About

I had a dream about ten years ago. It was one of those really vivid dreams right before you wake up in the morning. I was in my old shop in Redwood City California, assembling cabinets for a remodel I had been working on. Somebody walked by the open door and ask me what the name of my business was. I said, Knot Traditional Woodworks, without hesitation.

The name stuck with me for a long time, but I was sure that I had heard or read it somewhere. When I pulled up stakes and moved to Oregon, I decided that Clary Philipp Construction was history. I had to get a new contractor’s license and after searching domains for the name, I used it for my new business name.

I started working as construction laborer about 1976 and began to learn about carpentry and the construction trades. I was lucky that I was exposed to some very hot-set-up guys, and worked on really nice custom homes as well as commercial projects. I was always in over my head, but I worked hard, ask questions and was able to produce some nice work. I went to the library and read everything I could find on carpentry, cabinet building and woodworking. I read all the monthly woodworking magazines and discovered people like Sam Maloof and James Krenov.

In 1980, I studied for the California Contractor’s License test and passed it on the first try. It was not easy to get a license in those years. Again, I was in way over my head, but I was lucky, got some good jobs, worked with and for some great people.  In many ways I got paid to learn year after year.

Most of the things I learned about business, business administration, marketing, bookkeeping, taxes and customer service were very expensive lessons. I always went to the library and took out various books on woods of the world, art, advertising, welding, the electrical trades, manufacturing or anything that I wondered about. Sometimes it took me years to get through different book sections.

One can read everything there is to know about a subject but there is no substitute for experiential knowledge. In many ways I feel like I’m self taught. I have tried things and crashed and burned. I have tried again and succeeded… then crashed again. The more I know, the more there is to know.

My favorite quote:

“Success is 99% instructive failure.”

Soichiro Honda

I 2005, I built a small shop from a hollow shell here in Portland. My thinking was that I would probably never be able to retire.  I knew I couldn’t continue to do construction and remodeling carpentry. My body was giving out on me and as a contractor, I was not happy dealing with owners anymore. Unfortunately, I had work related accidents, motorcycle and car accidents. It took a long time but I was able to shake all that stuff off and forge ahead. I tried to narrow the focus of my jobs to finish carpentry and cabinet installation.

The only thing I didn’t see coming was the collapse of the economy. I could see myself in my seventies and eighties, still having enough juice about woodworking to be making sawdust every day. My decision to go out of the remodeling business was made for me. There is no work, so I’m trying to figure out a way to use the skill and knowledge I have accumulated in the last thirty five years.

In the early eighties, the third shop I had was in a two car garage in Mountain View, California. I built some cabinets for a remodel job and had the thought… Maybe I could have woodworking business!  I looked at other people I knew that had cabinet or millwork businesses and thought, I could do that too. But, I was still making good money as a contractor and I didn’t even know what I didn’t know.

Every time I had an idea for a wood product, I would try to make it in my spare time and see how I could sell it. Time after time, for years, I proved that I couldn’t make enough money as a woodworker to make a living.

Knot Traditional Woodworks is an experiment. I don’t have a better idea and don’t know what is going to happen. I started working in my Dad’s bakery when I was about seven years old and have always worked really hard. That is all I do know. We will see what happens.