plantation shutters continued

 

here you can see the set-up that i used to create the louvers of my interior shutters. basically I milled bass wood to wood 2.25" x 3/8". then I fed them thru the planer on the oak piece clamped to the planer bed (see pic). I had to run each piece first through the one groove on the oak piece and then on the other groove. thus giving me a diamond shaped louver.

Kidder Blaisdell is hiring

it has been so long since my last post. Many things have gone at the shop since then. perhaps the most notable is the new van. KBWC has purchased a new van for the first time in 12 years. We bought the same exact van, not to replace old reliable but to act as a back stop if the current van breaks down which could be anytime as it has 160k miles. It will take us a few weeks to get the van built out to meet our needs but that process has begun. I am going to set it up the same exact way. In a few photo's below you can see the van with the doors open and fully loaded. this past week the van has been in the welders shop getting a new bumper, it will look similar to the old one but with some modifications.

I feel very happy with where my company is right now. if you compare it to where we were just 3 years ago it is vastly different. As I have said before one of the things that we have done to combat this low profit environment is switch to cash. I don't mean deal in greenbacks. I mean we have started to pay as many vendors as possible on COD terms. this has helped put us in much better control of our cash. it is my goal to build up a cash reserve. I set out to do this at the beginning of 09. By looking at the balance sheet at end of 08 it was clear that the company was operating in the red. the balance sheet now has a much better look, our ratio of accounts payable to accounts receivable has done a complete 180. That ratio is a primary metric for me. since the end of 08 we have cut a debt by a little more than two thirds. If we can do that in a low profit environment than that gives me great optimism about how we will do in a high profit arena. Will that high profit time come again, i don't know. I remain skeptical, but someone corrected me recently about that and said Jeff, your not skeptical your just cautious. I like that yes I am cautious. Caution does not eliminate risk. With the contacts that I have developed over the past two years specifically I have put myself in a position to hire. I have posted an help wanted listing on Craigslist and had some very good feedback.