My wife and I help Tim and his wife Lynn out in the booth at the shows they attend, York and the Big E. I also at times go to Tim's shop to give him a hand. As of now, he is 8 weeks backed up with order with more orders coming in almost daily. Some orders are for stock kit but most are for custom designed benchwork. All of his product (except hardware) is hand formed. Tim use to get his poplar wood rough sawn and he would plane it all down to size. Recently, to speed up production he now gets the leg stock (poplar) cut to size but in random lengths. He is also getting the MDF filler cut to width. The balance of his poplar, for the beams, now comes planned to size. He also recently move to a new shop and all of the machinery is dedicated to do a specific job in making the product. Him and his son Neal work some 50 hours a week making benchwork. Take for instance the beams. After the random width poplar stock is cut to width, it then goes thru a saw blade seven more times before it becomes an end block of a beam. It will also be drilled to accept a cam and drilled again to accept the pins used to hold the structure together. MDF has to be cut to length and hole punched. The spines of the beams have to be cut to width, length and the have a dado cut in them to accept the MDF which is then glued in. The end blocks are then glued and stapled to the assembly to make a finished beam. Leg stock has to be cut to length and drilled to accept the T nut for the leg levers. The tops have to go thru a shaper to make the octagonal tops and then be drilled with 24 (sometimes more) holes to accept the pins. All the hardware has to be counted out and separately bagged. Tim tries to ship a few orders everyday but rarely does he have enough inventory of product on his shelf to fill even a small stock order. Literally every component part of any benchwork order is built within the week the order is shipped. Tim is also personally answering all phone calls and replying to emails himself. He is drawing plans for layouts on his computer as well as making all the paper work needed to accompany the benchwork to the end user. Product has to be boxed and shipped. I was amazed to see how many times a component part of each assembly has to be handled by human hands to become a completed piece. Tim's product is very popular and of high grade as can be attested to all the positive responses on the forum.
Would be interested to hear back from you once you get your order and have put it together.
