CARTHAGE, Mo. —
It’s surprising sometimes what a simple request can lead to. In the case of Bud Haffner, a request from his daughter has turned into a lucrative retirement opportunity for him.
Haffner, of Carthage, said he had been looking for something to fill his time after retiring from a 42-year career with Flex-O-Lators. He had always had an interest in woodworking, and he had built an outbuilding with enough space in which to park his farm equipment, and a large shop for his woodworking tools, which include a router, jigsaw, plater and drill press.
In the well-equipped shop, he not only made Hot Wheels display stands for his grandsons’ collections, he also built the cabinets for the new home he and his wife, Linda, were constructing. One day, his daughter, Kristi Haskew, showed him a photograph and asked, “Dad, can you make one of these?”
It was a soap cutter that she wanted for the homemade soaps she produces and sells. Haffner said he made the first one out of pine and other soft woods, and it fell apart fairly quickly after a little use. He refined the design and upgraded the components into a quality product that he thought he might be able to sell online.
He put the soap cutter on Etsystet, an online site that is dedicated to homemade products and cottage industries. In less than a week, he had an order from an Oklahoma City soap maker. Then a woman in California who makes soap as a sideline contacted him for a custom cutter.
“She was as excited as heck to get a customized size,” Haffner said. It was a good contact because the woman, who owns a corrugated cardboard business, started promoting Haffner’s soap cutter on YouTube.
“She’s really helped,” he said. Sales have grown steadily since his first two orders in February. He sold more than 25 this past month. “You wouldn’t believe the people that are out there selling their own soap,” he said.
He has shipped his soap cutters to Canada, Denmark, Greece, Australia and Ireland. A woman from Ireland told him: “Roll up your sleeves. I’m getting ready to tell all the soap makers over here about you.”
He makes two models of his soap cutter, both shown on the Etsy site and each selling for $139, plus shipping. The cut size of the soap is either an inch or 1.5 inches thick.
The oak and Baltic birch wood components are purchased from Wise Hardwood in Wentworth, the high density polyethylene from a Joplin company, and the guitar strings that cut through the soap from a Kansas City store. Only the tuners, which adjust the tension on the guitar strings, are from Hong Kong, so it is primarily a “made in America” product. Three coats of polycrylic finish protect the wood pieces.
Haffner spends anywhere from 10 to 30 hours per week in his shop, depending on his orders. He doesn’t have to be confined to the shop though, since Etsy will notify him on his iPhone when an order comes in.
When he’s out on Stockton Lake fishing for crappie, and a “ch-ching” on his phone tells him he has an order, “It’s so much fun,” Haffner said. “I kind of just fell into this.“
He probably will be equally as happy when his daughter displays her handmade soaps at the Farm Girl Fest at Red Oak II this weekend, Oct. 6-7, knowing that they are so finely cut.
Address correspondence to Jo Ellis, c/o The Joplin Globe, Box 7, Joplin, MO 64802 or email news@joplinglobe.com.
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