Want to turn more pens...but have questions

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scturner

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Hello everyone,

New member to the forum and want to learn all I can about penturning. I've so far turned 1 cigar pen from a laminated Macassar ebony and curly maple blank. I'm about to turn an El Grande kit I got from Woodcraft since their not far from me. I have been making segmented peppermills for around 6- 7 months and have my own website but have found the peppermills just to slow to make to produce enough product for my site. DMOZ thinks so too!

I've been online about 4 months now and haven't sold a mill yet (online), guess they just cost too much?? I have however sold 4 from offline sales. I'm looking at pens to perhaps help improve sales on my site or possibly change over to pens as my primary product and get away from peppermills all together. It can take 3- 4 days to make one peppermill with all the segment cutting, sanding, glueing, turning and finishing etc- so it's a slow process. Not to mention their unwieldly to turn on my big delta lathe.

I've been looking at pens for a long time and think it might be the way to go mainly because their quick (or quicker) to produce. I think by using the better stabalized burls, exotics, and the better kits from CSUSA and Berea some beautiful pens could be made. I have tons of domestic, exotic wood already in my shop that were going to be used for my pepppermills that I can easily cut up for pen blanks.

Also, a friend of mine is opening a gift shop near Clemson SC (collage town) and I can put all the pens I want in her shop. That I think would also help some a hopefully get the work out about the pens. I'm also very interested in trying cast resins that I can make myself and have looked into that to some extent.

Anyway, it's a big decision I'd have to make because I'm already listed on some of the bigger search engines, have reciprocal links established with other sites etc. Has anyone here changed gears like this before? Just wondering what you guys think. Seems to me it's easier to make $20 that it is $200.

I'd appreciate any help you guys can offer.

Thank,
David
 
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swm6500

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Well David, I won't be any help in your decision making. I would have thought that the pepper mills would have done OK. Why don't you put your link in your profile so we can see. There are several people on here that have websites, maybe they can give you a better opinion on how to handle.
 

dougle40

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Welcome aboard David. I don't know if I would totally switch from pepper mills to pens but make pens an addition to your turnings and add them to your website .
 

knottyharry

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Hi David,
I agree with Doug, keep both. In my opinion, you will do better selling them word of mouth, and in gift shops etc. I have never sold anything from my website either.
Since you have access to a gift shop, make some pens using the college colors. That might be a hit.
Harry
 

scturner

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Thank you guys for the help and advice.

I think it might be a good idea to do both but the peppermills are just so time comsuming! I do get a lot of hits for my keywords like peppermill, exotic peppermills, segmented pepper mills etc from the SE's so perhaps keeping things as they are would probably be the better thing to do at this point.

Yes, I think the Clemson colors and maybe others would be a good idea too. Thats somthing different and might sell good, I'll have to wait and see on that. I've went ahead and included my url so you guys can see my site. The bottle stoppers haven't sold either so who knows what's up. I thought they look pretty good myself.

I've found I really like making pens for the speed of it I guess, much nicer than dealing with peppermills all the time. Maybe I just needed a break from the mills for a while, dunno.

Thanks for your thoughts and advice on my little problem.
 

Queso

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One key to making e-commerce work is to associate yourself with a community of value. That may mean a link exchange with the food network, or something like that. You want to let the part of the internet that would be interested in your product know that it's out there.

I would imagine that few, even those that would be likely to buy your product, would do a search for it, as they don't realize that it's even available. So, the answer to that is to focus your attention on creating that community of value and nurturing it.

For me, my community of value is a Nebraska Cornhuskers internet site, and my product is corn cob pens. It's worked out well for me, but if I didn't have that community of value to base out of, I doubt I would have anywhere near the number of sales that I've had so far.

Your mileage may vary.
 

Old Griz

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Welcome David... and those are beautiful peppermills... I have not done one yet and have 6 TruGrind mechanisms sitting here... LOL.. much less done any segmented work... BUT it is on my todo list for this summer...
One question.. how do you cut the center holes on the segmented mills.. or do you just set up the segments so that you have a large hole and then cut the recess for the top.... Been thinking about this...
 

DCBluesman

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Your pepper mills and bottle stoppers are beautiful and seemingly well-priced. That being said, I think Paul (Queso) has it right--you need to associate yourself with a community of value. I'd check into link exchanges with some of the gourmet food folks. They seem to be able to sell $20 a pound hams and $30 a pound beef...that's probably the customer set you're after!
 

scturner

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Thanks everybody for your advice and help.

Well, the site has been running dry for a while and do think Queso is on the right track. Oh, thanks for the compliments as well...very much appreciated!! I have tried to exchanged links with sites that sell kitchenware, pots and pans, that sort of thing but haven't had much luck with return mail from them. The food network sounds good, hadn't thought of that and will see what I can do.

But there again lies the problem with these mills. At present I only have 3 for immediate shipping and 2 that can be made to order. That's not much. If I were to hit it big with the network and sell some stock I'm back to nothing to sell (peppermills) since they take so much time to make. But I don't think I would mind not having something to sell actually $$.[:)]

I will certainly look into the food network for a link exchange and make pens in the meantime. I also need to get some pens ready for the gift store. Shes opening sometime in May. Do you guys know where to get solid color acylic pen blanks at reasonable prices?

Old Griz,
No, I don't do the holes in the rings to start with. I bore them out on my drill press using a 1 1/16" multispur bit. The base ring is bored out to 1 5/8"-- 3/8" deep, then bored the rest of the way thru with the 1 1/16". I did have pics of each step of the construction process on my site but it was just taking up needless space so removed them.

BTW, regarding peppermills (non-segmented), I have written an article for WoodturingDesign magazine a while back. It took a lot of time to do but should be (hopefully) coming out in the August issue. A firm date hasn't been set though. I presented the article before I actually started doing the segmented ones. I found it quite hard to do solid mills due to the long boring of the blanks. On two occasions fire actually got sucked up into the DC from internal heat inside the blanks, and I was boring at the slowest speed- 500 rpms. Anyway, that was enough of that. Oh yea, I too have 8- 10" mill mechanisms still in bags to go into pepppermills.

$20 a pound hams and $30 a pound beef...that's funny! I really like that one, but sure enough it's very true!

Thanks for the ideas everyone. Think I'll get busy doing a link swap or 2. Need to start that El Grande pen to boot!
 
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