Pen Factory

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aggromere

aggromere

Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Messages
1,385
Location
Tampa, FL
I put this in casual conversation because it's kinda lame and would never be done, but it got me thinking. Me and 2 of my cousins own an old building near downtown tampa, but in a bad part of town. We are starting to clean it up and such to prepare it to lease. After a visit to check on it we went to lunch.

One of my cousins asked me, "why don't you move your tools here and start a pen factory." Well, a few beers, a cuban sandwich and bowl of spanish bean soup got us raving crazy and we began talking about it because we had nothing better to do.

I understand it would not be something any one in their right mind would do, unless they had a couple million in extra cash lying around, but i thought I would pitch the topic out and see what others thought and what they thought it would take to set up a factory or shop to make around 3,000 to 5,000 pens a month. I had no clue as to how to do it other than buy a 100 jet mini lathes and hire a 100 pen turns and buy 5,000 blanks for Ed and 5,000 kits, but I'm sure that is not how it is done.

When I got home I searched around on the internet and found pictures of some of the high end pen companies manufacturing facilities and they look more like a doctors office than they do like my shop, lol.

Just curious if anyone ever thought about it or had some knowledge of how it is done.
 
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You probably would be better off buying a couple of cnc lathes and turning with those, as they would profile much quicker and more consistantly in that application.
 
Would be much more cost effective to automate as much of the process as possible and designs pens from the ground up (i.e. no kits).
 
Why not a pen retail store, I haven't been in downtown Tampa in years but when I was a kid skid row was downtown on North Franklin just a block away from major stores. Maybe you can start a trend with a upscale pen shop and you could have your turning shop in the back......Just thinking out loud.....
 
To whom are you going to sell those thousands of pens each month? Making pens is relatively easy--selling thousands/month at decent prices which bring a profit home might be a bit iffy--
 
Or maybe you could start a school and help get the residents of that bad part of town get interested in something more productive in their lives and teach them pen turning. Maybe offer space for people to find their creativity.
 
We do have a lot of negativity on your pen factory! I say it's totally do-able. You need to start small and make injection pens. Basically, that's a Bic. You have injection molding machines, just start with one or two machines and you buy your ink refills maybe some clicker components and plastic pellets. You also buy a laser for engraving and a stamper for engraving. That is the key right there. I am a retail driver and I know hundreds of store owners and because I make pens, I talk to them about pens and they talk to me about their pens, because they buy injection molded pens with their business name on them. The set up fee's for making and setting up a stamp for your business name/logo is expensive. You also have to have a large minimum order to run that stamp. Then the shipping is insanity..you buy 200 pens and the shipping is $45. If you offer stamping, you can find out what others charge and charge less. You can go with a much lower minimum order if you have a laser to do the smaller jobs. You can fit 200 pens in a medium flat rate box for $10. You gotta be cheaper than the next guy. You only need about a dozen employees..a operate the equipment, 1 to load and receive ..so yea, you need a forklift. You need a good graphics and computer guy, a couple sales people and someone to do the books.
 
A few beers ... maybe a few thousand each and you could be off to the races. Not to mention all the gas that bowl of spanish bean soup would make ... hummmmm, at least you power the machinery with the methane somehow.

BTW, you didn't mention what it is you been smoking lately ... :cool:

IF and when you get this up and running, be sure to post here in the Classified section so we all can continue to buy from IAP members.
 
There have been some episodes of "How it's made" regarding pen factories. I saw one on Sharpies and one on some brand of Ballpoints.
 
I think the notion of a 'pen factory' in an old building is pretty neat concept. And that would especially be true if the building can be set up as a collection of complementary craft studios.

In Glens Falls, NY there is an 19th century building, formerly a garment factory, that has been recycled as artists studios and shops offering pottery, painting, photography, weaving, jewelry making, quilting and candlemaking. Lot of neat stuff! There is a small furniture-making shop, but no turning. So a turning studio would fit in this setting. In fact, they have an open house a couple of times a year in which additional crafters set up tables in the hallways, and when they did that just before Christmas, there were a couple of penmakers represented.

That said, the issue is the business model. When you are working out of your basement or garage, fixed costs are minimal - just the cost of tooling. But if you rent space in a building, your base costs go up significantly. You have to rent the space, and probably pay for utilities (having a standalone service for the shop costs more than simply the incremental energy that the shop consumes). It would be prudent to have insurance on the facility to protect your investment, and because the building is open to the public, you need to have liability insurance to protect yourself against careless tourists. And you will also be responsible for a share of the property taxes on the building although it is possible that could be hidden in the rent. So the problem is that to make a boutique studio work, you need to increase your volume to cover the additional base costs.
 
I would start with a business plan, run the different numbers and don't be your own advocate to sell your business plan to yourself. To make thousands of an item is nothing the problem is if you can sell it or does the market except the product and quality that you are planning to put out.

"it is better to do nothing than be foolish and loose everything" - Me
 
Peter, I know that you are thinking "out loud" with your cousins. What TYPES of pens are you thinking of making & MARKETING? There is a "bic" (pun intended) between cheap plastic pens VS. customized pens.

If you already have a building and as Jeff as suggested, start small and work your way up, I think it's doable. Go for it!!!!!
 
Stiff Competition

workinforwood said:
We do have a lot of negativity on your pen factory! I say it's totally do-able. You need to start small and make injection pens. Basically, that's a Bic. You have injection molding machines, just start with one or two machines and you buy your ink refills maybe some clicker components and plastic pellets. You also buy a laser for engraving and a stamper for engraving. That is the key right there. I am a retail driver and I know hundreds of store owners and because I make pens, I talk to them about pens and they talk to me about their pens, because they buy injection molded pens with their business name on them. The set up fee's for making and setting up a stamp for your business name/logo is expensive. You also have to have a large minimum order to run that stamp. Then the shipping is insanity..you buy 200 pens and the shipping is $45. If you offer stamping, you can find out what others charge and charge less. You can go with a much lower minimum order if you have a laser to do the smaller jobs. You can fit 200 pens in a medium flat rate box for $10. You gotta be cheaper than the next guy. You only need about a dozen employees..a operate the equipment, 1 to load and receive ..so yea, you need a forklift. You need a good graphics and computer guy, a couple sales people and someone to do the books.
Click to expand...

You've got some pretty stiff competition waiting in this arena...National Pen Corp sells pretty decent advertising pens for fairly low prices (some below $.50) and in pretty low minimum purchase quantities (about 300 min). About 14/15 years ago I bought some for my Income Tax Prep business and still have a couple laying around that still work...not bad.
 
After the "few beers, a cuban sandwich and bowl of spanish bean soup" I kinda lost interest, what were we talking about again?:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
 
Really wasn't seriously considering doing anything like that, but just became curious as to how one might gear up to produce pens like the higher quality kits or kitless pens that are often displayed here. Like for example, what kind of automated high speed lathe you might get to machine blanks all to a uniform size for a particular pen model. What kind of setup you would need to cast or machine your own nibs finials and clips. That sort of thing. I guess internal pieces like transmissions and threaded inserts (if you used them) you could have custom made by dayacom or someone like that. I wsa just wondering how that would all work. Selling thousands of pens a month would be a whole nother problem. Just was trying to imagine what it would be like to take pen up a notch or two from what we usually do.

I do like the idea someone had of making it some kind of "made in America" crafting house, were artisans from around the area could display their works, or even create them there.
 
If a person had the finances, plan, and salesmanship, there is no better time than now to start manufacturing. Used equipement and buildings are in great abundance. How much competition there is should never stop you. You work hardet, smarter and cheaper with the goal to destroy and be #1!
 
You already have what it takes. Get in there and do it. I'd start a little smaller unless you have a place for all those pens.
 
+1 on a couple of cnc lathes. You can stick the blanks in the lathe and have them rounded to a specific diameter, have a drill jig setup to drill them (unless the lathe is tooled for that as well), tube the blank, throw it back in the lathe and out spits turned blanks. off to the finishing station, then assembly. Actually seems pretty straight forward. The hard part is figuring out where to offload 5000 pens a month (which is the core hardship of us all).
 
You know what I find interesting is the amount of "glass is half empty" comments. What was done here is exactly what we did at my last job. The owner was very progressive and open to all ideas. He asked for all ideas good or bad. We were able to take little bits from each idea and create a great marketing idea which we implemented with great success.

Long story short, it was a construction equipment parts company. All we did was buy and resell the parts to rental companies or other end users. Not the most glamouous job in the world. After Katrina hit, we were talking about all the construction equipment that would be needing parts and other repairs and the future usage as they started to repair. At a round table discussion, with lots of beer, we had tons of ideas of how to help and make the best of a bad situation. Many at the table were very negative and only saw that people and businesses were suffering and how dare we use that to our advantage. A few of us on the other hand saw an opportunity to help and create sales and loyalties in the process. We found a customer of ours in southern Mississippi who was willing to take on a significant amount of inventory and do the shipping for us. We cut down the shipping costs and time to our customers and were giving very favorable terms for payment knowing they needed time to get back on their feet. After a year of exceptional sales, we established warehouses in the 4 corners of the US to reduce shipping costs and time which is always very helpful for customers. My point is, without the free flow of ideas, good and bad, this would never have materialized. I usually see an opportunity in every negative and I consider myself a "glass is half full" person.

From what I am hearing from my son in California, industrial education is not taught much in school anymore. My love for wood working came in high school wood shop. I like the idea of creating a consignment store front and renting space to artisans and craftmen. I also like the idea of a hands on type of area where people can experience first hand how to work with wood. You could also start a school per se that teaches the skills necessary to work with wood for say custom cabinet shops and the like. I bet cabinet shops and the like would like to find employees that have been trained well in such a place.

I could go on and on. This got my creative juices flowing. Sorry for the long post.
 
I think you and your couz need to hit a few more bars have a few more beers. ......... whom said it can't be done? one whom doesn't try....................
 
A quick look at alibaba shows a lot of wooden pens coming out of china. I'm sure people are buying them and selling them at craft shows as their own "handmade". A little saviness, and you can buy them for about $1.80 each from overseas. But what is the fun in that.

By the way...thank you for letting me into your fold. This is a great site.
wooden_pens.jpg

Bi_Wooden_Pen.jpg
 
Have you every heard the song, "We don't make it here anymore" by James McMurtry? It pretty well sums it up. I spoke with one of the countries major cigar brands founder and owner about carrying a line of luxury cigar themed pens based on his labels. He is always giving away really nice humidors that look like they would retail for $200 or more. He said he gets them from China for $20.00 or something like that and said, "I can get all the pens I want from China". LOL.
 
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