5 secrets to success in a production woodworking business
Kerry’s production factory builds over 1,000 cider presses a year with his five Woodmasters. You read it right: 1,000 presses and FIVE Woodmasteres!
“Let me start by saying I am not a woodworker. Yet I own five hard-working Woodmaster planer/molders.
I own my own business — a production manufacturing factory. Our products are unique home and garden equipment and a line of wood/cast iron cider presses. Here are 5 success keys I learned along the way…
KERRY’S 5 SECRETS TO MANUFACTURING SUCCESS WITH WOODMASTER:
All Kerry’s presses are built in his Alabama factory of highest-quality hard maple with apple grinders made of cast iron. “These are lifetime tools,” he tells us.
1. YOU run the business NOT the equipment
I own the business but I’m not a woodworker. I run the operation but I don’t run the equipment. I rarely run any of our machines. When I bought my first CNC, I didn’t even know how to spell C-N-C, much less program it! To tell you how little I knew, the table saw blade was on backwards for the first full year.
I lovingly call our 6 cider press craftsmen our “Keystone Cops.” These guys know even less about woodworking than I do. BUT they know everything there is to know about making top-of-the-line cider presses.
2. Be a MANUFACTURER not a retailer
I started off in 2003 as an online retailer. I’d buy products in volume and resell them on eBay and websites I’d created. Then Amazon opened online and manufacturers, retailers, and even little old ladies in apartments were crowding the online market.
I soon saw the wisdom of being a manufacturer rather than a retailer in today’s marketplace: you have more control. So, in 2017, I bought a business that manufactured unique harvest equipment for home and garden. To start production, I bought a table saw, a miter saw, a DeWalt® planer, and a CNC.
3. Production EFFICIENCY is absolutely essential
Production does not mean fast; it means creating high-quality parts and products repeatably and efficiently. We have FIVE Woodmasters that allow us to produce our products with maximum efficiency and lifetime-quality.
Here’s the setup – a big factory space with five Woodmaster Molder/Planers. Each one’s set up for a specific production task from gang-ripping lumber to planing and molding.
I’m a bit of an outlier in that the cost of the right equipment is secondary to the value of increased output and the reduction of man hours to produce parts. In that respect, our five Woodmasters save me two full-time employee positions annually, based on how we were originally doing things.
4. The Woodmaster Molder/Planer is a 4-way moneymaker
Woodmasters are versatile. Any model can be set up as a dedicated planer, molder, gang ripsaw, or drum sander. (We don’t use the drum sander head, but, on the other hand, all our machines have helical planing heads.) These machines are strong, reliable, and highly precise to 1/32”. They’re extremely efficient and simple to operate. I can bring in someone new and, with good machine operation and top safety training, they’re ready to go on day one.
5. And always remember “perseverance overcomes ignorance”
My philosophy in starting and running my business is simple. “Perseverance overcomes ignorance.” I got to work, learned as I went, and the transformation from retailer to manufacturer was irrevocably underway.
Take a close look inside the pressing drum one of Kerry’s precision-made cider presses. All the wood is hard maple, and every board foot that comes into the factory is run through his Woodmasters. The curved item is a top view of the pressing drum. Note the staves’ carefully beveled edges. The black device at the top of the picture is the heavy-duty screw that applies immense pressing power to the pressing plate. The cider’s squeezed out and pours into the tray below.
The right business opportunity popped up
Then, in 2019, the manager of America’s only hard maple and cast iron cider press called to say they were shutting down. The next week I went to see their operation. By Sunday we had a deal. I packed up two huge tractor trailers and the rest is history.
Manufacturing 1,000 cider presses a year
Today, we manufacture and sell a little over 1,000 cider presses a year. That’s a lot of cider presses! They’re about 40% of our overall sales volume. Production takes up half of our 20,000 sq. ft. shop and almost all the 10,000 sq. ft. storage warehouse.
Our cider presses will last 100 years. How do I know that? Because every season, people call and ask if we can make custom parts for the former owner’s old presses they pulled out of a barn somewhere. Of course we can, so they live on and on. We use highest-grade hard maple from the Northeastern US for our American Harvester and Homesteader presses. We could use cheaper stuff but we’re the last of the hard maple/cast iron cider press makers so I feel obligated to make them the highest quality.
Each of our Woodmaster Planer/Molders has a specific assignment, and each one also has the versatility to be changed-over to another function should another one go down.
In production, tool changes slowed manufacturing efficiency so….
We started out with just one 718 Woodmaster so we had to change heads from ripping to planing. This was inefficient and slowed production. So I bought a 712 and custom molding knives to put the bevel on our cider press staves and a soft edge on the legs. It didn’t solve the 718 changeover issue but the guys were tickled by not needing to use a router on staves and legs anymore.
Three more Woodmasters
I bought two more Woodmasters that popped up for sale on Facebook at unbelievably low prices — another 718 and a 725. This was during the pandemic and there was a long wait to get new machines from the Woodmaster factory, much less two.
One of Kerry’s team shaves down a cider press leg on the factory’s original Woodmaster. Kerry says, “It’s shaved more legs than Lady Remington!”
Then, to meet our growing production needs, I just purchased a second 725 from the factory this past November. The 725’s are the widest and fastest of all our Woodmasters. Every inch of our 4/4 hard maple lumber goes through the 725 we have set up as a gang rip saw. And every 4/4 part goes through our 725 set up as a planer with a helical planer head.
What a silly question
Why did I go with Woodmaster? What a silly question. Why does anyone buy a Woodmaster? Because of Gary Striegler, master craftsman and builder. (Watch video)
Rip one board into many blanks in a single pass
It just isn’t practical to rip our volume of boards into blanks, one rip at-a-time, on a table saw. After all, we’re running about 45,000 BF of hard maple a year. Our 725 rips one wide board into multiple narrow blanks in a single pass with Woodmaster’s multiple-blade, gang rip saw setup. Really speeds production.
It’s all good. The orders come in and the products go out when this business runs with high efficiency. Thanks, Woodmaster!
4-in-1 planer, molder, drum sander, gang ripsaw
Virtually all our 4/4 hard maple makes a stop at our second 725 planer station. It’s set up to precisely shave 13/16” down to 3/4”.
We set up one of our 718’s to plane our cider press legs to exactly 3” square so they’ll fit precisely in the jig for our CNC. Too fat and they won’t fit; too thin and the dados will be too shallow. We run pieces through the 718 once, flip them, and run them through again.
Our second 718 planer is a ‘free floater.’ We use it primarily to plane our 8/4 hard maple in runs of 20 to 100 pieces. It takes multiple passes to get to the proper thickness.
Last but not least is our 712 molder. We use it to bevel the staves for our cider press tubs and to round the hard edges on our cider press legs. Previously, we rounded these edges on a router table. Life got a lot easier with the 712!
Business is great!
We don’t advertise; we let our dealers do that for us. That’s good for us (no ad cost) and for our existing and future dealers – we’re not competing with them on Facebook or other social platforms. So, business is great, and my staff doesn’t want me to get any more bright ideas about new products. But, honestly, opportunities just keep coming my way!”
— Kerry Clabaugh, Woodmaster Owner, Happy Valley Ranch , Dothan AL
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