scturner
Member
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
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