the work I do isn't really appreciated, isn't "real" woodwork (I post very little tbh) even though I work for a decent furniture company making decent furniture.

I don't want to make one amazing chair in a fortnight, I want to make fifty really good chairs in a fortnight. Furniture making for me is a technical pursuit not an artistic one. I don't get much pleasure from whisping a plane over a chair leg. I get pleasure from having every process locked down in the most efficient de-skilled way possible.

It's all valid.

(*I get friends asking me to make them stuff.... they don't seem to get that I'm not a craftsmen but I can make them a hundred of the item and organise international shipping. They seem confused by this)

 

[memzey]

The big divide on this forum isn't between professionals and hobbyists. We mostly face the same challenges, and often arrive at the same solutions. And, at least in the area of furniture, the great majority of items that people want are basically straightforward, rectilinear designs. So the door is wide open for the hobbyist to create furniture that's well above high street, commercial standards.

The bigger divide on this forum is between people who make stuff and people who don't. Fair enough, it's an open public venue so no one group is more entitled to be here than any other group. But that introduces, well let's be charitable and call it an "inneficiency". Because you regularly see posts from someone looking for a practical solution to a real problem, but the "player members" get swamped by the "social members" who are just looking for a chat or a bully pulpit to bang on about some crackpot theory.

I don't have any answers to this, but I still think it's a shame. Previous generations were never that far away from someone who worked with wood, and many people received a pretty good woodworking education via O-Level Woodwork. Today however someone hoping to take up woodwork is often forced on to the internet for help, but if all they receive is a babble of conflicting nonsense then it's not really all that helpful!

This. All day long this. Thank you for calling it out Custard.

 

[AES]

I see what you mean Custard, but personally I don't think there are so many members here who venture any opinion in response to a particular request for help/info unless they feel pretty sure they have some idea of a sensible answer - there are some, for sure, but not that many, and compared with other Forums I've seen, the "deliberate wind up merchants" present here are pretty few and far between in the main.

 

[TFrench]

Kind of off topic but it got me wondering, how are you supposed to learn how to price up a job if you're not taught or you don't ask? I imagine those who have apprenticed or served under someone in the trade learn it purely by being around it day in day out but for those who haven't, I can see why it might be a bit of a minefield...

I'm not in carpentry but do price a lot for the job I do. It's taken me a good few years to become confident in it - so many variables to account for (or exclude in writing!) that you only get good at it with experience. I'm so grateful that we work for generally pretty large companies and don't have to deal with the general public, that would be a nightmare! Putting up with all the H&S rubbish they throw at us seems a small price to pay (or just stick some more idiot tax on the bill!)

 

[cornishjoinery]

It's all well and good having the hobbyists say "well I can make a wardrobe just as good as a professional" brilliant how long did it take you? " oh 3 months"....brill. so that's £3 an hour. The skill is not making the product but making the same quality product in a time frame to earn money.

 

[MikeG.]

It's all well and good having the hobbyists say "well I can make a wardrobe just as good as a professional" brilliant how long did it take you? " oh 3 months"....brill. so that's £3 an hour. The skill is not making the product but making the same quality product in a time frame to earn money.

Absolutely. But like others here I don't see why you have such a problem with decent hobbyists doing their own thing. Do you feel threatened by them? Do you think they're going to take your work? Why the sneery attitude?

 

[AndyT]

It's all well and good having the hobbyists say "well I can make a wardrobe just as good as a professional" brilliant how long did it take you? " oh 3 months"....brill. so that's £3 an hour. The skill is not making the product but making the same quality product in a time frame to earn money.

One skill could be making the product quickly enough to make money.

Another skill could be making it in a tiny space without machinery.

Another could be succeding in making something more challenging than you had made before.

One of the great strengths of this forum is that its contributors come from a wide range of backgrounds, which is really useful for questions which have many different right answers.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

And of course sometimes people who know nothing about whatever you're doing will come up with a perfectly good idea as they don't think the same way as you and don't suffer the tunnel vision. We can all remember occasions when somebody's looked over our shoulder and said wouldn't it be easier/quicker/cheaper/better if you just ... ](*,)

 

[murrmac]

It's all well and good having the hobbyists say "well I can make a wardrobe just as good as a professional" brilliant how long did it take you? " oh 3 months"....brill. so that's £3 an hour. The skill is not making the product but making the same quality product in a time frame to earn money.

I'm interested in the calculation process involved here ... how do you get from 3 months to £3 an hour ?

 

[MattRoberts]

It's all well and good having the hobbyists say "well I can make a wardrobe just as good as a professional" brilliant how long did it take you? " oh 3 months"....brill. so that's £3 an hour. The skill is not making the product but making the same quality product in a time frame to earn money.

Do you think a hobby worker taking three months to make something means they're working on it 9-6 every day for three months? It's called a hobby for a reason...

 

[Eric The Viking]

This is an interesting thread, from a my (probably) paranoid view, I do feel that on here and in real life* the work I do isn't really appreciated, isn't "real" woodwork (I post very little tbh) even though I work for a decent furniture company making decent furniture.

I don't want to make one amazing chair in a fortnight, I want to make fifty really good chairs in a fortnight. Furniture making for me is a technical pursuit not an artistic one. I don't get much pleasure from whisping a plane over a chair leg. I get pleasure from having every process locked down in the most efficient de-skilled way possible.

It's all valid.

(*I get friends asking me to make them stuff.... they don't seem to get that I'm not a craftsmen but I can make them a hundred of the item and organise international shipping. They seem confused by this)

Please, please don't suggest that what you do isn't skilled or not important.

Quite a few of us have industrial backgrounds, from back when that was something Britain generally did. And one of the huge issues for everyone on here is the simple challenge of taking a natural material and bending it to our will - doing that with enough consistency for production must be an amazing challenge. How do you manage consistency, and suppliers of your materials? Do you carry lots of inventory, etc.? What do you find are the best finishes, and how do you define"best" in your terms? To suggest these things are are of no interest is to underestimate us, too

You have my respect, sir, and anyone suggesting it isn't woodwork is being silly. It is arguably far harder, intellectually, than most hobby activities. A classic aspect, I would guess, is that you probably use CNC in some tasks, so you need to go from good drawings to CNC files as efficiently as possible, which (again at a guess) would rather rule out SketchUp! Then there's tolerances, setups changing subtly as tools wear and the stock varies, and so on.

What you do is very important, but also very rare round here nowadays. I'm one of probably quite a few folk who would be delighted to hear more in due course.

 

[custard]

Good point Eric. Machine setting and use are real skills.

Setting up a power feed to run true, setting up a ring fence on a spindle moulder to accurately profile, setting up a mitre lock router cutter to produce a flush and fair joint; I don't find these any less demanding than hand cut dovetails.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I find I learn quite a lot from many contributors here, whether they be hobby woodworkers, professionals, or raw beginners. I work across a fairly wide range of woodworking disciplines, primarily within the furniture design and make field, but I have roles in bench joinery, teaching woodworking subjects and writing about woodworking related topics - I guess that makes me a professional. But there are still areas of work in this very broad field of woodworking I have had little contact with or experience of, and it's interesting to see how people in those areas of work come up with solutions, oftentimes through the questions they ask and the responses they elicit. Questions and responses concerning musical instruments are instructive to me - not my line of work at all, but techniques employed, the challenges to overcome, and so on, may provide me with useful information for the future. There are contributors here making conservatories and other large tradition based timber structures, e.g., garages: again, not my field of work, but useful to me one way or another.

Generally I can spot who knows what they're talking about quickly, and similarly those who don't, but that's largely what makes a place like this interesting, i.e., the mix of knowledge and experience. I'm not the most prolific poster here and I admit I rarely ask questions, but from time to time I'll jump in with an answer to someone else's question, and I've even been known to go back and forth a bit in a single thread with one or two other contributors. I avoid certain topics like the plague, e.g., sharpening threads, what wood is this? threads, how much should I charge for this? questions, and so on. It doesn't stop me reading some of those threads, especially the inevitably fractious sharpening threads primarily because their never-ending pointlessness and circularity amuse me.

Still, many of the questions that are raised from the raw beginner ones to the experienced professional ones seeking a solution to a design or technical challenge for a client offer opportunities to see what's exercising people's minds, and for me to either learn from, or sometimes suggest a potential way forward.

There are a few forums out there for professional woodworkers to ask all those 'professional' questions, http://www.woodweb.com/ being one, although it's US based, so perhaps not much help to cornishjoinery. Slainte.

 

[cornishjoinery]

Thankyou Sgian, I have checked out the website and looks exactly what I'm after but need uk based copy. I am intending to create one using a similar template and will include things like:

-tools for everyday use
-dealing with clients
-buying timber and materials (bulk)
-written quotations
-workshop setup

Etc

 

[TFrench]

Like I said, CTG on facebook covers pretty much all that - I think starting a forum these days would be very hard. I prefer the forum format myself but you can't get away from the fact that everyone is glued to their phone so facebook is much more convenient. Although it does mean the basic questions like which is the best tracksaw get asked on at least a daily basis.