Sounds like you've been thinking this through quite a bit. Biggest hurdle that I can envision is moving the product. I don't think you'd get those prices you mention on sites like Etsy...
Yeah. Some people vastly undersell themselves there. I was looking just now, and found this one. That's 7"x12"x1.5" = 126in.^3, ~= 0.875 BF. Call it 1 BF with waste and sanding.
It's made of maple and walnut. At my local plywood shop, walnut is $7.95/BF, maple is $5.95/BF. Online at Woodworkers Source, they're normally $8.99 and $5.99, respectively, on sale currently for $6.74 and $4.49. It looks to be maybe 70% walnut, which is the pricier wood. Figure about .61 BF walnut, and 0.26 BF maple, and even if we go with the sale prices, that's $4.11 + $1.17 = $5.28 just in material. The work of cutting, jointing, gluing, and final sanding/rounding is $4+. That's a very small profit margin.
Also, this is discouraging. That's way more work per board than I'm planning, and they're still <$200.
Incidentally, I wouldn't want to use that board. It's a plethora of unsafe wood choices. I see end grain oak, which is one of the most massively porous woods, even used by some fish tank hobbyists as airline bubblers, and there are videos (saw one on YouTube) of people blowing air through long dowels into glasses of water. This traps food. I've actually cut >1" ends off of boards that I can hold up to light and see through, somewhat like this. Red oak also has a stinging chemical in it that burns my eyes when I plane it
( ... )
You know... what I'd really like is hard data. In a woodworking forum wherin I asked about woods with my specifications that are known to woodworking as good for cutting boards, I got a lot of suggestion that just smacked of hearsay. I got a wenge splinter once and watched it carefully to make sure it didn't go necrotic. It didn't. One of the bits of hearsay was that oak has tannins in it that act as a microbial, so the pores may fill with gunk, but won't become bacterial. I don't necessarily believe that. I want to do experiments, or have someone else do them and show all their work.
Reply
It's made of maple and walnut. At my local plywood shop, walnut is $7.95/BF, maple is $5.95/BF. Online at Woodworkers Source, they're normally $8.99 and $5.99, respectively, on sale currently for $6.74 and $4.49. It looks to be maybe 70% walnut, which is the pricier wood. Figure about .61 BF walnut, and 0.26 BF maple, and even if we go with the sale prices, that's $4.11 + $1.17 = $5.28 just in material. The work of cutting, jointing, gluing, and final sanding/rounding is $4+. That's a very small profit margin.
Edited: Everything. All my math was way off.
Reply
Incidentally, I wouldn't want to use that board. It's a plethora of unsafe wood choices. I see end grain oak, which is one of the most massively porous woods, even used by some fish tank hobbyists as airline bubblers, and there are videos (saw one on YouTube) of people blowing air through long dowels into glasses of water. This traps food. I've actually cut >1" ends off of boards that I can hold up to light and see through, somewhat like this. Red oak also has a stinging chemical in it that burns my eyes when I plane it ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment