Jim B
Re; Cabinet Makers
My pal from the tiny village I grew up in started his career as a cabinet maker. I went to sea at the same time and was on £35 p/m, he was on far less. For his first year he did hardly anything except make endess amounts of mortice and tenon joints pus all the other wood working joints, hand saw and pane smooth endless lengths of timber and make strong cups of tea for his boss, a curmudgeonly old bugger who's greatest pleasure in life was assisting in embalming's at the funeral director's located adjacent to the workshop. Al those joints and cuts of wood etc. were invariably thrown on the scrap heap to be burnt in the workshop stove. It was only when my pal had proven to the old guy that he could cut joints, saw and plane wood accurately, all done by hand and eye measurements alone was he allowed to move on and actually get his hands involved in manufacturing anything. The old guys stock in trade was fine oak or mahogany coffins, along with sash windows, Jacobean reproduction windows and fine pieces of furniture.
The od guy died just as my pa finished his apprenticeship and as his son did want anything to do with the cabinet making business, he already had a successful decorators business along with shops, my pa got the goodwill for nothing but had to find his own premises. He found a disused cow shed and barn nearby and rented it for peanuts. His father gave him a loan to buy some basic machinery, bench planer, circular saw table etc. and off he started. I helped him clean the place out and set up the workshop and when on leave woud always work with him making bank doors, windows, church pews etc.
His big break came when a professional dog breeder came into the work shop one day and asked him if he could build her kennels. He said no problem but were they not commercially available. She said no so we built her a run of kennels with whelping box, storage room and kennel runs. It was knocked up in softwood and pinned and screwed together in sections and my pal made a handsome profit on it. This set him thinking and he consulted a number of local breeders as to what made the best kennel for professional breeders, spent a couple of hundred on drawing up a range of buildings to suit different size of dog breeders and placed adverts in two dog breeders magazines. Within 6 months he was getting so many orders that he had to employ an apprentice solely to make these kennels. After a year this grew to two apprentices and he was exporting to Africa, the Far East, and his biggest market was the U.S.A.
This business allowed his cabinet making to flourish and expand and he had contracts to fit out a local arts centre that was being built in a converted brewery, with furniture, fire doors etc.
I always worked with him on leave mainly delivering kennels on the the back of a 5 ton commer flat bed up and down the country. From that business he built a successful house building business building either one off designer homes or small estates of executive houses. By the time I had saved up enough money to buy my first car, £40 Austin A40, he was already onto his first new Range Rover.
All that from an apprenticeship as a cabinet maker, which is a recognised guild trade in its own right.
So Jim, although you lad may be learning his trade as a joiner he may get the opportunity to go onto greater things so good luck to him. As an aside I have noticed adverts recently for skilled joiners to work on outfitting luxury yachts so maybe he may get a taste of the sea in a round about way.
rgds
JA
