In a fast-food, get-it-done world, the craftsman”™s progress has been largely eliminated. Which makes a conversation with Randy Scully a fortifying experience, harking to good, solid things made by hand with skills gleaned over a lifetime. Scully may not win the battle against mass production, but he will at least make a liar of anyone who says everything made today is crap.
“I”™m living the dream,” Scully, 38, says. “It”™s nice to know you can do that and provide a living for yourself and for others.”
The others are his like-minded staff of Lee Stehly, Eric Hanson and Bill West: all craftsmen in their own rights. Anne Treasure ”“ “And she truly is a treasure,” Scully says ”“ keeps the Peekskill-based R.P. Scully Furniture running.
Scully”™s journey to his 4,000-square-foot workshop began as a teenager. He lent a hand when contractors worked on his family”™s New Jersey home, caught the bug and on his 16th birthday he began working at what would become his calling.
But life isn”™t Hollywood; dues must be paid. Seated beneath the crown of a grandfather clock he has been working on for two years ”“ a planned gift for his parents ”“ he recalls his first professional task was the itchy grunt-work of insulation. “And I made the mistake of not washing my clothes that night. The second day was miserable.”
Dual degrees in psychology and studio art from Lake Forest College in Illinois led to stints in the world of Manhattan business, first in shipping and then on Wall Street ”“ experiences that he says remain important to him today as a businessman. To keep up his calluses, he escaped city life on the weekends to build things in his parents”™ garage: “Beds and Adirondack chairs mostly.”
His avocation soon got the better of him and he went to Massachusetts to study furniture making at William B. Sawyer Inc. There, he learned about scale, construction and even promotion. Perhaps the most important aspect was mastering joinery, the mechanics of which remain the same as when it was practiced by masters in centuries past, even if some of the tools are different.
Since 1999, R.P. Scully Furniture has been ensconced on North Division Street, first in a 2,200-square-foot space in the Hat Factory Complex and, since 2000, across the alley in its current spot.
Scully and his crew work mostly with mahogany, walnut, cherry and several varieties of maple: bird”™s-eye, tiger and quilted. He brings obvious talent to the battleship-sturdy workbenches in the shop, but humility, as well.
“We”™re a team,” he says, noting he is currently floating between projects each of his employees is running. Hanson is a boat builder, at the moment hand-sanding a starburst of dark-hued wood. Stehly is a Brooklynite from a long line of craftsman who is turning out a “chevalet de marqueterie,” a device for cutting thin layers of veneer that, when stacked on each other, become woodwork as envisioned by Michelangelo. Stehly is a graduate of the American School of French Marquetry. West, an Englishman, is also the product of a long line of craftsman, now keeping the tradition alive in the Colonies.
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The workshop is a wonder: 62 vises ”“ technically K-body clamps ”“ hang from an A-frame rack just across from eight sash clamps and 14 bar clamps that hang on the wall. This is the room where furniture is made.
An adjacent room hosts 16 major pieces of power equipment, some, like a pair of table saws and a drill press, would be familiar to students who took shop in high school. Others, like a sideways-facing router, are so bizarre as to require a five-minute explanation. Vacuum hoses snake to the ceiling to keep dust to a minimum. These are machines that could eat an arm up to the elbow quicker than you could say, “Hit the off switch.” And Scully knows it. He”™s like a kid with toys showing off the safety mechanism built into one saw that will shut it down instantaneously if the blade comes in contact with human flesh (or any conductive material).
“We emphasize safety,” he says. “It helps me sleep at night. The keys to my business are my employees and making sure they don”™t get hurt.”
Scully”™s shop produces between five and 10 pieces of furniture per month, selling them the length of the East Coast, mostly via word-of-mouth. “About 70 percent of our business is return clients,” he says.
Beds and chests of drawers are his most popular products. It takes 45 to 80-plus hours to make beds the Scully way; they sell for $4,000 to more than $8,000. Chests require a minimum 50 hours work and sell for between $5,000 and more than $10,000. Blanket chests are popular, too, selling for about $2,000.
Furniture quality changed ”“ some would say for the worse ”“ around 1839 when large factories began churning out what had previously been made slowly and by hand. Scully”™s toolbox reflects that pre-1839 world, featuring 35 to 40 gouges of differing radii and a like army of “skews,” angled carving tools for tight spaces. His team often carves monograms into headboards and chests, though they call in a specialist for pineapples, which are always popular as age-old symbols of hospitality.
“It”™s a lot of things,” Scully says of the reason he makes things so meticulously. “It”™s something about creating a product and seeing that product come to life ”“ it”™s fulfilling.”
The Web site is www.rpscullyfurniture.com.
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