Woodworkers, even those with several years of woodworking experience often find themselves ill at ease when faced with the task of marketing their products. Possessing the skills to design and make furniture is just one part of running a woodworking business. Knowing how to sell the products is quite another skill that has to be learnt.

With the advent of the internet, potential clients have a lot more access to furniture makers and other woodworking companies, when previously the options they had were to visit retail outlets or go through a gallery.

Successful woodworkers accept that their main task is to determine what their chosen group of customers’ want, what their values are and design products around these needs and values, so there is a perfect match.

Keeping existing clients is important for long term business success and woodworkers should focus on creating trust and developing lasting relationships. Spending time with clients is one way of generating ideas for a new project. For instance furniture makers can take a ‘tour’ of a client’s home and identify ‘gaps’ in their décor that need to be filled.

Showcasing products is also an important consideration that woodworkers should not ignore. Some enterprising furniture makers team up with other related industry professionals such as antique dealers, carpet weavers and jewelers to run a gallery showcasing a range of products, so customers have more of a choice. Another option is to supply some of the pieces to two or three galleries. This helps in getting a woodworker’s name out in the market and often this exposure can result in several orders.

Participating in exhibitions not …

While both crosscut and ripsaw blades are useful tools in a woodworkers arsenal, both serve specific purposes and it is important to know which blade to choose for a woodworking project.

The crosscut saw blade has been primarily designed to sever the fibres of wood. While one tooth severs the fibres on the left of the kerf the tooth that follows severs the fibres on the right. The waste in the middle is drawn away into the dust extraction. Crosscut blades are designed so that they eliminate breakout on the underside of the wood. The small hook angle of the tooth reduces this breakout and eliminates any grabbing effect. The crosscut saw usually cuts from the top towards the fence, and there is a tendency for the teeth to grab the wood fibres and accelerate the blade towards the woodworker operating the machine. Blunt teeth increase the tendency of this occurrence.

When using a crosscut saw blade, woodworkers should carefully control the movement of the saw blade through the wood rather than try to force the cut. Excessively high feed speeds can lead to injury, and it is also important for woodworkers to never have any part of their body in the line of the cut.

The ripsaw blade is designed for an end to end division of a wooden board. For this purpose the blade must remove a narrow strip of wood called the kerf from the board. This strip is made up of wood fibres that cling together and must be chiseled from the length of the board. The chips must be taken away as waste …

Before using a router woodworkers should understand that the direction that the router cuts in and developing a light touch in using the machine are two aspects that are vital to successful operation.

Many makes of routers have the direction of the rotation bit marked on them; however a marker pen arrow on the base can be used as a reminder. The router is like a fast chisel and you should remember to push the cutting edge of the bit into the object being worked on.

To begin with you go forward when the work is on the left of the router. You will be moving anti-clockwise around the perimeter of the object. If you bring the router back along the object you will be ‘back cutting’ or ‘climb cutting’.

Woodworkers need to take care in clearing the cutting edge from the object at the end of each pass. Brushing it accidentally against the object while bringing it back can be extremely dangerous.

Using a router to make a hollow in the middle of the object requires pushing the leading edge of the bit into the object but you will be moving clockwise. Make sure that you have an end cutting router bit so that it can be plunged directly into the middle of the area that that is to be removed and then move it in increasing circles clockwise until you come comfortably close to the knife marked border.

In the case of routing across the grain woodworkers should be aware that the point of exit is prone to tearout. This is simple to prevent. For example when routing an edge moulding onto a tabletop …

Blade guides are important for the safe and accurate operation of a bandsaw. The simplest system that woodworkers are familiar with consists of two blocks of timber on either side of the blade above the table. Although they are a lot more sophisticated nowadays, this is still how most of the blade guides work. You will find that most bandsaws operate with blade guides above and below the table. At least one, but generally both of these will have a ‘thrust” bearing that sits behind the blade, which takes off the load as the material is pushed into the blade, stopping the blade from tracking off the wheel. This keeps the cutting face of the blade rigid in all directions and able to cut at the appropriate place.

The most common guides available to woodworkers consist of two plastic blocks, round or square above and below the blades. These are adequate, however plastic wears out quickly and as the blade twists in a cut, the square faces begin to wear away. The blocks need to be removed and squared again for continued accuracy. Eventually they will need to be replaced.

Woodworkers can also use aftermarket blade guide blocks. Metal blocks are occasionally fitted, but although this does not wear out quickly, chances are that your blade will be damaged if the teeth come in contact with the blocks as they will become flattened and dulled. Continuous rubbing can cause heat build-up and fatigue for the blade. The other choice is to consider graphite & wood composites. These outlast plastic guide blocks and run cooler, but are expensive.

 Ball bearing blade guides of …

Sharpening is one of the most fundamental woodworking skills and using sharp tools is what makes a woodworker’s job stimulating and pleasurable. While learning how to sharpen woodworking tools appears to be simple in theory, it often turns out to be frustratingly difficult when put into practice.

Knowing when a tool is sharp is difficult because it is subjective and the definition of sharp can vary between woodworkers. As a rule of thumb, woodworkers often go by the shaving test – if the blade is sharp enough to shave with, it is probably ready for use. Provided of course it is sharp enough for a clean sharp shave. The back of the hand I commonly used for a quick check to determine the sharpness of a blade.

Woodworking blades need to be more than just sharp. Each blade is designed for a purpose, which imposes functional requirements on the blade. These functional requirements revolve around bevel angles, edge shapes, blade flatness, steel quality and more.

With reasonable steel, if two intersecting surfaces are polished to a mirror finish, the line of intersection, the edge, will be razor sharp. The angle of intersection does not affect the sharpness, but affects how strong the edge will appear and how it can be used. The flatness of the surface only affects how the edges can be used.

While the functional requirements have nothing to do with the sharpness of the edge, they have an effect on how we as woodworkers sharpen them. You cannot get a flat surface off a soft buffing wheel or hollow stone.

Sharpening also requires a compromise. This is most noticeable …

Woodworkers who have been in the game for long may find the very thought of learning CAD intimidating, as would someone with no idea of HTML being asked to design a website. Some of course feel that the years of experience they have makes it easier to continue working as they have always done, so why bother with CAD.

Modern woodworkers understand the many benefits of using CAD, which enables them to produce plans and drawings that are accurate and look professional that normally would require the skills of someone with a drafting degree.

Making the transition from the drawing table and T-square to CAD can perhaps be compared to progressing from the old typewriter to a desktop PC. Once the initial clumsiness is overcome, CAD becomes second nature and woodworkers can begin using the incredible tool with practiced ease. Just like a PC, CAD enables users to handle additions, changes, corrections or other editing requirements with just a few mouse clicks. This means that plans are free from overlays, whiteout marks and complete redraws. Customers are typically prone to changing their mind; with CAD these changes can be easily accommodated without having to redraw the plan from scratch. This itself makes it worthwhile to learn how to use CAD and save on time and effort. 

Of course CAD has functional aspects that are radically different compared to other common programs such as databases, spread sheets and word processing. This makes the learning curve comparatively steep and can leave woodworkers in hysterics. However when approached with the right attitude, CAD can be mastered quickly. All that is required is determination and practice. …

As part of their developmental process, woodworkers should identify alternative opportunities but also to analyse these formally and evaluate them. This depends crucially on data availability. This has important implications for some of the other functions within the organisation, which will be responsible for collecting this data. A challenge here might be that while these other areas also require data for their own role in the evaluation process, they might be needed a different format from that required by productions/operations for its role.

It is important that all decision making on new commercial opportunities be based on the firmest possible foundations and wherever possible this should be supported by the best available data. There are a number of quantitative techniques woodworkers can use to support this processes, even in situations where a degree of uncertainty exists.  One approach that can be used is mathematical programming, a technique which relies on building a mathematical model of the decision making process with decision variables, constraints and an objective. An algorithm or a set of rules is used to determine the best decision subject to the constraints. A second approach is based on decision trees. These involve looking at the possible outcomes in decision-making process and associating probabilities, resource usages, costs and potential benefits with each.

Some plant investment decisions, with a range of possible outcomes, can be analysed using this method. Another approach is based on simulation. A model, normally computer-based, is built of the situation and the results of making various types of new equipment on throughput, stock levels, customer service might be estimated.

Strategic decisions should not be made by …

Every woodworking company should produce a hierarchy of plans to enable it to fulfill its corporate purpose. These plans differ from each other in the level of detail at which they operate. Detail is in itself a reflection of the time-span covered by the plan. The largest time span is exhibited by the overall company policy. Consistent with this but spanning a shorter period of time is the marketing forecast which identifies and quantifies the products or services to be provided over the foreseeable future.

The group within the organisation responsible for examining the resource implications of this forecast is normally the production or operations control department (POCD). From the forecast, this department prepares a production plan or schedule which in turn generates a workload which is finally translated into action by first line management. The preparation of a set of plans is an iterative process since an inability to achieve planned results at one level may cause a change in the plans at higher levels. Equally plans must interlock and be acceptable to all those who are involved and affected by it. For instance a sales forecast must be compatible with the production/operations department’s abilities.

The POCD is one of the planning departments within the woodworking organisation and comprises the control functions of Planning, Publishing, Measuring, Comparing, Reporting and Correcting. In essence, the POCD should be able at all times to answer two basic and apparently simple questions:

- Can a particular set of woodworking tasks be undertaken?
- How far have the tasks proceeded?

In attempting to provide these answers POCD must attempt to organise the most effective use of human resources, materials and …

In an ideal situation for a woodworking company, computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) operations involves the creation and design of new products using computer technology, the conversion of the designs into operational instructions and the actual production of finished products using the instructions.

The main structure of CIM is derived from computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM). CAD hardware and software capabilities have progressed rapidly in recent years, enabling woodworkers to create design drawings and specifications without a drawing board and with a high level of precision. Using CAD, products and their components can be created, their dimensions changed, and features checked without the need for expensive prototypes. This has led to enormous savings of time and money in the woodworking industry. On the other hand CAM is more ambitious than CAD if it is used in its broadest sense of taking the CAD generated design and following it through to the finished product.

The most notable improvement in computer integrated operations in recent times has been in the realm of price performance. System standards are now simplifying application development and the availability of these tools is allowing woodworkers to design and develop products at prices that would not have been possible a few years ago.

With the improvement in computer performance and reduction in storage costs, woodworkers are in an age where they have the capacity to store additional knowledge more cheaply. Until recently the cost and performance of computer resources made it prohibitive to capture the extent of information required to solve operational problems. The progression towards the capabilities we know today can be seen in CAD databases. …

One of the most powerful tools for planning and control available to a woodworker is a budget, which properly prepared and used has all the advantages of an explicitly designed control system. Since most activities can be measured in financial terms, a financial budget can assist in displaying all the activities of an operating unit in a common language.

The preparation of a budget must begin with a forecast of intended activity, and it is quite likely that the first forecast is modified several times before being finalized. Given a forecast an operations manager can use it as a basis from which to prepare various other budgets covering many different activities.

To prepare a forecast the woodworking manager will first need to make an estimate of the material content and the direct human resource content in person-hours of the required tasks. From the human resource estimates, further estimates are made for each of the departments and the supervisory resource required to support the work of each department.. The ancillary resource required to support the work of each department will also need t be factored. Based on the estimates and the forecast the service and control staff; such as accounting, technical, design etc, required to achieve the forecast are estimated.

From the long range forecasts and the general objectives and policies of the organisation an estimate is made of any indirect staff such as research and training which may be required to be employed during the current financial year. Calculations of general costs such as rent, rates, insurance, tax, heating, water, lighting etc. should be worked out.

All the above figures should then be consolidated into …