Window Craft Excellent Opportunity for a Carpenter.

It’s Hard to Make it as a Carpenter!

It’s Hard to Pass on Carpentry Skills

The problem with passing on carpentry skills is that it takes repetition to get any momentum and give an interested person something to practice. You might be building decks this week and hanging doors next week.  The next few weeks you might install a kitchen and then after that remodel a bathroom including tile, plumbing and electricity. 

You have significant turnover because you have significant burnout.  Just when your helper starts to get good at something you shift gears and change directions. All the lessons they were learning go on the back burner while they tackle something new. Mentally they just can’t keep up and then give up. 

You Have to do Something Specific – Choose Window Craft

This is the life a generalist in carpentry.  You are generally good at a lot of things but you can’t build a team.  You probably decide its better to work alone because you can’t keep anyone anyway.  Then you blame the help.  

If you want a chance to get ahead.  If you want to succeed at being an actual Carpenter – you need rather to be a specifist. (Both generalist and specifist are words I made up, but they work).  A specifist is a person who chooses to do one thing well.  Flooring people only do floors and roofers only do roofs.  Doctors aren’t generalists.  They stick to one specific thing too.  One doctor focuses on the eye.  Another the kidney.  Another kids.  Brains, bones, muscles, ligaments, skin and so forth. 

Enter the world Window Craft.  Window Craft promises the ability to master one segment of a trade and do it better and more efficiently than anyone else could.  With Window Craft this opportunity simply due to the sheer volume of historic wood windows available to work on.  

From 1870 to 1940 an Army of Artisans put together the highest concentration of what’s now our historic house community anywhere in the world and they used one kind of window – the wood sash window (albeit in many configurations, but mostly the double hung window). Millions of historic houses with millions and millions of the exact same historic wood windows provides an unparalleled opportunity to master high level carpentry skills fast.  

What high level carpentry skill does the historic wood window encourage a carpenter to master? 

Window Sash are the Hardest Part – Here’s Why

A competent carpenter can easily handle about 75% of all woodworking problems that arise, even with something as complex as a window.  The other 25%?  That is the sash.  For 100 years the sash has been the interrupter, inserting itself as a problem few could easily solve.  All other parts of a window can easily be replicated with standard issue tools.  A circular saw to make cross cuts, square or mitered cuts with a chop saw.  Beveled cuts on a table saw.  Drills, dado blades – all achievable without much fuss.  But the sash?  The sash is different.  

A sash is joinery.  It’s a paneled glass door in miniature.  It’s a cabinet door with profiles and returns.  It’s mortise and tenon and if you have a window with a compromised sash, it blows the whole job.  Momentum halts and panic sets in.  compromises build up.  Excuses mount.  Sweat pours because you can’t get out. 

As a carpenter, your money is made in momentum, in the ability to open a project, execute on it and exit quickly.  Do one window job where you don’t have a sash solution in your back pocket and you might never touch one ever again.  Any money you would have made, you have to spend figuring out the sash element. 

You scour salvage yards, yard sales, Facebook marketplace and even craigslist looking for something you might not find.  Anything you do find you have to adapt at significant cost.

You might attempt your own rudimentary sash with screws, glue, dowels, router bits and clamps but its not a match.  It’s different.  It looks, acts and feels different.  It’s not right but you are out of time.  

Apologetically, stress in your chest and in your heart, tail between your legs you “finish,” but not really.  Your client is disappointed too but can’t fault your attempt.  Paid, appreciated but never again.  Next time you just replace everything with something from Home Depot and avoid this whole fiasco all together – if there even is a next time.  You’ll decide to stick to decks and bathroom remodels, angry, disgruntled and alone.  

This whole fiasco could have been averted if you could do the impossible and make a sash.  It shouldn’t be impossible because you are a carpenter and a really good one at that!  You care about people, you are committed to solving people’s problems, you show up when you say you will show up, do what you say you are going to do, have a good name. But the research you did left you hanging.  There are bits and tools you could use.  Stuff is kinda available and you did try. The learning curve is steep.  Yeah.  Making a sash is practically impossible.  

Wood Window Makeover Solved the Problem.

I once stood where you stand and feel your pain at the crossroads of an opportunity.  “If I could have made a sash, I’d have been fine, I’d have been a hero.  Instead I ended up burnt out and needing a break.  My helper quit because I could not afford to pay her because of the money I was losing over that deal.”  

Once upon a time I was working on a house full of windows – my very first house of windows as a matter of fact and I needed a sash.  I looked and looked thinking that surely someone somewhere knew something about window sashes.  After a few weeks went I finally found this guy named Ernie – a guy with a dusty little shop, projects scattered about the place and a layer of sawdust on everything.  “Yeah I can do it,” he answered in an old man’s crusty, smoke burned voice, “bring it in and leave it here and I’ll call you when it’s ready.” 

I was excited, but I’d have to board up the house for who knows how long, find other stuff to do in the meantime.  There was no telling when he’d actually do it and I’d get it back.  I was at the back of the line.  I thought I had a solution, but maybe not?

This was a problem.  Maybe that’s why people were coming by my project asking me why I wasn’t just replacing the windows – they had run into this before – no sash, no solution.  Empty holes, angry clients.  No answers and no way to take care of Mrs. Robinson, Mr. Smith or any other client. 

With my back against the wall I made a choice. If I was going to be forced to wait anyway, I’d use this as an opportunity and try to solve this problem.  If I could solve it for myself, I might solve it for other people too.  

How I Figured out the Sash Problem – Trial and Error

I bought a bit, a machine, a saw and poured over books.  I took sash apart and studied other sash, then put my head down and went to work.  Days, weeks or maybe a month later I had a sash and a solution.  I was slow but I got it done, a true to form mortise and tenon window sash. 

I’d found the answer to a problem every old house person had.  No more being forced to board up their window, go to Ernie and wait who knows how long.   My solution? I would be Ernie and instead of putting the client through what I was having to go through, I would do it all on their behalf – right there in front of them.  I could solve their problem in a way that nobody else could, faster than anyone could and do it in a way a client would pay for.  You need a sash?  No problem.  Coming right up.  

The Market for Historic Wood Window Carpentry

I did some research and counted up about 60,000 historic type houses with average of or 20 windows in the Tampa Bay area.  I could service their windows, tune them up and get them working again. If they had a sash that was bad or found a rotten sill, I’d have a solution right on the spot.  I wouldn’t have to break momentum, I could keep a predictable schedule and open a job, execute on it and close it out with momentum and efficiency.  I could bring people on to help me and train them in the repetitive tasks – they’d get better and faster and we could totally dominate this market.  

60,000 houses with 20 or more windows is 1.2 million windows.  An enormous number.  I made studying the historic wood window my #1 priority, reading everything I could get my hands on.  I would do windows for free, just for the experience. Over the last 20 years, I’ve solved problems, come up with systems, metrics, solutions, formulas and strategies and finally, a fresh perspective.  

I Laid Low for a Long Time

The business has expanded and contracted several times.  Every once in a while I’d try something new, follow someone else’s advice, things would go great for a while but it wouldn’t be right.  I’d get confused, shrink back down until I could do it better.  I’d try again.  The business would expand, take on a mind of its own and go crazy.  I’d contract back again because I had more work yet to do, still not understanding, still missing something.  Try this.  Try that.  Listen to this person.  Listen to that.  See what this person was doing, try what that person was doing, expand again, then contract.  Then I laid just low for a long long time. 

I thought, wrote and prayed for many years as I worked to figure out this business.  Many times I’d ask, “Dear Lord, what am I doing wrong?”  One day I stumbled across a thought I had written down and file away in the beginning.  The original plan was to take small, efficient teams to the people and every time I moved away from that I got into trouble.

I could hear God whisper in my ear – “Go back to the original plan. Take two or three people and solve this problem with the gift of sash making I gave you.  Bless others as I have blessed you.  Small teams, effective teams, low overhead teams, fast teams, amazing teams with amazing efficiency and momentum, serving people in a way nobody else can, then pass it on.  Yes, you’ve been in a desert, but it’s been to teach you the power of what you have, what I’ve given you.”  

Ready to Pass it On

What’s that original vision?  We call it the Total Window Makeover.  For a simple price we restore their window to what it once was, what it could have been, what it needs to be – all problems solved, no questions asked.  We can do this because we’ve mastered the sash and mastered what I now call the Pillars of Window Craft.  We are masters of Joinery, Carpentry and Finishing.  This is what I am called to do and to pass on to as many people as possible.  Does this sound interesting to you?

Just the other day we started two small window restoration projects.  One with eight windows, the other with five.  On the one with the 8 windows, all the sash were in great condition and we carried on like normal.  But on the five window project, only three out of 10 were usable.  We quickly made 7 sash and the momentum didn’t miss a beat.

At this point I’ve done that so many times I can’t count.  I’ve done it all over Tampa, San Antonio, Charleston, Atlanta, Jacksonville and so many other places.  I’ve proved the Total Window Makeover concept time and time again and I can prove it in your historic house community. 

The sash is the key.  It’s the solution that will keep our historic house communities alive and vibrant for years, decades, and centuries to come.  It’s the solution that makes a good carpenter better. It makes an Artisan a real hero, one with prestige and honor, one people speak well of, one with a good name.  

And that’s one thing we’ve been after all along – both you and I, the writer and the reader – having a good name.  Being able to walk tall, not like those who have to walk in the shadows, in obscurity, sneaking around in case the wrong person sees him.  Being one who doesn’t need to look over his shoulder.  Confident, Secure.  

Do you see a person skilled in his work?  He will stand before kings.  He will not stand before obscure men.  – Proverb of Solomon. 

So if this is you, if you can relate to this as an Artisan and a Craftsman, you are the one we are calling out to.  We have a business for you. 

The Window Craft Business is Perfect For…

• A carpenter who sees more than where he is right now.
• A carpenter who wants to have an abundance of meaningful work.
• A carpenter who doesn’t need to compete with anyone else
• A carpenter who knows what it means to serve a client with a job well done.
• A carpenter who believes in customer service
• A carpenter who knows about and believes in growing people
• A carpenter who wants to make and be a historic contribution
• A carpenter who wants to leave a legacy
• A carpenter who wants to really be a Carpenter. 

Opportunities to Join This Artisan Army Abound.  

• For those with little or no experience, and who want to grow out of relative obscurity into someone with honor and prestige, we have a long term apprenticeship program
• For those who are experienced carpenters (or painters, because both are needed) we have a fasttrack apprenticeship program. 
• For those who are leader and team builders, we have a programs that can help you put teams into qualifying historic house communities right away.  
• It all starts with our Total Window Makeover course or our Intro to Sash Making course.  
• Let us know if you want to know more.