Mass produced wood pens

[deedubs]

I have an idea for a pen design and I'm interested in producing large quantities of wood pens using automated machinery, not hand turned. I"m looking to produce a pen that could retail for ~$10, and want to invest in the machinery to allow low cost production here (rather than outsourcing). Does anyone know the type of machinery that is used to produce low cost promotional wooden pens? The type of wood pen, which I assume comes from China, that sell for $2 each.
Thanks,
Dave

 

[hunter-27]

Stick a Bic refill in a wooden dowel and you have it, very little machinery needed. I'll stick to my pens. Good luck and good fortune on your endeavor.

 

[renowb]

Probably a cnc that spits them out. They would still have to be assembled. Just get them from China. Probably cheaper than investing in some high dollar equipment.

 

[camb]

cheap pens

Idont know if that would be good for the hobby or not

 

[renowb]

I believe you are in the wrong forum. This forum is for penturners, not mass production

 

[Wood Butcher]

Intriguing idea. Having developed an idea into a final product, marketing it and selling thru distributors I know the thrill of having a concept and then growing it into something much bigger. May I humbly suggest that the first thing I had to do was find out if there was in fact a market for what I had in mind. I interviewed customers, distributors, manufacturers who could build the item (or build the equipment to produce what was needed) and other business owners who had succeeded as well as some who had not. I read books and spent money on learning then doing the marketing and then the travel to actually sell the end product. Was it worth it, you bet your butt. It was a ride not everyone gets to take and it paid off pretty well. The time commitment is the only thing I regret. My family grew up with dad on the road a lot and, although they survived and are all doing marvelously, I missed some important dates that cannot be recovered. Though this would not be a hand made pen as we craft folk view it, this may very well be a market that would lead to the end user "moving up" to the art we create. Because I had my idea and dream p****d on by friends and foes alike, I will not do that to anyone. If you believe in it, pursue it to the max and don't look back. Best wishes.
WB

 

[deedubs]

Wood Butcher- Thanks for the encouragement and advice; also kudos to you for successfully following through on an entrepreneurial idea. To the others apologies if I offended your space- I have not found much information on automated production of wood pens- and thought someone on the forum might have an idea.

 

[hunter-27]

Wood Butcher- Thanks for the encouragement and advice; also kudos to you for successfully following through on an entrepreneurial idea. To the others apologies if I offended your space- I have not found much information on automated production of wood pens- and thought someone on the forum might have an idea.

For the record, I was not offended. It just was not what I joined this forum to learn and not something I am interested. Again I wish you well but I am not sure it is a viable business. Only time and money spent will tell you the answer to that.

 

[phillywood]

Like WB said do your homework,but I think you'll be disappointed by the end result, since the cost of labor is much higher than what you thought in USA, than any other country. Plus, you are in a wring place asking for this advice. This is more of an indiv. creation site. my 2.5 cents.

 

[Monolith]

I think people are willing to pay more than $0.50 for a pen ONLY because its handcrafted and unique. Mass producing a wooden pen seems foolish, as you remove the only thing that adds value to the 50 cent BIC version.

 

[Russianwolf]

http://www.4imprint.com/tag/89/Pens/product/110310/Asia-Bamboo-Pen

something like this?

yep, you'll need something to turn them out in numbers. If its straight "bushing to bushing" you may not need cnc, but not sure if the simpler process will translate into less expensive equipment.

 

[Canadian_Kid]

It would be difficult to have a machine make a pen from start to finish (sanded and oil or other finish). If you mass produced the pens yourself I am sure you could complete them just as fast as a machine.

 

[jhprice]

Mass producted wooden pens are available in vertually every "info center" located in every National Park in the country. The pens I have seen are usually European or Mont Blonc styles done in redwood with the park name embossed on the barrel. They typically sell for 2 to 5 bucks. The finish is crud and there is no pride of workmanship to speak of. Given the current attitude towards "Made in America" you just may have something there.

I'd say that a CNC lathe would be your best bet to start. Then sand them up and put on somesort of finnish. But, you will have to figure out someway to drill and glue up the brass. I had thought about it but don't have the intestinal fortitude, or time, to make the investment.

 

[bitshird]

Check out the Laguna CNC wood lathe, you are still going to have to sand and finish, them, but with the right carbide insert you might get real close, but unless you're going to do a crap finish, you're going to tie up a lot of hands on sanding and finish, even if you do a friction polish.

 

[Steve Busey]

There's a guy that comes to our Georgia meetings, but I don't know if he lurks around here or not. He spent a barrel of money on a machine which can make his blanks to exact tolerances. He also does high dollar pens ($300+), not $10 units, so his idea of mass production is different than yours!

 

[AnachitlPut]

i can't see the fun in it but if you want to then go for it. i get where your coming from but i agree it is not hand crafted and that what gives it that spiff. but i say go for it if you can make money off it then please be my guest.

 

[Fred]

I don't care for the idea that you believe you can make a pen similar to the $2.00 pen from China and then turn around and sell it for $10.00. You just do not seem to have a grasp on what the rest of us U.S. wood workers value our expertise, craftsmanship, and products to be.

But, you have stated the idea that many so-called Americans dream about ... Making something for nothing and getting big bucks for your little bit of time and no effort.

Besides, there are hundreds of novelty pen making businesses that you will have to compete against that are already in business, setup in place, people employed etc.

And remember, after you make one of your idea pens all these other folks have to do is copy it instantly. Then where will you be? Have you thought about the cost of a great patent attorney? A then you have the expense of litigation IF your ideas are copied. It only takes a minor alteration to your ideas to by-pass infringement laws.

But, again good luck to you. I hope you make millions.

Good luck to you, but there are none here that will cheapen their business nor lower their standards to keep up with you ... none here that I know of!

 

[76winger]

You've kind of hit on a nerve here from all of us that enjoy hand crafting our pens as we do and trying to get a fair price for the creativity we've applied to the materials to produce one of a kind jewels of artistic writing instruments.

I agree whit comments above, where you'll need to do a lot of due diligence in research and such to see if it's a viable idea for you. It sounds like you're out to develop a "made in America" version of the 50 cent Chinese promo pens, and that fact alone could command a higher pricing model. But the question would be how much could you charge for a mass produced product like that and how much would it cost you to make it? Come up with the right idea and way of marketing and you could end up the Steve Jobs of the pen industry, with something that's otherwise a common product but sold to the masses because of it's COOL factor. Good Luck!

 

[Wood Butcher]

See, I told you so. P*****g on another man's dreams is a pass time in the US.
WB

 

[btboone]

Before spending on expensive equipment, I might try the cheap pens from LaserBits or similar places and see how much added value you can do to them and see how well they sell. There will always be someone cheaper; the trick is to find a niche that others aren't filling and be able to make a good living at what you love.

 

[studioso]

Not sure why so many members seem to be offended by your request for help.
You have an idea, you think u can make money, I think that's beautiful.

To answer your question:
I don't know of an easy way to get hold of a machine that will produce finished pens from start to finish. you can buy a dedicated drill with a good vise to drill the hole.
As for shaping the wood, I think the fastest way would be to use a cnc lathe the cheapest yet decent one would be a cnc sherline.
If what you have in mind is a straight pen, where the diameter of the wood is constant from top to bottom, than any metal lathe would do, but a cnc lathe can do the engraving as well.
With a proper setup you will need very little if any sending.
To mass finish pens you can use tumblers. That is the way many high end pens are finished.
as for the metal parts, you will need to buy them: there is no way that you can profitably make them yourself. there are a bunch of manufacturers that specialize in pen parts.

May I also suggest that you check out you tube: not the thousands of videos of how to turn a pen on a lathe, but the production videos. The show "how it's made" has a few videos, and many fancy brands have videos that show you the inside of their plants and will certainly give you some ideas.

 

[renowb]

Just giving opinions. If that is p***ing on dreams then so be it.

See, I told you so. P*****g on another man's dreams is a pass time in the US.
WB

 

[Displaced Canadian]

I'm sure such a machine exists, my guess is it looks more like a drill press than a lathe.

 

[deedubs]

Thanks for the helpful information. I don't pay much attention to the negative comments. There are enough people in the world telling you "not possible/won't work", I certainly don't need to tell myself that or pay much attention to the naysayers.
As for the CNC lathe- looks like the Woodwrite would have been a good option but they seem to have closed shop. I will look into a Sherman CNC.

Sincerely,
Dave

 

[deedubs]

correction I meant Sherline CNC- not Sherman.

 

[Monolith]

There was someone selling a woodwright in the classifieds section not too long ago.

 

[studioso]

btw: another option would be to get a milling machine with a 4th axis.
tormach, for example, looks like a good machine.

 

[Lee K]

the CNC is a good idea to TURN the pen, the trick will be getting mechanized blank prep, drilling, and loading the tubes.

You may be able to have the brass tubes coated with a heat activated adhesive, that would lend the drilling/tubing process to automation.

As far as sanding, I have seen many metal machine parts 'sanded' or deburred in a tumbler, so that too may be an option. Then using a dipping process for laquer or poly as the finish.

The only major human interaction may be the actual assembly process?

Thats my thoughts :biggrin:

 

[woodworker44]

You can already buy the mass produced kits - go here:
http://woodworker.com/maple-penpencil-kit-wcas-mssu-116-160.asp?search=maple pen&searchmode=2

They have ready to assmbe kits you just finish them yourself or you can purchase the completely finished ones as well.

Only 2 woods are available - maple or walnut. Not sure is these are US made or not. You can buy a lathe and duplicator and that would be somewaht mass producing.

I personally like the fact that even if you chose all the same components each pen is still unique when you turn it yourself.

Good Luck to you!

 

[Smitty37]

THE 12 CENT PEN KIT

I saw a vidio a while back called the 12 cent pen kit. Showing how to make a wood pen with a 'bic' refill. No Tube, no transmission, one piece of wood, one hole and minor turning to size and taper at the ends then finishing. The finish could be accomplished by dip finish although that wasn't the way it was done in the vidio.

Now the automated equipment for what you want to do would depend on how much you want to spend and what you consider to be mass production. I have seen drilling machines that could drill many many holes in one pass the equivalent of putting in a block of wood drilling say 100 holes through it, then cutting it apart to make the blanks (my guess is that some of the predrilled blanks are made that way now). They can be found but they sure wouldn't be cheap.

 

[bitshird]

A nice Laguna CNC wood lathe is just a few Penney's over ten grand, Oh plus shipping, and some design software, it's a very easy process , but a Sherline is also good, you should be able to get set up for 1500.00, and when the frustration sets in a sherline is light enough you can throw it against a wall with out getting a hernia, CNC coding is a blast. and there are several programs out that are reasonable, likie if you have a child in Huighschool or college you can get an edu version of Rhino which is the best #D design program around, (I hate solidworks) and a program called Meshcam that is a great asset converting your 3D drawings to G code for your machine. the Rhino lists for about a grand, but an EDU copy is only 200.00 and MeshCam is about 160.00.

 

[btboone]

In my opinion, the Sherline is a toy. To make them in production, you will need to go a lot beefier than that in order to take a heavy cut and actually save time over doing them by hand. You will quickly overwork the tiny motors as it's designed to take very light cuts. It's not tough to write the code by hand. Lathe stuff is just simple 2D shapes that get revolved.

 

[deedubs]

Thanks for the info. Do you know if the Sherline can make a heavy cut on a softwood species?

 

[bitshird]

Thanks for the info. Do you know if the Sherline can make a heavy cut on a softwood species?

Not really, it's a very small lathe, I was just joking about using one in serious production, they are nice for doing small pen parts and Micro machining, but not too good for production work. a few a day no problem 10 a day OK over that get a Laguna and be done with it.

 

[Kent Lake Pens & Pen]

Mass production.....

My customers buy unique pens, they don't want mass production. And they are willing to pay the price.Specially when using a certain type of wood or kit.

Why do you think Rolls Royce is not building cars in China?

By the way a CNC machine cost money too. How many pens do you have to make to finance a $ 75.000+ equipment?

Norbert

Kent Lake Pens & Pencils

 

[Frank Nemke sr]

Something to think about, If you want to mass produce something find a nitch that no-one or very few are doing and go from there. Like making fancy centerbands. Something like that can be setup to make mulitable pc's at one time

 

[KenV]

The concept is interesting - and there is gear that can automate most any process. The challenge is getting cost effective processes. I can model such a process with Taig or sherline CNC mills with a rotary table for a 4th axis and that works pretty well. Taking the next steps to robotics without a substantial cash flow for equipment will be a challenge.

You might want to partner up with an industrial designer experienced with automated production in the scale you are seeking. Hand labor feeding equipment will eat up dollars - that is where robotics trade off equipment expendatures for hand labor.

Keep working through the idea and refining approaches -- you might find the right combination of technology and cash flow to make a feasible business plan you can implement.

Good Luck --