He thinks of himself as a hard-working guy who does what he’s paid to do. His bosses and customers know different.

The company he works for used to have eight refinishers. Now, six days a week, Wheeler works alone out of a warehouse bay in Sherwood Park, the company name hand-painted on the back door. The place smells of sawdust and wood and lacquer. On one wall there are photos of past work, including a 17th-century grandfather clock he restored. Another wall and the work bench are littered with the tools of his trade: chisels, awls, screwdrivers, clamps, glue guns, different grades of sandpaper.

A jokey sign above the bench reads: “I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.”

The sentiment is true, in a way, and yet not true at all. Wheeler’s goal is to please every customer who entrusts him with a treasured table or chair or bookshelf, to make sure not one stick of furniture goes out the back door until the owner is happy.

He makes all his own “shines,” and on some pieces might use 10 different ones to highlight the complex tints in the wood.

“I see colours other people can’t see,” he says. “If you don’t know colour, you’re in trouble.”

Earlier this week, a customer carted in an old mahogany chest, hand-carved with Oriental characters and scenery, that had been sitting in pieces in the basement.

“This is a real challenge,” Wheeler told her when he saw it.

The customer was willing to let him choose the colour. But that won’t happen. He’ll study the chest for a day or two and decide on a strategy, then call the customer in to consult about the job and quote a price. He’ll remake the lid, straighten warped wood, clean and sand and refinish the piece. It won’t be cheap.

He uses the best materials and tools money can buy. “If you charge enough,” he says, “there’s no reason for any complaints.”

In the back of the shop, ready to go, is a four-shelf stacking library Wheeler is pretty sure dates from the 1890s, with hand-blown glass fronts. It, too, arrived in pieces and took him 20 hours to assemble and refinish. Now it is perfect.

In his work, Wheeler leaves nothing to chance. Yet his whole life turned on one.

Born on a dairy farm near Ottawa, by the time he left school at 16 he had never been more than 50 miles from home. He headed for Sudbury to work in the nickel mines. There he met a man from Israel who asked, “Why would you want to work down in that hole?” The man suggested he try his luck in Edmonton. Wheeler had never heard of the place.

“I often think,” he says, “what would have happened if I hadn’t met that guy.”

If not for that chance meeting, those hard-working hands might have spent the past 40 years digging nickel sulphide ore out of the Canadian Shield.

But Wheeler’s life changed that day. He bought a $45 ticket and rode a Greyhound bus west for three days. He hit Edmonton at 11 o’clock one morning in October 1967, with no experience and $30 in his pocket. Within three hours he had landed a job spraying paint on furnaces for $1.92 an hour. Within a month, he got a 10-cent raise.

“I thought I was in the big times,” he says.

He worked hard, saved money, within a year paid cash for a new car. At 17, he went to work for Delton, spraying finish on kitchen cabinets.

Soon he wrangled a job with Stephen Gill, one of the best in the business, a man who had studied refinishing in England. He knew, right then: “This is what I want to do.”

He learned fast and, like a fresh-cut piece of wood, soaked up everything.

Gill, he says, taught him all about NRGs, the non-rising grain alcohols he mixes with stains to bring out just the right shades in the wood.

He was in his early 20s when he answered a classified ad for a job at Schenk’s Furniture Repair and Refinishing on 121st Street.

Brothers Casey and Ted Schenk had learned their craft working in Lethbridge, then moved to Edmonton and bought their own shop in 1968. They took one look at the young applicant and decided he was too inexperienced.

“I just wouldn’t leave,” Wheeler says. He hung around until his persistence paid off.

He figures it takes at least 10 years to master the craft. “You can become a doctor faster,” he says, hoping that doesn’t sounds like bragging. “There are no books for this.”

The business moved to Sherwood Park years ago. When Cheryl and Byron Volkman bought the company in November, they renamed it Shenk’s.

Wheeler has been with the company for 37 years. He will turn 60 soon and figures he’ll work at least another decade.

“This is the best job in the world,” he says. “Every morning, I can’t wait to get here.”