Just saw something infuriating on, of all things, "Modern Marvels."

[Erose999]

13. As a woodworker, I'll say that we don't get to pick our clients for projects. I would

think that to practice the craft at its highest level (and make money to pay the rent doing it) you have to deal with some real pricks sometimes. I'm trying to produce guitars that working class musicians can afford. But given that I'm competing against 3rd world sweatshop labor, and $$$ saturation marketing, I can't compete with the corporations for the working class musician's dollar. I can't make a nice guitar for $99.95. Neither can Fender Musical Instruments Corp. But their factories in China and Indonesia can make a mediocre one for that price. For me to make money at what I do, I also have to seek customers who have disposable income.

I've been fortunate that most of my customers are real salt-of-the-Earth people. And also, while I work with lumber that is "rare" and "exotic", a lot of the stuff I use is considered "waste" by other woodworkers. I'll buy wood that has a warp and straighten it, or something thats cracked and work around the crack. I'll also use wood thats reclaimed or repurposed.



These are American Chestnut beams reclaimed from a barn in North Carolina. Chestnut is pretty much extinct in the Southeast and has been since the 1930's because of the blight. These beams are at least 100 years old.



I made this from those barn beams.



This was made with some nice boards I found in the scrap pile at Home Depot.

I have a friend in the lumber business where I buy a lot of my stuff. He's the one who sold me those barn beams. While he does cut down a lot of trees, most of what he's working with are unwanted or dangerous trees from people's yards, trees that fall over in storms, etc. He saves a lot of beautiful and unique wood from going to the paper mill or becoming firewood.