Full of questions!

[Woodlove]

Hey there fellow wood lovers, perhaps a few of you could offer some advice. You see, I have been in the furniture repair business for the past three decades and would now like to focus on custom built projects. I am very interested in the CarveWright machine and have downloaded the trial software. I enjoyed designing a few small projects with it and am so ready to jump right in. I guess my question to all of you pros is this: Is there a market? Any and all comments are welcome, just keep them "family friendly!" Thanks and happy "shop"ing- Woodlove

[Kenm810]

Woodlove,

First I would like to say Welcome to the CW forum.

There are several different markets that the CW and CC machine fit in very nicely.
Being in the furniture repair business for several years you all ready have a head start with the contacts you have now.
If you are able to spend a bit of time reading some of the threads and posts, on the forum you will find quite a few directions you can follow.
Other folks on the forum will fill in more information and details of what they are involved in and doing.

[Amonaug]

I'm trying to provide a little of everything but so far the orders I've gotten and the logs from my webpage point to people mostly looking for onlays.

[badger]

They just ran a commercial not too long ago where they showed a sample of a market that you are in. Happened where a woman had a relief piece that was broken so she only had half of it, well with the probe they were able to probe what she did have left and with that were able to make a full piece again.

Im sure in the business your in you would find alot of useful purposes for it.

[jcorder]

Hi Woodlove,
The market is there, especially if you are the only game close by! I live near a county where there is a heavy Amish population and they make some great furniture. There is also a large lumber company there that has a large cnc machine. But I am finding since I am about 30 mile from them, the word is getting out that I have a machine and people are starting to come to me for small projects that the big lumber company is too high priced for them. You just need to find an audience and do that by getting a lot of samples out where the public can see them First thing I did was to do some carvings and take them to my local lumber company and I was off and running.

[supershingler]

woodlove

for me i did a couple of signs and gave then away to people that would display them and tell otherw who made them, mainly my barber the my bartender. both get lots of traffic.

i also made some thing for out new church addition
i carved the last supper for a valance in the kitchen and some rosettes
and other items for the fireplace.
i just consider this advertising

my next step is trying to find more time to make things with a full time job and everybody in town stoping over and wanting to see the carver work.

and my bartender misses me too lol


good luck

there are alot of great people of this forum that give advise freely so dont be afraid to ask

happy carving

kendall

[MikeMcCoy]

Take a look at the Gallery part of this forum and you will see a variety of things. I originally bought my machine to augment my furniture building. Also, I accidentally found out that FREE carves is good advertising. I had a friend who wanted a plaque for his boat (I just charged him for the pattern) and that lead to over 20 sales (and still counting) at the marina where he slips his boat. I made a leprechaun plaque for a friends Irish pub (free again) and that lead to another dozen sales.

[Woodlove]

Thanks to everyone for your wonderful suggestions!