Like many businesses in our world today, many woodworking shops have “farmed out” their entire milling operation to specialty shops. The economics of this model works well when part sizes, wood types and shapes are standardized. In fact, there are times when Lantz Custom Woodworking (LCW) adopts this model, especially when high volumes of material are required for a particular job.
This model fails, however, when shops totally embrace this business model and sell their equipment or fail to keep it up to date. They forfeit the option to fabricate their own millwork. Thus, obtaining small volumes of odd sizes or unique materials or profile shapes becomes difficult and their ability to provide truly custom products is limited.
I’m reminded of a customer that I met with this past week. He and his wife contacted LCW to make a custom desk for their home office using lumber they had collected from various places over the years. They originally had contacted a shop that had previously built some bookcases in their office years back. However, when approached this shop about the desk, the “custom” shop admitted that they could not build that desk. That’s how they ended up at LCW.
Custom furniture makers rarely benefit from mass produced moldings and S4S stock. Their existence depends on their ability to produce accurate, high quality parts in all kinds of species, shapes and sizes. LCW began in 1997 as a custom furniture maker and has always insisted on having the ability to produce any type of millwork, allowing for maximum flexibility in design.
Don’t limit yourself to the standard. Simply building a cabinet to a non-standard size doesn’t qualify as custom. Even factory made cabinet retailers can provide non-standard boxes. Custom woodworking should include choices. At LCW you will never be limited to standard materials, sizes, or profiles. These are the details that distinguish your beautiful custom LCW project from others. Come visit the shop and showroom at Lantz Custom Woodworking and see what true custom woodworking really means.
Key equipment:
- Straight line rip saw w/ laser line
- 16” Jointer
- 24” Planer
- SCM S4S machine
- Multiple shapers along with many custom knife profiles
