Gavels to withstand Wall Street: How one Utah man made a living

SPRINGVILLE — Most people's life goal is to carve their own little place in the world, and Dave Giles took that quite literally.

For the past 30 years, Giles has been carving gavels out of his little Gavel Store in Springville — many of which have made it into the hands of some very influential people.

"I once got an order from a military base, and the note said, 'These two gavels are the ones that are going to put down Saddam Hussein if found guilty,'" he recalled. "That was interesting. I was like, 'Holy cow. That's unusual.'"

Giles got his start in woodcarving while working with his dad at Ferry's Mill, which was an old lumber yard in Provo that his dad was a part owner of. He recalled one day taking a picture of a gavel his dad had made and "putting it on the internet."

"A week or so later, I had an order," he said. "I had to stand up to the plate and start making gavels, and that was 30 years ago."

That first order turned into thousands more over the years, as he learned the niche he had made for himself was something not many in the world were doing anymore.

"It's kind of a lost trade, and I was the last resource for most anybody to refer to," he said. "I usually use walnut, and you have to have it cut special because it's thicker than most boards that you can buy at Home Depot. I have a mill down in north Salem that cuts the native walnut logs here in Utah. It's all native material.

"Then we manufacture it, and it takes probably six to eight hours to make one complete gavel from start to finish. With the lacquer finish and the sound block and bands, it's quite involved."

His attention to quality and detail caught the attention of the New York Stock exchange, who he said has had a history of broken gavels.

"They sent me a gavel that was broken and told me that (a celebrity) had smacked it sideways and chipped off a great big corner," he said. "They said they had several people who had closed the stock market and apparently would often be encouraged to see if they could break the gavel so they could take it home."

Giles was commissioned to make a gavel that would withstand the force that marks the end of a long day at Wall Street. And over the next 20 years, that was a good source of work for him — minus getting reprimanded for trying to sell his Stock Exchange design to customers.

"I tried to sell the Stock Exchange gavels because it was a marketable item, but I got several calls from their attorneys saying it's proprietary and I had to get them off my website," he said. "I was just a little guy trying to make a living, and these guys crunch down on you. It's not very fun, but it's amusing to me."

Even without selling that "proprietary" item, Giles said he has been able to make a living that he is very proud of.

"Everybody asks me if I made a living doing just gavels, and that's what I did," he said. "It's been really good to me. I have two daughters. I don't know where you'd see any other kids saying their dad was a gavel maker."

"I've made gavels for judges, and I would make gavels for movies," he added. "Producers would just send an order, and there's a little comments box at the bottom where they would put that this is for a movie. They usually wanted two gavels. One was a backup in case the other one broke."

Giles said he has never been too much into movies, so he couldn't recall what movies his gavels are in. For him, it was always about the process, and these days, he said he is "very selective" in the jobs he takes due to a new hobby he's taken on as retirement becomes a close reality.

"In place of gavels, I've not got fishing poles and remote-controlled airplanes," he said. "Fishing is a fun hobby. Golfing has gone nuts, and fishing just takes a little gas to get to a reservoir or a river. You get skunked and then go home disgusting and depressed. I'm just enjoying life. That's what I'm trying to do."

As he looks back on the gavel-making world that he said he has "90%" left behind, he does so with a lot of gratitude.

"It's interesting to be part of history in a little way," he said. "Many of the gavels have been very popular, and it puts a little feather in your cap. It's kind of cool. It's just a mom- and pop-type shop, and it's just fun to see where they go."

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