Storing Acrylic Blanks

[WriteON]

I have a box of acrylic blanks in the hot/humid garage. Drilled one, glued, squared ...started turning.. it was like a gum rubber. This is a first. Have to order more white banks and start over. Having fun is work. Aggravation never has to be looked for ..it comes to us. When we think we have the foreseen worked out ...forgetaboutit. This particular pen is being donated for a fundraiser ... and naturally it has to be done 2x at double the personal cost. But I'm ok with that..better someone else's fundraiser than mine. It's for a great cause. I'm honored the fundraising person came to me...actually I went to her. I once told her I'm good if you need items for raffles/gift baskets or for sale. I'm doing 3 total. The only thing I ask is please make money from them. I did this years ago and the pens were sold real cheap. So cheap I'm not working with that person again. But I learned from it.

 

[Drewby108]

I had a similar experience with wands. I made a whole bunch in exhange for time with a personal trainer. I told him what each piece was to be sold for (30 or 50, depending), and he sold everything for $20 each at a harry potter symphony event. I was livid and stopped going there. Sold ~$600 in stock for around 280, I believe.

It really sucked because I am terrible at giving value to my work, so I was trying to build confidence. Not a chance lol.

 

[rixstix]

Haven't seen that issue with acrylic, so can't comment there.

Fundraisers seem to generate bad tastes for donors. Items either sell for pocket change since attendees want to buy at garage sale pricing instead of spending money for the cause. OR, the fundraising staff get 'first dibs' on all donations so that many items never see the public fundraiser. We once donated 10 $100 gift certificates. A few weeks later, a member of the fundraiser staff showed up with all 10 and expected to use them together for a single purchase. That's when we started attending most fundraisers just to see that our donated item actually made the tables for the silent auction bid or made the stack for auction by the auctioneer.

 

[WriteON]

Haven't seen that issue with acrylic, so can't comment there.

Maybe it overheated when drilled out and killed the material... always something.

 

[WriteON]

I was livid and stopped going there. Sold ~$600 in stock for around 280, I believe.

It really sucked because I am terrible at giving value to my work, so I was trying to build confidence. Not a chance lol.

I got mad at my cousin for this. Told her to send back what didn't sell instead of saving them for the next fundraiser. I gave her check instead the next time, But again that's pen turning...we're constantly learning.

 

[wolf creek knives]

Fund raising has been pretty good for me. I had a knife go for $2,000.00 for one event and another knife went for $500.00. I was very happy with the two events. However I had a lady doing a fund raising event who sat on a knife for almost a year with know event planned. So I asked for the knife back and wrote her a check. To date, 1.5 years later, the event still hasn't taken place. Makes me very careful who I donate to now.

 

[WriteON]

Follow up on the blank failure. My gut is too much heat was introduced while drilling and ruined the material. Anyway the white is the "oops" section as the blue blew out while turning. The pen is to represent the Panthers. I do not have silver so white was used.

 

[Woodchipper]

Hmm. Gift certificate should have a disclaimer for: "One gift certificate for one item only. Cannot be combined with other gift certificates."
Many stores have this. O'Charley's has a veteran's discount and an offer of free pie on Wednesday. One can only take one discount. I take the free pie and the other discount at another time.

 

[moke]

I made a segmented pen for a Booster club auction, with the colors of the school. It was an Atrax, a simple rollerball two piece. I had small imprinted boxes at the time and it went for $120.00. I was over the top happy. So the following year I made a Nouvo Spectre with a similar segment, and it went for 25.00.......parts alone were probably 60.00! So who knows, depends on the crowd, the weather and who know what else....