It’s amazing what your questions have done for us at ToolCrib.com. Especially the ones we can’t answer.

Your questions have introduced us to the wider tool-using community, a group of kind and gracious people who are willing to offer their hard earned wisdom to folks who are following in their footsteps.

One such person is Michael Pleasant, or Obi as he posts in LumberJocks. I sent him an email interview recently to get a better understanding of how he thinks about his profession.

Be sure to check out Michael’s Atwater, California cabinetry site.

TC 1) Did you ever decide to be a professional woodworker or did it just happen?

Michael: My father was a carpenter and it just sort of happened. When I was looking for a job in my late thirties, a friend of mine needed a framing partner and it just took off from there

TC 2) Did you have a mentor?

Michael: Not really. In the construction industry everybody that knows more than you tends to be a mentor

TC 3) How long have you owned your own cabinetry shop?

Michael: I opened it in April of 2006

TC 4) Did you go “solo” all at once or in stages?

Michael: Unemployment happened all at once.

TC 5) What is your business’s “bread and butter?”

Michael: I’ve made more making cabinets than anything else, but one per household puts a limit on how many cabinets you can build, so I decided to go into custom furniture

TC 6) How does the web affect your business?

Michael: So far it hasn’t. All of my business so far has been word of mouth

TC 7) What are your hobbies besides woodworking?

Michael: I’m a computer Service tech so if I’m not in the shop, I’m at the computer

Thanks Michael, for giving us some insight into you and your woodworking business. If you’re in business for yourself, or just passionate about woodworking and stumbled upon us on the web we’d like to get to know you in an interview like this one. Send an email to GFrench@ToolCrib.com.