It Is Official

I have a signed contract with the person who will be the new maker of The BoardSMITH cutting boards. A lot here will know him or at least know his own brand of cutting boards. Once all the equipment has been picked from the shop I will travel to his shop to teach him how I make boards and he has agreed to change his style to more reflect how I produce boards. I know he will do a good job and continue to keep the quality as high as possible.

Drum roll please.......................................................................................The new owner of The BoardSMITH is............................

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John Loftis of Lone Star Artisans. I look forward to working with John and I have every confidence in his ability and craftsmanship.

Best of luck to both of you.

Congratulations to you both. Is John a current member here?

Congrat's on finding a buyer you could trust. That's got to be a weight off you shoulders.

chinacats said:

Congratulations to you both. Is John a current member here?

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I don't think that John is a member here, yet. However, I will continue to maintain the sub-forum here and will either work as an announcer for John or allow him to use my place to post occasionally. Whatever the case, John will be the face of The BoardSMITH and I will work to help him as I can.

this is such a great news! Congrats to both of you.

I am glad that you found a solution that you are happy with - long live BoardSMITH cutting boards

Hello everyone. I have a message from John Loftis about the ownership transition. If you have any questions please contact either one of us.

Hi folks! I just wanted to pop in here and introduce myself. I couldn't be more excited about getting to carry on David's tradition of quality in crafting butcher block. We're going to work together in my shop in Dallas to make a batch of cutting boards in a week or two, and this will give me a great chance to learn some of the finer points of his techniques. We've made something north of 15,000 cutting boards between us, so it will be really fun to compare notes.

I view my role as a "steward" of the business rather than an "owner", and I'm going to do my best to maintain continuity in the look and feel of the Boardsmith's boards.

Within the next 3 weeks, I'd like to make it possible to order directly on David's website again. Some time after that, my goal will be to stop selling butcher block on my website and funnel that instead to the Boardsmith.

As we navigate this transition, we'll both be really grateful for your support, advice, and encouragement along the way!




John Loftis | President
Tel 469.387.8581
4521 Fremont Lane | Plano, TX 75093
www.lonestarartisans.com

Nice to hear that.

What about the orders we placed long time ago ?

I'm waiting for more than a year now :what:

Kind Regards from germany

Patrick

Good luck to you John. Dave is well liked and we appreciate your part in this transition. Looking forward to seeing your extended product line.

Welcome John! I looked at your website and the boards looked nice, however I do have one question - of course! Will you now be gluing up your boards so that the joints don't line up, like David did?

I am sure the transition will be a real PITA so good luck with that:biggrin:

I'm reactivated! I wrote a long post yesterday but I think it will be forever lost in the interwebs.

I joined the KKF after some brave forum members took a chance on me and bought my butcher block while I was still making it out of my garage. I will forever be grateful for that, because they provided a real boost for me when I was just starting out and starving to death. When I landed on the forums, it was pretty intimidating. Few punches pulled; lots of strong opinions about everything. One consistent refrain, however, was the quality of David's stuff.

In 2012, I finally got a chance to review some examples of BoardSMITH butcher block in person. And I was forced to make an awful admission: his stuff was better than mine. I HATED making that admission, because I take craftsmanship really seriously. But it was there, so I owned it. I'm a better craftsman today than I was then, and I hope I'll continue getting better over the years.

As Dave and I work together, we will compare notes on a bunch of things. I expect a healthy back and forth between two guys who know what they're doing. I've been really fortunate over the course of my career, because I've had a number of extremely talented woodworkers (most of whom have lots of grey hair) mentor me along the way. But after making thousands of cutting boards, there really hasn't been anyone for me to compare notes with... until now. So this is going to be really fun. I have no doubt we'll disagree on some stuff, and teach each other some new stuff.

That said, my plan will be to maintain the look and feel of Dave's Boards, so I'll migrate towards the Carolina Slab style of crafting butcher block. I'd like for someone who compares a 2 year old BoardSMITH board not to be able to tell the difference between that and a brand new BoardSMITH board. As they say in the South, "If it ain't broke..."

Ok, time to help 3 ankle biters cook a Mother's Day breakfast for their well-deserving momma! More to come soon.

BTW, if you want David and I to make you a butcher block while he's with me in Dallas, we'd be happy to do that for you. We've probably got the extra bandwidth together to make a dozen or so. Contact either one of us to place your order.

Best,
John

If you are going to be working out of Dallas will you have a place to view and purchase boards directly? I am in the DFW area. I am not in the market right now, but I always lust after the large end grains. One day I would like to upgrade from my edge grain and would love to check out the different sizes and materials in person.

Hi KC, give me a call any time and I'd be happy to show you what I've got. We don't have a retail store, but at any given time I'll have 50-100 cutting boards in inventory and you are welcome to come pick from among them.

Now THAT would be something to be able to do!

John Loftis said:

Hi KC, give me a call any time and I'd be happy to show you what I've got. We don't have a retail store, but at any given time I'll have 50-100 cutting boards in inventory and you are welcome to come pick from among them.

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Awesome, thanks so much. I will have to take you up on that when I am ready to upgrade.

Busy week!!!!! John and I have been working in his shop all week, I was showing him my methods and he was working hard learning and looking for ways to make the boards better. We have made several and John will be shipping those the their new owners very soon.

John and his wife are terrific people and I look forward to working with them in the future and seeing what they come up with as new and better offerings. Watch the web site, John will be updating it soon. He has been making many changes this week so if it looks like he might be a little slow, please be patient. Not only has he been dealing with me and my methods, he purchased a large piece of equipment that has been giving him fits since it was delivered. I expected it to require some small tweaks but nothing like what if is requiring. As well John will be altering his shop to change it from a custom shop to a production shop which is no small task. But I believe he is up to the task and will be a superb owner of The BoardSMITH name.

good luck with the transition. i'm looking forward to the new products coming on the market.

The BoardSMITH said:

Busy week!!!!! John and I have been working in his shop all week, I was showing him my methods and he was working hard learning and looking for ways to make the boards better. We have made several and John will be shipping those the their new owners very soon.

John and his wife are terrific people and I look forward to working with them in the future and seeing what they come up with as new and better offerings. Watch the web site, John will be updating it soon. He has been making many changes this week so if it looks like he might be a little slow, please be patient. Not only has he been dealing with me and my methods, he purchased a large piece of equipment that has been giving him fits since it was delivered. I expected it to require some small tweaks but nothing like what if is requiring. As well John will be altering his shop to change it from a custom shop to a production shop which is no small task. But I believe he is up to the task and will be a superb owner of The BoardSMITH name.

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This is good news David for those out there looking for high quality end grains.