Danish Oak expands staff, equipment

Exactly 20 years after opening a furniture refinishing and restoration business in downtown Hampton, Dane Schafer and his family are celebrating success while also announcing exciting changes.
Danish Oak has evolved into everything the young entrepreneur could have imagined, he observed looking back, and is now on the brink of significant growth.
“We opened on July 1st, 20 years ago, so this is kind of a big year for us,” Schafer began. “Looking back at where we started and how naive we were, success was the only option, I guess. I don’t know how we got where we are besides all the long list of people that I need to thank for getting us here.”
Danish Oak debuted in 2004 with Schafer, a 2001 Aurora High School grad who had operated a part-time furniture restoration business before a stint in the military, offering a full range of furniture refinishing and construction services. 
“We started out doing a lot of small custom cabinets, a lot of entertainment centers, fireplace mantles, little kitchen island cabinets and things like that,” he recalled. “That led us into the cabinet shop, which is where we always wanted to be, but starting out there wasn’t feasible.”
Looking back, Schafer said the original Danish Oak shop on 3rd Street covered 765 sq. ft. In 2008, he purchased that main space from Fred and Ann Heiden, and in 2012 he added 1,500 sq. ft. on the back of the existing shop for a finishing area and much-needed storage. Three years later, Schafer and his wife Jennifer, co-owner, purchased a building across the alley which would become the home of Premier Finishing Solutions, and in 2016 they bought empty lots next door to the finish building for future expansion.
Those expansion plans are looking more necessary every day based on changes and additions made in the past few months alone. The Schafers welcomed their son Drake, a May graduate of the Building Construction Technology program in Milford, to the staff in June, while also purchasing several key pieces of equipment.
“Drake has actually been working for us part-time for the past six years, every summer and then throughout the school years whenever he could,” Dane said. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in him. He knows how we do things and that’s really great.”
The youngest Schafer said he is excited to shift into a full-time role with the family business, hoping to bring new energy and ideas to the table.
“The business started the same year I was born, so I’ve seen it grow from nothing to this,” Drake said. “I think it’s good to get me back and see how big we can get it.”
Some of the training Drake received at Milford involved a CNC machine, which both father and son realized could open new doors of opportunity for Danish Oak. 
“We have actually purchased several pieces of equipment,” Schafer explained. “One is an edge bander, which automatically applies the edging to all of our shelves, whereas before we were doing that all by manual labor. This machine alone does what would have been a four-day job in about 20 minutes with one person doing it, so that was one of the big pieces of equipment we upgraded.”
Another critical, though less visible, investment was an update in Danish Oak’s dust collection system.
“For 20 years we’ve never had a good, quality dust collection system, which is hard on our people and it’s hard on the quality of everything because you’ve got dust in the air,” he noted. “We upgraded all of that kind of in preparation for the CNC machine.”

CNC machine installed
In January of this year, a crew from Serbia was on site for a full week in Hampton installing a state-of-the-art CNC machine, which Schafer said is already proving to be a game-changer in terms of efficiency and productivity.
“The CNC machine is a five-foot by 12-foot table and as of right now it cuts every part for every cabinet that we do through a computerized program,” he explained. “I design the kitchen, draw it up on the computer and show the customers what their kitchen is going to look like. That program writes the G codes for every single piece and tells me exactly how many sheets it’s going to take.”
The end result, Schafer observed after just a few months of operation, is that the CNC machine has ramped up Danish Oak’s ability to handle large jobs, while also adjusting to handle smaller jobs, all while maximizing staff time and reducing product waste.
“Our operator, which is primarily Drake, can load the three-quarter inch piece of UV or whatever type of plywood it is, hit go, and he can walk away from it and go do other stuff while it’s cutting,” Schafer said. “It is pretty amazing what technology can do for us. It has absolutely opened up doors for us that we never could have been able to do. What we can put out now in a shorter amount of time is ten-fold compared to where we were.”
Technology has enhanced quality consistency as well, Schafer noted.
“This machine takes away human error and is accurate down to 1,000th of an inch, plus you have the safety factor,” he said. “I like to think we’ve always made quality cabinets, but it’s continuing to get better and that’s what I’m excited about.”
The Danish Oak staff has expanded by one with Drake’s arrival, though Schafer said the growing work capacity may mean future additions as well. He has confident in veteran staff members including Shauna Pursley, who helps coordinate the finishing details with customers, as well as Justin Kliewer, who handles operations at Premier Finishing Solutions, a separate business launched in 2015 offering custom staining and finishing for lumber yards and contractors. Grant Ferguson is helping in the back shop for the summer as well, before heading off to college this fall.
“I feel like we have a good team,” Schafer said. “We’re talking now about the need to hire some more people, and we’re trying to kind of figure out exactly what that looks like 
“Basically how we do it now is that I draw everything up and then meet with the customer and go through any modifications we need to make,” he continued. “Then I turn it over to Shauna and she does all of the colors and talks to them about door styles, what countertop colors go with what door colors, flooring colors and backsplash colors. She does a phenomenal job of coordinating and we work well together.”

Expanded footprint
With upgraded equipment and an expanded staff, Schafer said not only is Danish Oak’s capacity increasing, but so too is its reach in terms of clientele.
“For years we’ve had contractors approaching us to build whole houses full of cabinets, and for years we’ve said that we just can’t,” he said. “Now in this last year we’ve really kind of opened up the door to that, so now we have gained several contractors reaching out,” he added, noting contractor clients in Lincoln, Silver Creek and Friend. “We’ve expanded our footprint from what we came from, but that being said, we want to make sure we’re still taking care of our local people. All we’re doing for those contractors is building cabinets and delivering them, then they’re doing their own installs. That’s really kind of turning up the business a little bit because we can get a lot more kicked out and our guys aren’t out of the shop for three or four days installing.”
Danish Oak will host an open house event Friday starting at 3 p.m. to thank the community and supportive customers, as well as to showcase its new equipment.