Craftsman's skills expand from construction experience

Tod Evans has carved out his own niche as a custom woodworker.

He lists his profession as "joiner," but some would say "artist" is closer to the mark.

Working out of a small shop in downtown Springfield, the 41-year-old Evans uses traditional carpentry tools and skills to create original designs in wood.

"He's an incredible craftsman," said Ed Powell, president of Herrman Lumber.

Early start

Evans' interest in woodworking began when he was 8 or 9 years old.

"My grandpa was a builder; my dad was a salesman who liked to tinker on the side. He'd rehab old furniture with his sister buy antiques, repair them and sell them so I got kind of curious at that stage."

However, he didn't really consider woodworking as a career option.

"I decided it was a fun hobby, which is how Dad looked at it, and I needed to have a vocation, so I joined the service," Evans said.

He was a paramedic in the Navy, but after four years he discovered that the politics of hospitals or "any kind of big business with top-heavy management; a hundred chiefs to two Indians" were not for him.

"So, I took off in the construction field," Evans said. He carried hod for bricklayers, did masonry, framing, "anything I could get a job at."

After working his way through the ranks, residential and commercial, "I ended up trimming high-end homes, and I was building things on the side just for friends and family furniture, picture frames, turning candle sticks," he said.

"I'd go cut rough lumber or trim to earn my money, then I'd come home and I'd work with whatever I could scrounge to make fun stuff. And it didn't take me too long to figure out I like making fun stuff a whole lot more than going up and down ladders."

The fun stuff

Evans, who's lived in the Ozarks since his family moved here when he was 12, switched to doing "the fun stuff" exclusively about 3 1/2 years ago. Primarily that means custom furniture jobs through the designers at Heritage House and through contacts at Herrman Lumber.

Contacts like Ed Powell.

"I built a new house a year ago, and he did a couple of antique replicas," Powell said. "I didn't want to buy an antique that was really priceless and cut it off and make a vanity out of it, and so I gave him a picture of one that I really liked and he copied it it was very difficult to do, to make it look old, and he did it the old craftsmanship way of dovetailing the drawers. It's just beautiful."

Some of Evans' current projects include a custom tour bus interior, a large entrance door for a friend, a solid cherry spice box, a cherry executive desk, a boardroom table for City Utilities and a solid mahogany entertainment center, which "will be all hand-cut dovetails and inlaid top and solid wood, no sheet goods whatsoever."

One of Evans' favorite projects is a table that now resides in the top-secret conference room at White Sands Missile Range.

"The general that I struck a deal with came up and he drew me a picture I want it 20 foot long, 7 foot at one end and 4 foot at the other, and I want to be able to slide a chair all the way around it, and make it look neat.' That was it."

The table, which can be viewed on his Web site at www.todevans.com, has no metal in it whatsoever. Completed in 1995 at a cost in excess of $15,000, the table can be assembled or disassembled with a wooden hammer.

Evans also does all the radius moldings used for arch-topped doors and windows for Herrman Lumber. "I make those on a production basis and sell them to Herrman; they order twice a year to keep their stock up."

The radius moldings are made primarily by machine, but the insides of the arches are all hand worked. Evans uses a curved plane, part of his extensive collection of hand planes, to smooth the inside surface.

"I found (it) to beat any modern tool for truing the inside of a radius," he said.

Evans' skills come from experience.

"I have absolutely no formal training," Evans said.

"Well," he amended, "I took high school shop. I learned mainly from the old men on job sites and books."

He buys "all the old books which are back in reprint if you follow the old methods of construction you're liable to be able to build something that will actually work and be around longer than you are, and you're not wasting the lumber."

Craftsman at work

Demand for Evans' skills is "not as high as I'd like, but higher than you'd think," he said.

"One of the good things about the hand-made furniture industry, most of my clients are not affected by the economic trends of the nation," Evans said. "Most of my clients are mostly business owners, doctors or lawyers."

What separates the custom-furniture client from the average consumer, he said, is knowledge.

"The more educated people get, the more they want something that's going to last for generations. If you can come up with a design that's timeless instead of a contemporary whimsical thing something that's built well and styled fairly simply it will be around for generations."

In terms of materials, "I try to only work with domestic hardwoods. On occasion I'll use mahogany, which is a classic wood and is time tested." While there are some beautiful import woods available, "I don't know enough about them to where I'd be comfortable putting them together and saying they're going to stay for a long time."

Evans makes his own knives for his molding machine, and his collection of traditional woodworking tools is monumental. He works at his craft seven days a week, but he doesn't mind the hours because he's doing what he loves.

"Sometimes you end up working for $4 an hour and other times you end up actually making what you advertise," Evans said. "I advertise that I work for $25 an hour shop time. I usually don't make that" after covering expenses.