Can You Make a Living from Woodturning? The Reality of Turning a Hobby into a Business
Can you make a living from woodturning? The short answer is yes, but it's certainly not easy.
There are some very successful professional woodturners here in Ireland and around the world and I admire them all for their dedication to the craft.
Some produce beautiful artistic pieces, others concentrate on practical everyday products, while many combine their woodturning with teaching, demonstrations or selling equipment.
One thing I can assure you of is that the successful ones work extremely hard at what they do.
I've been running my own woodturning business in County Kerry, Ireland, since 2015, and I've learned that there's an enormous difference between enjoying woodturning as a hobby and depending on it to help pay the bills.
If you're considering taking your woodturning further, there are a few realities worth understanding before you make that decision.
Learning to Turn Is Only the Beginning
Woodturning has a very steep learning curve, and there's no getting around that.
When you first start turning, everything is exciting. You make your first successful bowl, pen or decorative piece, and there's a tremendous sense of satisfaction in creating something with your own hands.
Eventually, you might start thinking about selling your work.
Your first sale is a wonderful feeling. Someone has looked at something you've made and decided it's worth spending their hard-earned money on.
That's a tremendous confidence boost, particularly for someone who has only recently taken up woodturning.
But making something that looks attractive and making something efficiently, consistently and profitably are entirely different challenges.
As a hobbyist, you can spend an entire day making one bowl and enjoy every minute of it. As a professional, you have to consider whether that bowl will sell for enough money to justify the time involved.
That's where the realities of running a business begin to creep in.
If you're still developing your skills, I've written separately about whether you should teach yourself woodturning or take lessons, including how taking tuition helped me overcome some of my own early mistakes.
Access to Wood Can Make or Break Your Business
One of the biggest considerations when turning wood professionally is your supply of wood.
If you're fortunate enough to have access to greenwood from local tree surgeons, landowners or other sources, you may have an advantage over someone who has to purchase every turning blank.
However, free wood doesn't necessarily mean free materials.
Logs have to be collected, transported, processed and stored. Depending on what you're making, some may need to be cut into blanks and dried for months or even years before they're suitable for use.
You'll also lose some timber along the way through splitting, movement, decay or other defects.
Then there's the question of space.
You might need somewhere to process freshly cut logs, a suitable area for drying timber, storage for seasoned blanks and enough room to keep everything organised.
And that's before you consider the workshop itself.
A woodturner with a reliable supply of timber, proper drying facilities and a good stock of ready-to-turn wood is in a very different position from someone purchasing individual blanks whenever an order comes in.
Having wood available isn't the same as having wood ready to use.
That's a distinction many beginners won't appreciate until they've been turning for a while.
I've covered the practical side of this in my guide, How to Process Logs for Woodturning, including preparing freshly cut timber and getting it ready for turning or storage.
Your Workshop Needs to Support Production
You don't need an enormous workshop or several expensive lathes to become a professional woodturner.
However, your equipment and workspace need to suit the type and quantity of work you intend to produce.
If you're making products commercially, efficiency becomes increasingly important.
Having enough lathes, suitable turning tools, sharpening equipment, bandsaws, sanding facilities and storage can make a considerable difference to your output.
A hobbyist might be perfectly happy to spend time changing equipment around or preparing materials for the next project.
When you're trying to make a living, those little interruptions can add up to hours of lost production time over the course of a week.
You also need space for work in progress, finished products, packaging materials and stock awaiting sale.
It's surprisingly easy for a workshop to become overwhelmed when you're producing more than an occasional piece.
And don't forget that every machine, tool and piece of equipment represents money that has to come from somewhere.
Pricing Your Woodturning Is One of the Hardest Decisions
How much should you charge for something you've made?
It's a question nearly every woodturner asks when they begin selling their work.
Price your products too cheaply and you might make plenty of sales without earning enough to cover your costs.
Price them too highly and you could find yourself sitting on a workshop full of stock that nobody wants to buy.
Somewhere between those two extremes is a price that customers are willing to pay and that allows you to make a reasonable return on your work.
Finding that price isn't always straightforward.
You have to consider the cost of wood, abrasives, finishes, electricity, equipment, packaging and the time it takes to produce the piece.
Then there are the costs that are easily overlooked, such as maintaining your website, processing orders, photographing products, administration and dealing with customers.
And what about the hours spent sourcing timber, preparing blanks or cleaning the workshop?
They might not be directly chargeable to a particular product, but they're still part of running the business.
Selling a bowl for €50 doesn't mean you've earned €50.
Until you've worked out what it actually costs to produce and sell something, you won't know whether you're making a profit.
Pricing handmade products is something I've struggled with myself over the years. I've written a separate guide on my David Condon Finds blogsite, How to Price Your Craft Products Properly (Without Undervaluing Your Work), where I look more closely at production costs, working hours, profit margins and some of the pricing mistakes I've made along the way.
Craft Markets Can Be a Harsh Introduction to Selling
One of the first places many woodturners try selling their work is at a local craft market.
It's understandable. I have done this myself.
You've built up a collection of products, you're proud of what you've made, and a market seems like the perfect opportunity to introduce your work to potential customers.
Sometimes it works out very well.
Other times, you can spend an entire day standing behind a table and sell practically nothing.
I've experienced both the excitement of making sales and the disappointment of returning home with almost everything I brought.
And I can tell you that the disappointment is considerably harder to accept when you've spent days or weeks preparing stock.
There are stall fees to consider, travelling expenses, packing and unpacking, setting up your display and the hours spent attending the event. As well as the time spent making the products, many people forget about this part when they start at markets.
Even if you make a few sales, you may discover that you've earned very little once all those costs are taken into account.
A particularly disappointing market can make you question your products, your prices and sometimes even your decision to sell your work in the first place.
But poor sales don't automatically mean your work isn't good enough.
You could be attending the wrong market, attracting the wrong customers or selling products that people admire but aren't prepared to purchase. Your point of sale preparation may also need work, this is generally something you can't see by yourself.
Learning the difference between all these is part of becoming a businessperson rather than simply a woodturner.
Making Products and Finding Customers Are Two Different Jobs
You might be an exceptionally talented woodturner, producing beautiful pieces with excellent finishes and great attention to detail.
Unfortunately, that doesn't guarantee that anyone will buy them.
Customers have to discover your work before they can purchase it.
That might involve attending markets, approaching retailers, creating a website, managing social media or building relationships with returning customers.
Every one of those activities takes time away from the lathe.
If you're selling online, you'll also need product descriptions, photographs, suitable packaging and a reliable way of getting your orders to customers.
You become responsible for far more than producing woodturning.
You're the maker, salesperson, photographer, stock controller, packer, administrator and customer service department.
For a small independent business, many of those jobs fall to the same person.
And while you might enjoy spending eight hours at the lathe, you may find that running a business leaves you considerably less time to actually turn wood.
Can You Rely on Woodturning Sales Alone?
This is something worth considering carefully.
Some professional woodturners concentrate on producing and selling their own work, while others develop several sources of income around their skills. I am in that category and have branched my business much further than most woodturners.
Woodturning tuition, demonstrations, commissioned pieces, tools, finishing products and related supplies can all contribute to a business.
Having more than one source of income may help when sales of finished products are slow.
However, each additional activity brings its own responsibilities, costs and demands on your time.
Teaching, for example, requires patience, preparation and the ability to explain techniques safely and clearly. Being a skilled woodturner doesn't automatically make someone a good teacher. I had to work hard in the beginning to learn how to teach effectively.
Similarly, selling tools or supplies involves purchasing and managing stock, dealing with suppliers and looking after customers.
There's no single business model that works for every woodturner.
Much depends on your skills, available space, finances, the products you want to make and the customers you're hoping to reach.
Don't Confuse Sales with Success
One of the biggest mistakes any small business can make is measuring success purely by how much money comes through the door.
You might have a particularly busy month, sell plenty of products and feel that everything is going wonderfully. The flip side of that is the disastrous month when sales plummet and you're left carrying the can. We call that feast or famine in Ireland, a very appropriate saying indeed.
And even during those busy months, if your material costs, overheads and working hours have increased along with your sales, you might not be earning very much at all.
There's a world of difference between turnover and profit.
You also have to consider what your time is worth.
If you're working long days, seven days a week, simply to generate enough income to keep the business going, you need to ask whether that arrangement is sustainable.
A successful woodturning business should eventually provide a reasonable return for the effort, investment and risks involved.
And ideally, you should still be enjoying at least some of the work that encouraged you to start turning in the first place.
What Happens When You Can No Longer Work?
There's another side of self-employment that rarely gets discussed when people consider turning their hobby into a career.
What happens if you become ill, have an accident or suddenly find yourself unable to work?
When you're self-employed, particularly if you operate a small business entirely on your own, there may be nobody available to take over. Production can stop overnight, orders may go unfulfilled and your income can disappear almost immediately.
Unfortunately, the bills don't stop arriving just because you can't work.
I recently experienced this first-hand following a serious health scare. I was advised to rest and avoid working in my workshop for six weeks. Under normal circumstances, you'd hope to put everything aside and concentrate entirely on recovering.
However, the financial reality of being self-employed meant that wasn't quite so straightforward.
Without the financial assistance I needed during this period, I found myself having to reopen my website shop and accept orders again, despite being advised to rest. Thankfully, I was able to manage some lighter orders, with assistance where necessary, while remaining away from the workshop.
It's not an ideal situation, but it's a reality that many self-employed people will recognise.
When you're considering a career in woodturning, it's easy to concentrate on the exciting possibilities. Making your own products, becoming your own boss and earning money from something you genuinely enjoy doing.
What you might not think about is how vulnerable that business becomes if you're suddenly unable to work.
Having some financial reserves, understanding what supports or insurance may be available and planning for unexpected interruptions are just as important as buying equipment or developing your skills.
You might be a brilliant woodturner with a workshop full of equipment and years of experience, but none of that guarantees an income when you're unable to stand at your lathe.
Being your own boss offers a great deal of freedom, but it also means carrying responsibilities that don't disappear when life takes an unexpected turn.
So, Is Becoming a Professional Woodturner Worth It?
That depends entirely on what you want from woodturning.
If you love spending time at the lathe and occasionally selling a few pieces to cover your hobby expenses, you might be perfectly happy keeping things exactly as they are.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But if your ambition is to earn a living from woodturning, you need to approach it as a business from the beginning.
Develop your skills, understand your costs, think carefully about your products and work out how you intend to reach your customers.
Consider your access to wood, workshop space, equipment and the money you'll need to keep everything running.
And most importantly, don't expect immediate success.
Building a reputation, developing a range of products and finding reliable customers can take years.
There are professional woodturners who have built successful careers from their craft, but behind their finished products are countless hours of hard work, preparation, practice and business decisions that customers will never see.
Can you make a living from woodturning? Absolutely.
But the ability to turn a beautiful piece of wood is only one part of the equation.
The real challenge is learning how to turn that ability into a sustainable business.
And that's a skill that can take just as long to develop as woodturning itself.
If you're interested in learning more about woodturning, from choosing tools and working with timber to workshop setup and developing your skills, you'll find plenty more practical advice in my Woodturning Guides & Articles section, based on my own experience over the years.
Thanks for Reading,
David
P.S. If you found this article useful and you're a member of a woodturning forum, club or discussion group, you're very welcome to share it there if it's relevant to a conversation. It may help another turner too. You can share this post using the three dots at the top of the page, or directly from the Blog list page.
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About the Author
I’m David Condon, a woodturner and small business owner based in Tralee, Co. Kerry. I’ve been working with wood for most of my life at this stage — 11 years as a carpenter and over a decade running my own woodturning business.
Over the years, I’ve learned that woodturning is as much about patience and problem-solving as it is about tools and technique. I work mainly with Irish hardwoods, teach woodturning full-time, and spend most days learning something new in the workshop myself. On this site, I share the same practical knowledge I pass on to my students, shaped by experience, mistakes, and time spent at the lathe. If you’re interested in learning in person, I offer woodturning lessons in Tralee, with details available on my Woodturning Tuition page.
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More Woodturning Pages to Explore
● Hampshire Sheen - Fine Finishing products that will highlight your project pieces
● Hamlet Tools - Fantastic Woodturning Tools from a well trusted brand
● Woodcraft Hub - View my woodcraft creations for inspiration of gift buying.
● Sanding Essentials - Essential sanding products for Woodturners & Woodworkers.
● Woodturning Blanks - A fine range of Hardwood Spindle Blanks & a few Bowl Blanks too!
● Woodturning Pen Blanks - A huge assortment of Acrylic & Irish Hardwood Pen Blanks.
● Crafter's Haven – A vast range of craft supplies for crafters and gift givers!
Original content © David Condon Woodcraft — Written by David Condon. Please credit and link if shared.
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