5 SC woodworkers who make unusual products, from joggling boards to hand-carved tables

Custom woodworking doesn’t always mean tables.

And South Carolina craftsmen have come up with some doozies. Sure, they can make tables, bed frames and chairs, but not everyone can make canoe paddles so pretty you’d want to hang it on your wall. Or baseball bats and rolling pins. How about a boggle board?

Here are five South Carolina woodworkers who offer more than a beautiful table or tables with a twist.

Carolina Custom Canoe Paddles, Walterboro

James Herndon has always been fascinated with boats. He made his first of plywood when he was 12 years old.

“They didn’t look very nice,” he said.

What does look nice are the paddles for canoes and stand-up paddle boards he makes when he’s not working his steady job as an automobile collision repairman.

He has made them for about 15 years of exotic hardwoods like bloodwood, red wood, maple and mahogany.

They range in price from $420 to $1,100.

If people recoil at the price — you can buy a standard paddle for $15 at Cabela’s — he just casually suggests they try to make one themselves.

“They get real quiet,” he said.

His stepson never finished the one he started.

And no one ever thought to take a Cabela’s paddle and hang it on the wall as they do with Herndon’s creations.

Landrum Tables, North Charleston

Capers Landrum Cauthen does make tables, but what’s so special about them is just about every one is made from reclaimed wood. Wood from century-old Charleston homes and businesses. Trees downed by hurricanes.

Not too long ago, he took the wood from the Charleston Visitors Center when the building was remodeled. Huge timbers that he used to make benches and tables for, you guessed it, furnishings for the center.

Cauthen’s father was the longtime director of the Historic Preservation Society of Charleston and the first professional curator of historic properties in Columbia, including the Hampton-Preston House and the Robert Mills House and was the designer of the Boyleston Gardens, separating the Lace House and the Boyleston House, now a part of the Governor’s Mansion complex.

His grandfather was an editor at The State and the Columbia Record, credited with coining the term Midlands, Cauthen said.

Capers Cauthen did home renovations initially. Then in 1989, Hurricane Hugo blew through the Lowcountry.

“It opened my eyes,” he said.

Now, Cauthen has pallets and pallets of reclaimed wood in his storage facility. And he claims to be able to find any specific species he needs for a project.

Split Woodworks, Greenville

Tim Martin, a high school baseball player, decided to make his own bat. Then he made one for every member of the team. Now at 24, he’s making rolling pins for television renovator Joanna Gaines’s Magnolia Shop and tables, desks and beds for a Charleston interior designer.

He makes cutting boards. He made a 10-foot-long table from teak. Doors, signs. A huge frame from a split tree — hence the business name — for a man who wanted to frame a very large flag, all by hand.

Operating from his garage, Martin relies on help from his parents and siblings to run the business.

His mother, Tina, says her son’s success is as much about attitude as it is about talent. He doesn’t say no. If someone asks for something he’s not made before he simply says he’ll try.

Bend of the River, Johns Island

Perry Gervais spent a career as an executive of a company that made asphalt shingles. It was OK, but when the company sold, Gervais decided he wanted to do something where he could see a project through to the end.

Woodworking fit the bill. His home place is along the Stono River in John’s Island — hence the name. His mother had wanted a joggling board for her porch for sometime. It was a hit. Other people wanted one.

Then he moved on to other products. Each one handcrafted. He makes sea chests, toolboxes, tables, benches and stools. And one of the more creative items is a rocking boat — like a rocking horse but a boat.

And he makes real boats — skiffs, for shrimping, fishing and, as he says it, playing in the creeks and rivers as he did as a boy and continues to do as a man.

“When I’m working I lose track of time,” he said. “It’s just a labor of love.”

Bricker & Beam, Columbia

Josh Cox learned woodworking as a child in his grandfather’s warehouse on Bricker Hill in Salem, Ohio. Now, he makes handcrafted tables and consoles that he ships around the world, to Australia and all across the United States.

His great-grandfather was a master woodworker as well.

Cox started Bricker & Beam about eight years ago and gets the word out about his work through social media, etsy and direct search on his website. He also works with interior designers.

For a time he had a spin-off business, Bricker & Bark, to make custom dog beds that often went to customers in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, making the shipping cost about half the price of the piece.

He said he’ll still make a dog bed if someone wants one, but that business is largely dormant.

Cox said he most enjoys making Mobley cabinets because he hand carves the fronts, using a special tool similar to something a metalworker would use.

“Woodworking is therapeutic,” he said. And at the end of a day, you have something to show for it.

On a personal note, Cox said he is getting ready to build a house on some land in Blythewood. He will make the cabinets from some white oak and cherry his grandfather has had for 20 years, when he hired Amish workers to thin trees on his property.

Cox was about 7 years old then. It was the moment he made the connection between trees, lumber and home products, setting the stage for Bricker & Beam.

This story was originally published May 6, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "5 SC woodworkers who make unusual products, from joggling boards to hand-carved tables."