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Fairly active week here on our forum with lots of posts and discussions- Please remember that we only have about 2 weeks left to reach our fundraising. Plenty of Raffle tickets left. If you haven't made a donation, please consider it- One last bit of housekeeping. Please remember to add Tags to your posts. The tags make it easier for folks to find similar information throughout our site. Tags can be materials used, tools used, techniques used, finishes used, turner's names, object types, etc, etc. Our Patriot Turners- @AndrewB has been busy with his turnings. He is experimenting with various finishes as well as giving us a glimpse of his new toys to drool over! In one post Andrew took us along as he progressed through the making of this cup- He received lots of comments and there was a great back and forth as he worked on it. Andrew is working on a set of these hollowed forms- He gave us a nice pictorial journey with this on- Andrew also got a shipment of new toys. I hope he has had time to wipe off the slobbers from everyone drooling over them. You can see the rest of the haul at- What’s Coming Up- Cindy Drozda continues to do live demonstrations. Check out her schedule at- http://www.cindydrozda.com/html/Demo.html For The Newbies- I have an account on Reddit. While doing a little exploring, I found this in the Turning Forum- https://www.reddit.com/r/turning/wiki/index Quite an extensive list of information for beginners and experienced alike. A nice project that can help you transition from spindle turning to glue block/chuck turning. https://www.woodworkersjournal.com/project-turn-a-trivet-and-wine-caddy/ This project is from the latest Woodworker's Journal Woodturning Monthly. The entire newsletter is available at- https://www.woodworkersjournal.com/woodturning-monthly/?utm_medium=email A lot of discussions centered around chucks this week. Here's a video on making a specialized chuck- the Longworth Chuck- Expand Your Horizons- We all like to think our workshops are perfectly laid out and will never change. But just in case, here's Ernie Conover discussing moving one of the heaviest pieces of equipment in the shop- Got an email from Ruth Niles the other day. In it was a repost of an article about selling your work. It's amazing to see how many "Makers" actually earn a comfortable living from their talents. Sorry about the formatting. "Can you make a living with your craft? Here are some excerpts from HANDMADE Business magazine article written by Patrice Lewis. Plus I injected some tips from my own personal experience! Finding your unique niche will probably be the single most enormous hurdle to overcome. The reason this is difficult is most people focus on making items they themselves like. You must consider what competition there is for that particular product and how many others share that interest. Can you make your craft item fast enough to meet demand. If you can only make one a week, you won't be able to make a living. You have to make your item fast enough, without loss of quality, so you can sell them at a moderate price. WHOLESALE vs RETAIL How to market your product will come down to determining if your craft business will be wholesale or retail. Retail is you, you, you: you sell the item, you go to craft shows, you open the storefront, you develop a web page. You probably will need help because if you're doing all this, you won't have time to make any new items. The good part is you keep all the sales money and charge retail prices. By selling wholesale, you don't have to worry about the time and expense of being away from home to sell your craft item. The craft shows are a lot of fun but are also a ton of work and preparation and you have to make a lot of products that you end up bringing home time and again! When you wholesale, you know what to make and how many. Statistics show, while most crafters still prefer retail shows, more revenue is generated from wholesale markets. DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB ...... YET. Rule #1: Until your craft business is profitable, you must live below your means. Don't make the mistake of blowing your early profit on luxuries like restaurant meals or unnecessary electronics. Rule #2: Ditch the debts. Pay off excessive credit card balances, pay down car loans, etc. Watch your spending so you are not tottering under the load of debt. HAVE REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS Can you look at your items unemotionally and rationally to determine which have the potential to be built into a successful business and which should stay as a hobby. Naturally we love what we make and the suggestion that not enough people would be interested in buying that particular item is sort of insulting. TARGET YOUR MARKET You won't do well selling hand-carved dolls at a motorcycle rally. Motorcycle people are not passionate about carved dolls! It's not a marketing match. Carving and painting or making bottle stoppers with hot-air balloons to sell at a Hot-Air Balloon Festival is perfect: or apples at an apple fest. SELF-MOTIVATION (this is my nemesis!) Doing a craft as a part-time hobby and applying yourself to a full-time home craft business is quite another thing. It's not hard to be in your shop producing, it's all the boring stuff that is the hard part. Those who know me, know I really hate the computer work on my website, making ads and doing bookkeeping. Also marketing research is necessary and not a lot of fun. This takes self discipline. No sleeping late and playing solitaire on the computer thinking "I have all day to get all the bowls done." " Last week we mentioned the use of tenos or mortices for a turning. "Rick Turns" posted a video illustrating what can go wrong if the wood isn't solid- New Turning Items- @Jim from Easy Wood Tools shared information about two of their new products. They have completely redesigned their parting tool. It permits deeper cuts than their previous parting tool. It still has the replaceable cutter, however, the new design replaces the cutter and its holder. The carbide tip is permanently affixed to the holder. No more lose tips to worry with. The second new product is a really handy set of flexible templates to help you create the exact sized mortise/tenon for any of the EWT chuck jaws. No need to hassle with calipers, compasses or dividers. Included is a magnetic holder to keep them right on the lathe ready for use. The set I ordered came today and they are so easy to use! Everything Else- Rick Turns posted his weekly list of YouTube turning videos- Started playing with the cherry logs. One of the logs I cut into blocks to try some hollow forms. Once it was rounded, I cut it in half. Less waste. Then created this form. It's partially hollowed. The wood is very wet and needs to dry before continuing. I've been experimenting with the soap solution drying method to reduce cracking. The piece will stay submerged for a couple of days, then moved to a bag of shavings. We'll see what happens. The other half of the block had a split. Turned it into a rough bowl. Got to use the EWT template for setting up the mortise. It's rough turned and submerged in the pot with the hollow form. Safe turning and stay well
