Well, figured another month had passed, so I had better post something here.
More of the same, really. The three "W's" have been occupying most of my time lately: Work, Website and Writing instruments. The pens-for-sale website is coming along nicely and I'm starting to even see some folks making their way to me via search engines, which is always a good feeling. I've got a couple more ideas rattling around in my head that I'd like to accomplish, such as allowing potential customers to create their own custom pen, but I'm still tweaking the details and more or less shaking my head while trying to make the concept a reality.
No other "big" projects going on at the moment, mainly because I can't seem to put the gouges and skew down long enough to think about building something. I guess that isn't a bad thing, in and of itself, but I'm sure the three people who actually read this mess are starting to get bored listening to me carry on endlessly about pen turning. If so, well, I apologize, but when that's the obsession of the day... The sad thing is, though, that even the spammers haven't even bothered to bombard my comments with their ads for various "male enhancement" drugs. I guess obscurity has it's upsides!
Been rather busy lately. I've been splitting my time between turning pens, tracking down orders I've placed (a story in and of itself, let me tell you) and getting the new store put together (which can be found by clicking here...excuse the lame plug). Thought I'd pop over here and do something non-commercial for a few minutes.
On a positive note, I've received a shipment of interesting wood that I bought online. So far, however, I've only managed to turn one piece of Macadamia nut and one piece of Black Palm. Both are very beautiful specimens. The Black Palm pen came out beautifully. The Macadamia Nut pen, looked really nice, but my boneheaded self had two of the bushings confused and more or less ruined the pen. Needless to say, however, I've got plenty of blanks to turn now.
I've spent the better part of two evenings trying to set keywords and meta tags on all of my pens in the store in hopes of getting the search engine gods to smile upon me. Next up is writing descriptions for all the pens...which I've already started and stopped doing about five hundred billion times now. After all, what's to really describe? It's a pen. It writes. There's a picture of it that you can look at if you so desire. It isn't like it takes batteries and does something different than any other pen, so how much can you describe without sounding like a loon? My thinking is that I'd almost rather have no description than have someone read the same crap over and over again because I can't come up with something witty and unique eleventy-one times. Not to mention that I'll have to describe every new pen from now on and you catch the feeling that prompted the title of this post. Maybe one day I'll be rich and famous and can hire someone to do the marketing while I do the pen turning.
And poor Amy is probably regretting ever buying a digital camera at this point. She's been my professional photographer and I'm sure she probably never wants to see another pen again. Between trying to get the perfect placement and then the editing and resizing needed, I'm surprised she hasn't gone on strike.
Sorry...didn't mean to start a bitch fest there. I'm actually having a blast, but would enjoy it much more if there wasn't a load of administrative BS to go along with it. But I suppose that one has to deal with the less enjoyable parts of the process that support the parts that make it all fun.
Welcome to the last post of 2006!
First off, I have added a couple of pictures of a pair of candle holders to the Gallery. These were a Christmas gift for my Mother and were inspired by a picture she found in a catalog from who-knows-where. They were made of a couple blocks of maple burl and finished with five coats of semi-gloss Arm-R-Seal (what else?!).
Next, in an effort to (a) find a home for my ever-growing surplus of pens and (b) attempt to make pen turning a self-sustaining habit, I have opened an internet store. As The Pen Turns will now be the commercial entity of the Amateur Termite shop. I'm still fine tuning things, so be gentle with the criticisms for a bit. I did, however, manage to get my SSL certificate today, so all sensitive transmissions will be encrypted. I'm still waiting for PayPal and Google Checkout to verify my banking information, but if you so desire, you can still make a purchase.
All that being said, I'm heading back out to the shop to build up more inventory. Such drudgery...
Hope you all enjoy a happy and prosperous new year!
I'm still obsessing over my new obsession. Been out in the shop pretty much every day since Thanksgiving making pens and trying to decide where in hell to put them all.
No, sorry, no pics of the latest creations for a couple of reasons. First off, Amy, my wife and part-time photographer has come down with some sort of funk that's had her feeling like dog squeeze since Friday. Secondly, some of the turnings may or may not become Christmas presents so I'm trying to keep them under wraps, no pun intended.
Pen turning has turned out to be a very relaxing diversion. While I like doing "larger" projects, the big power tools tend to get noisy after a while. Listening to the stereo while the planer is running tends to become difficult. But when the lathe is running, its generally fairly peaceful, if you discount the occasional expletives spewed when I screw something up. Generally that only happens when I try to be "cute" and try something new.
On a side note, I found an interesting article online about using corn cobs to turn pens (here's a link). The guy who wrote it makes it look much easier than it seems to be. The cobs themselves are fairly easy to work with, but once you turn them to the match the pen kit, well, things don't always work out as planned. I'm determined to make one that looks decent because, well, they just look cool and hell, it's cheaper than screwing up nice wood blanks. I'm sure the squirrels won't complain much either.
You may have noticed that the site has changed a bit. What was old is new again. After a rather lengthy hiatus, I'm back in the shop and decided that, well, I was tired of the clunky look of phpNuke and decided to move back to Movable Type. So, stay tuned...more to come!
I have gone through all of the entries on the site and disabled the ability for anyone to leave comments. Why? Because of all the damn spammers out there using my site to peddle their crap. So, from now on, until I can move to a different platform, all comments will be disabled.
I just have to send a big old "Thank You" to the guys at the Woodcraft in Alpharetta. Granted, they've always been very friendly (not to mention patient), but today they helped me past the final (hopefully!) hurdle in my quest to finish the crib.
See, I had been having some major technical issues inserting the threaded inserts that hold up the gates and such. Ugly technical issues. I built a jig, tried waxing the inserts, but just couldn't get them to "insert" without splitting the top 1/32" of the maple. Having practiced inserting a couple more inserts than I should have (you know what they say, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome.") I paid a visit to the guys at Woodcraft to pick up some more.
While checking out, I asked the guys behind the counter for some friendly advice on how in the hell to get these #@%! things in without tearing up the crib. Granted, their answer was rather obvious, but being rather new to this, I wanted to hear it from someone else before I tried it. Basically, they suggested I make the holes just slightly bigger. Granted, they should have ended the conversation with "Here's your sign," but these guys have never been anything less then friendly, even during the great Jorgensen Clamp Rush of '03.
So, this evening, with my shiny new drill bits (which were about $5 a shot cheaper then they were at Lowe's, BTW) I experimented some more. Alas, no splitting! The rest of the inserts went in without incident. Hopefully with the inserts inserted, construction will end this weekend and I can get some final pictures up...hopefully :)
Things have been pretty slow in the shop lately due to other duties occupying my time. However, late last night in a fit of insomnia and boredom, I set up a woodworking forum on the website. Granted, its a work-in-progress, and no, there isn't really anything there yet (there has been one whole post so far!), but feel free to check it out. If your curious, you can view it here:
You can read anonymously, but if you wish to post, you will have to register with a valid e-mail address. Figured it would keep some of the spammers at bay. Enjoy!
You can never have too many clamps.
Having watched way too many episodes of New Yankee Workshop, I have often heard Norm smile at the camera as he tightens up his 437th clamp and say "You really can never have too many clamps."
Well, he was right.
During the construction of Amy's cabinets, I learned that the hard way. When I started building the cabinets I had two Bessey K-Body clamps, four "Quick-Grip" clamps and a bunch of el-cheapo Chiwanistani bar clamps I bought 4-for-$10 at Big Lots. They got me through some small projects, but as I was gluing up the first cabinet, I realized that my clamp collection just wasn't going to cut it.
Fast forward to October 17th...the date of the of the great Woodcraft Jorgensen Cabinet Master clamp sale. 24", 36" and 48" clamps at about 55% off regular price...I saw clamp nirvana...
It was actually two sales in extremely limited quantities...the first started at midnight on their website. At about 55% off retail price, they didn't last long and their server was pounded. I tried to get my order in to no avail. So I headed to my local store the next morning, hoping to load up. I waited in line with about twenty other clamp hunters all waiting for the same score I was after. Luckily, they had enough on hand for everyone who had waited (I'm sure there would have been a riot if they did not!) and I made out with about $450 worth of clamps for just a few bucks over $200.
Now, I know this is still a rather meager clamp collection, and I actually used all but one clamp when clamping up the last three cabinets, but a guy has to start somewhere. And at about $40 a shot for one clamp at regular price, I think I'll be taking my time.
Now its time to give serious consideration to building a real clamp rack.
Yes, yes, I know I haven't updated the site in quite some time now. If this were a true "blog" I'd be in all sorts of hot water by now. But it isn't, so deal with it :)
There really hasn't been a whole lot going on project-wise in the shop lately. School started up in these parts in the middle of August which is playing havoc with our daily commute. Add to that the ever thickening crop of Bermuda grass that seems to need to be cut every other day and there isn't a whole lot of time left to devote to quality wood ruining.
However, some good is coming out of all the insanity...my brother, Mike, is getting married next week...and I'm the best man. I get to write the really embarrasing speech to give at the reception, although I'm sure it will be more embarassing for me to give the speech then it will be for Mike to have to endure it.
At any rate, I have managed to get the shop 95% cleaned up and organized from the wiring and expansion fiasco. Currently waiting on some more blast gates to arrive so I can get busy running PVC and hose for the dust collector. After that we should be ready to make some serious sawdust, so stay tuned.
Just a quick post to vent (no pun intended...you'll understand soon).
Finally got the new area of the shop cleaned up to the point that I was going to spend tomorrow moving stuff into it. Had big plans to start running the ducting for the dust collector...all that just went to hell.
Now, understand, we live in Georgia and its the end of July. In other words, its hot. Really freakin' hot.
Went out to the shop today only to find that our air conditioner, the most important tool in the shop during the months that don't have "R"s in them (think about it), is DOA. Needless to say, it's a bit toasty in the shop.
So, there go the plans for tomorrow. I have a feeling I'll spend part of the day trying to get the stupid thing fixed (it's still under warranty) and the other part of the day doing yardwork. Lovely.
Well, today was supposed to be an exciting, happy day. Theoretically, the electrician was supposed to come out and install a subpanel in the new area of the workshop. As it stands now, Amy and I share one 20A circuit and use another 15A circuit for the lights and dust collector. Needless to say, there are extention cords every where.
I guess I should correct my second sentence...the electrician did indeed show up. However, he quoted me a price of over $1000 to install the subpanel. The kicker of the whole situation was that the subpanel would only be about 12 feet from the main panel. Now, I'm no electrician, nor am I an accountant, but I can do the math pretty well:
New subpanel: $75
100A circuit breaker: $40
25' of 2 gauge wire: $40
So far, we have a whopping $155 in materials so far. I'll be reasonable and call it an even $200, just for the sake of simplicity. Which means, assuming that my math is correct, that I was being quoted $800 in labor! Uh, I don't think so. Methinks its time to call around some more or do it myself. I'm not big on electrocuting myself, but I'm not big on shelling out $1000 for a job that small.
Just a quick post tonight. Been working on getting the new space cleaned up and ready to go and finally took the time to put together the new band saw. Its a Grizzly G0555, 14" bandsaw...and boy, is that thing friggin' heavy! It was shipped truck freight, and it was all I could do to get the damn thing out of the truck when I got home.
At any rate, after sitting in the new part of the workshop for over a week now, I finally decided that I was tired of tripping over it and moving it to get things in order, so I broke down and put it together. Here it is, in all it's glory...
And, for those interested, the workshop expansion is coming along nicely. I got the wood rack moved and put up and have 98% of the non-shop related junk out of the room. Here's a shot of the mess for those of you keeping score at home.
Just wanted to welcome everyone to the new website. We're still in the "figuring out how best to put the site together" mode, so bear with us. We have plenty of content built up, so check back often.