Master woodworker Fred Phillips has been involved in his trade for over 50 years, labouring away as the industry changed around him.

It isn't a trade for anybody wanting to get rich. In fact, as Mr. Phillips has found it, pieces, once sold, are worth more to the eventual owners than the makers who spent months making the piece.

Mr. Phillips was demonstrating his work at the Folklife Festival at the Botanical Gardens last weekend where he was finishing off a cedar chair.

He was asked many questions about his trade.

"The ones who were interested, for the most part, were the middle-aged to elderly," he recalled.

"They are the ones who really start to appreciate furniture, I guess."

Mr. Phillips doubts if many young people will take up the trade, which he thinks requires a natural gift, much like an artist.

"I would say they are born, just like artists are," he believes.

"I don't see young people taking it up if they are interested in getting rich, but there are always people who are fascinated by it and are willing to do it just like artists who starve to do their thing.

"It is a difficult business to be in, you can only work as fast as your hands will allow you to go and no matter what I make it can be manufactured.

"In this day and age anything I would make is manufactured at far less than I can produce it. So it has to be made in some sort of unique way to make it appealing to people who can afford to pay for it."

Mr. Phillips says no two of his pieces are identical, which adds to its value... and cost. Plus the most sought after pieces have to be made with the type of wood - cedar - that is the hardest to work with.

"Being a Bermudian and never living anywhere else, I would say I worked about 90 percent on cedar," he revealed.

"But on the few occasions I have worked with other woods, they are easier to work with, definitely. The oaks, mahogany and the walnuts are far more forgiving. Cedar is a hard wood to work with, the grain is crazy and at this stage of the game it is all pretty much rotted out and you have to deal with cracks and rot.

"You have to patch up holes and you are dealing with wood that, if it was still in abundance, you would discard. It is so rare you have to make do with what you have."

He added: "There are people who are connoisseurs of the handmade items and I've been doing the type of work I do now for 25 to 30 years.

"I used to do general carpentry and I gradually specialised to the point where I don't do anything but. And I never make anything identical. Whoever buys it has a unique piece, which is quite appealing to the type of people who are interested.

"I just had a piece of my work sell last month at an auction and it sold for a great deal more than what it cost to make when I made it for the original owners 18-20 years ago."

As it is with valuable works of art, the owner, not the artist, is the one who benefits from the appreciation of the piece.

"The most famous cabinet makers, especially the American ones going back to the 18th and 19th century, if you read into their history a lot of them at the end of their careers were in debt," he stated.

"And yet those pieces sell for millions. It's not an encouraging business to go into if you are looking for money, only if you are looking for satisfaction. There are always people willing to make that sacrifice."

Mr. Phillips had worked on woodwork of some sort since he left school 55 years ago.

"I worked on boats, the souvenir business, kitchen cabinets, construction...you name it, I've done it," he says.

"I've made cradles, cedar chests, bookcases, music stands. If it is in wood I'll give it a go. My workshop is on my home property, but I have a showroom on Stadium Lane called the Woodworker's Bench. That's only open Thursday afternoons and Saturday afternoons, the rest of the time I'm in my workshop."

Mr. Phillips thinks people will also be attracted to the business, if only as a hobby.

"I don't think it will be a viable business, but I'm sure there will always be people who will do it," he says.

"In some cases it will be people who have been successful in something else like accounting who, when they get to the end of that career, will do it.

"I've met so many wealthy people who are amateur wood workers and they have a workshop in their home for a hobby that would put mine to shame. And some of them are very, very good. It's an addiction, once it gets in your blood you can't stop!"