PJ Fetscher is one of the only primary sawyers in southern Florida as well as an educator and custom furniture maker. He’s gone from picking up branches that could fit in the back of his truck to running a lumber yard and custom furniture business. Amazingly enough, it all started with a passion for looking at the inside of a tree.
PJ owns The Evolution of Tables and has been in business for nine years. What started as a hobby that got out of control has turned into this incredible multi-faceted company. His journey from hobbyist to professional and the equipment and dedication he started acquiring for woodworking he refers to as “a bit of a sickness, but a fun sickness”.
His first investment was a Granberg Alaskan Chainsaw Mill with a 16-inch bar but in hindsight that was really just the kiddie pool of mills for PJ. The next acquisition was an MS 880, the big dog chainsaw and finally a Lucas Mill. This was a big leap, but one PJ says was logical, he got comfortable on the small stuff, and it built confidence.
Nothing about milling is easy work and you can’t really comparison shop for a sawyer, so it’s frustrating to try and explain the cost to those who don’t understand this labour-intensive industry. PJ is fortunate that he gets to name his price for the most part, but also notes that he turns a lot of people away who don’t understand the cost breakdown of slabs.
Still, even with the frustrating parts of the industry, PJ loves what he does and always tries to evolve his craft. The best investment for The Evolution Of Tables, he says has to be the Lucas Mill.
There are different mentalities between Woodmizer users and Lucas Mill users, and PJ notes the benefits and downfalls of both saws. Ultimately the value for money has to go to the Lucas Mill. PJ did a lot of research into what he wanted to be creating and what was going to be the best machine for him and went back and forth a few times. With the Lucas Mill though, he’s able to cut much larger slabs than a standard 32 inch which was a critical decision point for him, that and the great attachments.
Since quarantine PJ has noticed an uptick in rough sawn slab sales because of people wanting to try DIY projects, he also mentions that about 70% of people he sells live edge material to end up coming back and asking him to finish the project. This again comes back to education; most people don’t know the skill, time, materials, equipment and effort that goes into making beautiful furniture.
Once they try it themselves, the thousand-plus dollar price tag doesn’t seem so high anymore.
Currently, PJ describes it as two different companies, running a lumber yard and also a custom furniture business. Sometimes he can get pulled in a lot of different directions, but he’s staying busy and loves it. He even does some milling services. People will call if they want lumber milled from a sentimental tree, for example.
Even though he can sometimes end up with too much on his plate or complicated projects, he knows that he needs to make sure the frustration never comes to the customers’ experience. For his customers, it’s a unique thing getting to have a custom table designed, and from them picking out the tree or slab all the way through to the finished product PJ makes a great experience the priority.
He describes the philosophy as similar to the one he has for teaching for his woodshop, biology and weight training classes. You can’t phone in a year, because for that group of kids that is the only year you have to reach them, and it’s the same with a project for a customer. Even if it’s PJ’s hundredth table, it’s often their first, and that’s always exciting.
PJ has some great ideas that would change the world, focused around sequestering carbon and education! He would like to see a program where the municipalities let local urban woodworkers remove trees that need to be taken down. Then they would teach kids at the local schools about where the trees came from, the environmental harm if they are left to rot, be chipped or burn, and then the techniques used to turn them into lumber and furniture.
For more information, check out.
@PJ_Fetscher on Instagram
And The Evolution of Tables on Facebook