Since it’s nearing the end of the year and not likely I will sell any more boards between now and Jan 1st, I’ll jump ahead a little bit and give my EnumeroCribbageboards.com State of the Union, for 2009.
Money vs. the Cribbage Board
If a board sells at a given price, then that’s probably a fair selling price. Admittedly, I did some price fishing this year – trying to find out the right prices for a given board. I marked a few boards a little high than I would normally and then dropped the prices till they sold, thus establishing a fair selling price. Etsy.com was a huge help in that regard – since if a board sells on etsy.com, then it seems to be fairly representative of its market value, given that etsy.com is kind of a perfect place to figure out a proper selling price, albeit it’s a little trial and error. Setting a price for a board is something I’ve struggled with – until this year.
I sell boards that are distinctive and unique in their appearance and construction. My boards include solid stable wood cores (prevents warping), double edge borders, inlay galore, custom hardwood threaded caps for the peg storage compartments and are typically use made from 5 to 8 different species of woods and 8 to 29 distinct pieces of wood. And I don’t charge and an arm and a leg either.
Going…going…gone green
I think it’s fair to say that my cribbage boards are fairly “green” in the way I make them. I use recycled substrate material (the wood that makes up the core or center of the board), whenever possible. For smaller boards, this is typically cabinet grade plywood and for the larger boards, it can be recycled maple cutting board or the table top from a solid white oak table. It’s actually quite astonishing (even to me) how little wood I need to make a very nice looking board. The power to generate my power tools is provided (in part) from a large 19 panel array of Solar Photovoltaic (energy producing) panels on our roof. The shavings from planning the wood for the boards either ends up the garden or in the back of my wife’s horse trailer. I collect most of the sawdust generated and it goes into the Compost Tumbler. My glue spreaders are small left-over rectangular wood pieces. The card board boxes I use to ship the boards are either recycled (saved from the landfill at my regular paying job) or provided to me (at no cost) via the USPS who makes their shipping boxes from Post Consumer Waste. I rarely ever make one board at a time. There are always made in small batches. When I finish the boards, I typically try and do them about 10 or 12 at a time. This cuts down on waste as well. I light my shop with Compact Fluorescent bulbs. And for fresh air, a nice cross breeze and natural light, I simply open the garage door.
The sand paper wrap on my big drum sander is used over and over again – I “clean” it with what is essentially a giant eraser. I do this until there is basically no “grit” left on the sandpaper wrap.
Going forward, any board made with a least one piece of recycled material, will have a stamp on the bottom of the board. The presence of the stamp will indicate some piece(s) that make up the board came from some kind of recycled or re-purposed material.
Etsy.com is “Your place to buy & sell all things handmade ™ ” Part I
I mentioned etsy.com earlier. If you go to etsy.com and search for things made of wood (under woodworking) you will come back with about 1600 pages. Since each pages hold 20+ items, that’s about 32,000 items just under the woodworking section. Such a large and vast selection is great if you’re a consumer. Competition, especially in the world of hand-crafted items really makes for good buys! You can get amazing prices on some very, very beautiful, handcrafted items. etsy.com has, dare I say it, has become successful for both the consumer and seller and etsy.com is still WAY cheaper than ebay.com for sellers, which still gets about 20% of the item’s final selling price (when listed with auction style), when you factor in listing fees, final valuation fees and Paypal’s fees.
Getting Through Customs and Random Thoughts About Wood
I did 2 custom board requests this year. The 2nd custom board request included Ipe (aka ironwood, or as I like to call it, “Concrete in wood form”. After finishing the boards, I was reminded that Ipe is actually quite nice to work with and finishes nicely as well. Of the dozen or so wood species I routinely work with, Ipe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipe ) is a very consistent wood. The only downside is that it’s dust is pretty toxic and it’s splinter are razor sharp. Purpleheart/Paduak/Ebony can be brittle and a little finicky, but always finish well and really make the boards “pop”. Cherry is seductive in its color and grain and really is “God’s Gift to Cabinetmakers”. Mahogany always forgives but can be a little inconsistent in its grain patterns. Walnut varies from dark brown to creamy white, but its grain and appearance are always warm and inviting. Maple puts up very little fuss and seems to want to please. Poplar is like working with an old friend who knows all of your bad habits and quirks and never, ever judges. It just works. Striped Canary wood is just plain beautiful and very, very sexy. Zebra wood can be a little disappointing, but still a very pretty and interesting wood. Incense cedar is a bit brittle, but smells great and is quite beautiful and always finishes nicely. Pine/Fir, is just good old predictable pine, tried and true. And finally, Cocobolo is like a secret, exotic mistress. Expensive, dangerous, fussy as hell, and worth every penny. Just remember to take a shower after working with it! The dust always gives me the itchies!
Pegging Along…
I stopped using Miller pegs for the 3/16” hole cribbage boards. I found a very nice vendor on ebay.com who sells 3/16” polished metal pegs and so I bought a bunch of the 3/16” pegs (about 20-25 boards worth). I really like using metal pegs whenever possible. They contrast nicely with wood and more importantly, they won’t break off and create one of those “forever-plugged” holes in your cribbage board.
Alignment is Important
Believe or not, I actually worry about peg hole alignment. A lot. I was reminded of this fact when going through some of my dad’s personal possessions after he passed away this last summer. I found an older Drueke Cribbage board (in its original box). I opened the box and to my astonishment, I saw the hole alignment on this board wandered all over the place. It obviously had not been drilled with any kind of drill template. The holes were just too far off. It’s surprisingly difficult to free hand drill in a straight line. It can be done, but it’s not that easy. And if you think about it, holes have to align straight to adjacent holes on either side (say for example in 3 player board) and straight to holes in its own street. Then the grouping of the holes has to align with other groupings, in both the X and Y direction. And lets not forget the turns and making sure the holes the curve, whether 180 degrees or 90 degrees or 45 degrees, line up correctly. See, I told you I worry a lot about peg hole alignment.
ACC Tournament Style Boards
Earlier this year I got a chance to see what type of board is used by serious Peggers at Grass Roots Games and at ACC Tournaments. It was a thin board (about 2” wide) and about 19” long and had directional arrows that indicated the turn since these were continuous track boards. I even figured out how to ink “turn arrows” onto the boards. These boards were sold via the ACC newsletter for years by a gentleman named Roy Boyles. As I understand it, Roy stopped selling the boards.
I made a template from Roy’s board and then returned the board, the template etc. back to the board’s owner. The board’s owner (a friend of Roy Boyles) had made a custom request for the template. I of course made several templates for myself. I ended up making 3 different templates in the vein of the ACC tournament style board. A long and short version of with 1/8” holes and then a long version with 9/64” holes.
Since I have a lot of odd and end pieces of beech flooring around, I will go ahead and try something new in the new year and make some ACC Tournament style boards with the beech flooring. Simple, clean little boards either with 1/8” or 9/64” holes. And since there is now a Lumber Liquidator’s near my house, I may pop over there and see if they have any scrap pieces they want to sell for cheap.
Some Words about Drill Templates…
I stopped selling templates in early November. My inbox, which used to be all ablaze with template orders, has cooled considerably. For the most part, I’m kind of glad to take a break from doing templates. Templates grew a head of it’s own and quickly took over – consuming what little free shop time I have. I honesty think cribbage drill templates is one of those few areas (for selling stuff on the Internet) that has not been properly exploited, even by Amazon.com.
To Finish Up…
I like consistency and predictability when it comes to finishing boards. Most woodworkers will tell you that finishing is something they struggle with. I am no exception. My finishing technique(s) over the last year are a step closer to where I would like them to be. I’m more consistent and the results are more predictable. Both are good things since the finish is the finish.
And the final count was…
As of this writing, I have I sold out 9 series in 2009, and 49 boards. Less than 2008, but my hit counts started going up – possibly because I started to get a high ranking in the search engines? Both of the custom board requests I did this year were from people who saw the boards on etsy.com. So averaging the last 3 years, it’s safe to say that I sell about 50 boards a year.
etsy.com Part II
esty.com is a good place to sell crib boards since there are boards from different vendors to compare to one other right there in the same location, on the same web page and it’s this comparison shopping that I think people enjoy.
People coming to etsy.com expect to find hand made cribbage boards that are perhaps different looking and are made with different materials than commercially available boards. Whereas the typical visitor at my website, is generally referred there one of two ways – either by a search engine (google makes most of the referrals) or by the ACC Website (www.cribbage.org/links) and the Cribbage Corner website ( http://cribbagecorner.com/cribbage-boards ).
Fake 200th Board, Real 200th Board and the 300th Board Sold
I probably jumped the gun a little bit, awarding the 200th board sold schwag to the 188th cribbage board sold (I was counting chess boards in the overall board count). So…to alleviate my guilt, I gave some schwag to the buyer of the 200th Cribbage board (212th board overall). This person also happened to make the largest single purchase of Crib Boards to date (4 boards in one order). So…it felt like the right thing to do. Going forward, I think I will keep the board counts separate. So when I roll around to the 300th board sold (tentatively scheduled for the Holiday Season 2011 if past sales are any indication of future sales – averaging 50 boards per year sold over the last 4 years or so), it will be the actual 300th cribbage board sold and the number “300” engraved on the wood cap would confirm this.
My first paid Advertising Link
Quite out of the blue, a gentleman asked to advertise on the home page with a small text link to an online gambling site. Cribbage is often played for money (in England it’s one of the few games allowed by Statute to be played for small stakes), so I said why not?
Ironically, the very question of whether cribbage is gambling is not (similar in some interpretations to lotteries) is addressed here:
http://home.mountaincable.net/~halscrib/cutlucky.htm
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
200th Board Sold/Schwag Alert Update
Much to my surprise, the 200th board kind of zoomed by. The 200th board sold on Dec. 2nd and then a couple hours later, the 201st board and the next morning gave way to the 202nd board. Thank-you etsy.com! I woman in Illinois bought the 200th board, “Drytown” in the “Ghost Towns of California – Series III “ group. For her efforts in helping me reach this notable milestone, she receives valuable Enumero Schwag valued at over $5.00. The Schwag includes Enumero Themed stuff: a hat, T-Shirt, Pen, Limited Edition Refrigerator Magnets, key-chain and something that is actually useful, but arguably a little overkill for the “rustic” style board she chose: A set of 6 jeweled Austrian Style Cribbage Pegs. Every 100th board receives a set. So start counting now for Number 300!
And then there were none
I think the series, “The Committee of 5” set some kind of personal best in how quickly it sold out. A mere 10 days after the series was issued, it was sold out. The series started as a custom board request based on another board in the series, “Fictional Elements of the Universe.” Essentially, the requestor liked the maple face (stained red) with Ipe/cherry border and purpleheart & ebony point separators from a board in that series. The requestor ended up buying 2 of the 5 boards. The other 3 boards sold on etsy.com.
From this, I can draw several conclusions. People prefer 3 player boards. I already knew this, but it’s nice to have confirmation of it. I will of course be trending more towards 3 Player boards in the future, since this sells well. This particular design/combination of woods seems to appeal to people. These boards come with the heavier stout pegs, which I think people also like.
Cyber Monday
The infamous Internet shopping day, saw 3 boards sell on the particular day and reasonably high number of visitors. Not quite WalMart selling flat screen TVs for $99 but I’ll take it.
Oh Canada
After deciding not to sell boards to our Cribbage Playing friends to the North, I relinquished and updated all of the shipping rates on etsy.com to include our Cribbage playing friends to the North. International Priority mail is expensive and in some cases, the board costs less than the shipping…hence why it’s better to buy more than one board, if you happen to hail from up that way.
Much to my surprise, the 200th board kind of zoomed by. The 200th board sold on Dec. 2nd and then a couple hours later, the 201st board and the next morning gave way to the 202nd board. Thank-you etsy.com! I woman in Illinois bought the 200th board, “Drytown” in the “Ghost Towns of California – Series III “ group. For her efforts in helping me reach this notable milestone, she receives valuable Enumero Schwag valued at over $5.00. The Schwag includes Enumero Themed stuff: a hat, T-Shirt, Pen, Limited Edition Refrigerator Magnets, key-chain and something that is actually useful, but arguably a little overkill for the “rustic” style board she chose: A set of 6 jeweled Austrian Style Cribbage Pegs. Every 100th board receives a set. So start counting now for Number 300!
And then there were none
I think the series, “The Committee of 5” set some kind of personal best in how quickly it sold out. A mere 10 days after the series was issued, it was sold out. The series started as a custom board request based on another board in the series, “Fictional Elements of the Universe.” Essentially, the requestor liked the maple face (stained red) with Ipe/cherry border and purpleheart & ebony point separators from a board in that series. The requestor ended up buying 2 of the 5 boards. The other 3 boards sold on etsy.com.
From this, I can draw several conclusions. People prefer 3 player boards. I already knew this, but it’s nice to have confirmation of it. I will of course be trending more towards 3 Player boards in the future, since this sells well. This particular design/combination of woods seems to appeal to people. These boards come with the heavier stout pegs, which I think people also like.
Cyber Monday
The infamous Internet shopping day, saw 3 boards sell on the particular day and reasonably high number of visitors. Not quite WalMart selling flat screen TVs for $99 but I’ll take it.
Oh Canada
After deciding not to sell boards to our Cribbage Playing friends to the North, I relinquished and updated all of the shipping rates on etsy.com to include our Cribbage playing friends to the North. International Priority mail is expensive and in some cases, the board costs less than the shipping…hence why it’s better to buy more than one board, if you happen to hail from up that way.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
New 3/16" Pegs Arrived and I couldn't be happier
The New 3/16" Cribbage Pegs Arrived and I couldn't be happier! The colors are a good fit for the boards (black, copper, gold, light and dark silver color) and they fit very nicely. This series is titled "The Six Cardinal Directions" and includes North, South, East, West, Up and Down. Technically up and down aren't cardinal directions, but...I made 6 boards, so I had to make them fit. The substrate for these boards (the board in the middle that the top, sided and bottom is glued to) is made up of solid white oak slats and is hard as nails! I found this out the hard way when I went to drill the peg holder hole. Usually I will drill the hole about half way on the horizontal borer and then finish the rest of the hole with a hand drill. I started to do this - I started the hole on the horizontal borer and then I switched to the hand drill. I started to drill and the hand drill bit seized up because the wood it was drilling into was so DAMN hard. Unfortunately, just because the drill bit suddenly stopped turning, this doesn't mean that the drill will stop along with it. The drill itself kept turning and nearly took my hands off. Ouch! Tapping the hole for the threaded cap was no picnic either! But, in the end, I'm pleased with the way the boards turned out and I think they look especially spiffy with the new metal pegs!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
An Ah-hA Moment, 3/16" Pegs and "Free Shipping" Doesn' t Work
Speaking of Ah-ha moments, I had one the other day. I was finishing up a new set of 6 large boards with 3/16” holes that I fast-tracked (completed them in two weeks), and I was fitting the Miller Wooden Dowel Pegs to the holes since the Miller pegs are a touch too big at the bottom and it suddenly dawned on me, that as much as I like Miller Dowel Pegs for joinery construction and “dot” inlay work, I think they look a little out of place on my boards. Plus, being wood, if they break, in the hole…well you know where I’m going with this.
Much to my surprise, not a lot of people sell decent looking, affordable 3/16” Metal Pegs…1/8” pegs come in an amazing variety of shapes/colors/sizes…but not so much for the metal 3/16” pegs. I contacted an Ebay seller who had a good assortment of the 3/16” metal pegs and asked about doing a large order. Also, I could only find one vendor who sells a 3/16” board. I believe the models are Drueke Walnut Board (DRK80800) – http://www.puzzlemethis.com/cgi-bin/puzzle/drk81400.html or the 2 track or Drueke Cribbage Master 3 Track (DRK81500) - http://www.puzzlemethis.com/cgi-bin/puzzle/DRK81500.html
I’m getting really close to selling out 5 different series at the moment. Only 1 board left in each series. It will be good to close out some these series. As always, the lower cost board series sell out faster.
I think I’ve pretty much given up on the concept of “Free Shipping”. My unconfirmed sense of “Free Shipping” is that people don’t trust “Free Shipping” unless it’s from an established outfit like Walmart or BestBuy. I’ll probably continue to sell the more expensive boards with “Free Shipping” since that seems to “fit” the pricing model, but I think I will stick with charging a reasonable amount to cover shipping for the other boards.
And speaking of shipping, imagine my surprise when I decided to be a little more careful about shipping and weighing and realizing that taping 2 USPS Priority Mail Shoe box priority mail shoe box size boxes together, added almost a pound (13 ounces), to the weight! Eeek! No wonder the post office gives boxes away for free. They add A LOT of weight to the package!
Much to my surprise, not a lot of people sell decent looking, affordable 3/16” Metal Pegs…1/8” pegs come in an amazing variety of shapes/colors/sizes…but not so much for the metal 3/16” pegs. I contacted an Ebay seller who had a good assortment of the 3/16” metal pegs and asked about doing a large order. Also, I could only find one vendor who sells a 3/16” board. I believe the models are Drueke Walnut Board (DRK80800) – http://www.puzzlemethis.com/cgi-bin/puzzle/drk81400.html or the 2 track or Drueke Cribbage Master 3 Track (DRK81500) - http://www.puzzlemethis.com/cgi-bin/puzzle/DRK81500.html
I’m getting really close to selling out 5 different series at the moment. Only 1 board left in each series. It will be good to close out some these series. As always, the lower cost board series sell out faster.
I think I’ve pretty much given up on the concept of “Free Shipping”. My unconfirmed sense of “Free Shipping” is that people don’t trust “Free Shipping” unless it’s from an established outfit like Walmart or BestBuy. I’ll probably continue to sell the more expensive boards with “Free Shipping” since that seems to “fit” the pricing model, but I think I will stick with charging a reasonable amount to cover shipping for the other boards.
And speaking of shipping, imagine my surprise when I decided to be a little more careful about shipping and weighing and realizing that taping 2 USPS Priority Mail Shoe box priority mail shoe box size boxes together, added almost a pound (13 ounces), to the weight! Eeek! No wonder the post office gives boxes away for free. They add A LOT of weight to the package!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Selling Out, International Shipping Woes and a Schwag Alert
Selling Out
About a year ago or so, I got a great deal on about a dozen pieces PolyCarbonate Plastic (the bulletproof plastic). Since these pieces were long (24 inches), I've been using the Polycarbonate plastic for the bigger, longer crib board templates. Alas...I'm almost out of this material and soon I will have to mark certain templates "Sold Out" till I can procure some more. I could pay the retail price of $16.00 sq. foot for this type of plastic, but then I would have tack that cost onto the price of the templates, which defeats the purpose of offering reasonably priced drill templates.
International Shipping Woes
I thought I'd give stamps.com a try (even though it's $16.00/month, first month was free), since, unlike Paypal, I could print International First Class labels and NOT have to go the Post Office. Well, the one piece of International First Class postage I printed with stamps.com was for a couple of templates that I shipped to Nova Scotia, Canada, and were subsequently lost in the mail. Of the hundreds of packages I've shipped over the last 3 years, this is the only time anything I've ever shipped got lost in the mail. Not only am I out the cost of the original postage, I have to re-send another set of templates and this time send them International Priority Mail, since International First Class offers zilch in the way of Package Tracking! So I have to pay for shipping a 2nd time and I'm also out the cost of a 2nd set of templates. Naturally stamps.com DOES NOT make it easy to cancel your membership nor will they reimburse the cost of postage for lost packages. And I have to call some ubiquitous 1-800-number in order to cancel the membership. Also, stamps.com doesn't take Paypal, and anytime you want to add postage to your account, you have to do it in $10.00 increments. Suffice it to say that stamps.com SUCKS!!! Paypal is so much easier! You only pay for what you need and it auto-generates the labels for you. You don't have to re-enter the shipping information like you do for stamps.com. And as far as it not offering International First Class shipping...I've decided that International Carrier Pigeon would probably be more reliable than International First Class shipping. I mean what's the point of shipping something to another country via International First Class if you have absolutely no way of knowing if and when it ever got there ? You might as well take the package, stuff if in a bottle and throw out to sea in the general direction of the country you're trying to ship it to. It will probably get there and get there faster than if you had shipped International First Class!
Schwag Alert
Every time I hit a milestone number in either templates or boards, the person who happened to hit the milestone number gets some free "Schwag". I'm rapidly approaching the 200th template to be sold - and the 200th cribbage board to be sold isn't too far off either. The purchaser of the 200th crib board gets a lot more "schwag" than the the person who purchases the 200th template.
Cribbage Board & Template Pricing
I find it interesting (and somewhat telling), that selling Crib Board templates seems to be a more successful endeavor than selling crib boards. A lot of time and effort goes into making crib boards, because there are so many steps (approximately 19 steps). Templates involve just a few steps. Choose a piece of plastic, cut to size, drill the holes and glaze (clean up) the plastic.
That said, the template prices seem to be about right. They sell consistently. I've raised the prices of some of the higher end crib boards, to better reflect the amount of work that goes into the board. Crib boards do not sell steadily and I suspect that sales will be slow this Holiday Season - in part as a result of the higher prices. Given the choice between paying $20 or a $100 for a crib board, most people would choose to pay $20. I'm back to giving free shipping on new crib boards. I'm still charging shipping on older crib boards (on the web site). Older boards on etsy.com come with free shipping.
At the end of the day, I just go with my gut feeling when it comes to pricing crib boards - what seems about right to me, since I know how many hours I spent on any given board. I have no shortage of ideas and material for crib boards and could easily make another couple of hundred unique and one of a kind boards - but I have to balance that against what I'm actually selling.
About a year ago or so, I got a great deal on about a dozen pieces PolyCarbonate Plastic (the bulletproof plastic). Since these pieces were long (24 inches), I've been using the Polycarbonate plastic for the bigger, longer crib board templates. Alas...I'm almost out of this material and soon I will have to mark certain templates "Sold Out" till I can procure some more. I could pay the retail price of $16.00 sq. foot for this type of plastic, but then I would have tack that cost onto the price of the templates, which defeats the purpose of offering reasonably priced drill templates.
International Shipping Woes
I thought I'd give stamps.com a try (even though it's $16.00/month, first month was free), since, unlike Paypal, I could print International First Class labels and NOT have to go the Post Office. Well, the one piece of International First Class postage I printed with stamps.com was for a couple of templates that I shipped to Nova Scotia, Canada, and were subsequently lost in the mail. Of the hundreds of packages I've shipped over the last 3 years, this is the only time anything I've ever shipped got lost in the mail. Not only am I out the cost of the original postage, I have to re-send another set of templates and this time send them International Priority Mail, since International First Class offers zilch in the way of Package Tracking! So I have to pay for shipping a 2nd time and I'm also out the cost of a 2nd set of templates. Naturally stamps.com DOES NOT make it easy to cancel your membership nor will they reimburse the cost of postage for lost packages. And I have to call some ubiquitous 1-800-number in order to cancel the membership. Also, stamps.com doesn't take Paypal, and anytime you want to add postage to your account, you have to do it in $10.00 increments. Suffice it to say that stamps.com SUCKS!!! Paypal is so much easier! You only pay for what you need and it auto-generates the labels for you. You don't have to re-enter the shipping information like you do for stamps.com. And as far as it not offering International First Class shipping...I've decided that International Carrier Pigeon would probably be more reliable than International First Class shipping. I mean what's the point of shipping something to another country via International First Class if you have absolutely no way of knowing if and when it ever got there ? You might as well take the package, stuff if in a bottle and throw out to sea in the general direction of the country you're trying to ship it to. It will probably get there and get there faster than if you had shipped International First Class!
Schwag Alert
Every time I hit a milestone number in either templates or boards, the person who happened to hit the milestone number gets some free "Schwag". I'm rapidly approaching the 200th template to be sold - and the 200th cribbage board to be sold isn't too far off either. The purchaser of the 200th crib board gets a lot more "schwag" than the the person who purchases the 200th template.
Cribbage Board & Template Pricing
I find it interesting (and somewhat telling), that selling Crib Board templates seems to be a more successful endeavor than selling crib boards. A lot of time and effort goes into making crib boards, because there are so many steps (approximately 19 steps). Templates involve just a few steps. Choose a piece of plastic, cut to size, drill the holes and glaze (clean up) the plastic.
That said, the template prices seem to be about right. They sell consistently. I've raised the prices of some of the higher end crib boards, to better reflect the amount of work that goes into the board. Crib boards do not sell steadily and I suspect that sales will be slow this Holiday Season - in part as a result of the higher prices. Given the choice between paying $20 or a $100 for a crib board, most people would choose to pay $20. I'm back to giving free shipping on new crib boards. I'm still charging shipping on older crib boards (on the web site). Older boards on etsy.com come with free shipping.
At the end of the day, I just go with my gut feeling when it comes to pricing crib boards - what seems about right to me, since I know how many hours I spent on any given board. I have no shortage of ideas and material for crib boards and could easily make another couple of hundred unique and one of a kind boards - but I have to balance that against what I'm actually selling.
Friday, September 4, 2009
A quick Follow-up, Karma, A New Old Bandsaw Rube Goldberg Would be Proud Of and Finishing Notes
A quick follow-up:
At a customer request, I made a template based on the board by ACC Tournament Board maker, Roy Boyles. The customer sent me one of Roy's boards to work from. I sent back the board and the template and never heard another word from the customer. I made the template for free and didn't charge for shipping it back. So much for common courtesy.
Speaking of Karma...
I was reminded why you don't treat people like SH*T (see above). The reason is Karma. Yes, the universe really does keep score. This was once again demonstrated to me when I had to replace my bandsaw this week. I've given away many things on craigslist for free. One of the more useful things I've given away was a perfectly good electric water heater. It was used, but it hadn't been used that much. I gave it away to a gentleman who, like a lot people these days, is financially strapped and couldn't afford $400 for a new water heater. He picked up the water heater, took it home, had a friend who was plumber/electrician install it for him and he had a perfectly good water heater and didn't have to take cold showers anymore. He made a point to send me a follow-up email and thank me for the water heater.
Fast forward a couple of years. My smaller vintage Powermatic 41 14" bandsaw, which I've always secretly hated, finally breaks! Yeah! I've hated it because the blade never tracked right, it was a pain to tension the blade correctly, it took a funny blade size (99") that most vendors don't stock, and the blade frequently jumped off the wheels if you put any pressure on the blade.
So now I have to get another bandsaw. I too, am watching every penny and can't afford a new bandsaw (and I don't want new, I'd rather get a vintage one) and I can maybe afford $100. I found a nice old delta 14" band, but it was pretty far away. A couple of days later, I'm trolling Craigslist and sure enough, an old Rockwell 14" bandsaw shows up and the guy is only 10 minutes away.
A New Old Bandsaw Rube Goldberg Would be Proud Of...
I get over to the guy's house and boy, did I hit the jackpot. A nice, clean vintage 14" Rockwell with some Rube Goldberg type modifications. He added 2 table extensions to either side of the table. The stock table had been extended 12" in either direction. The original owner had built a complicated looking 4-tier tower to raise the motor and then added 5 Pulleys to the original single pulley. He created and welded on a nicely integrated dust collecting shroud to the lower door of saw. He wired in 2 sets of enclosed 110V outlets (total of 4 outlets) nicely integrated into the switch area. He beefed up the power cord to handle the extra juice required by the extra outlets. And it had the original stock motor.
Finishing Notes
For the first 200 or so crib boards I've made, I've really struggled to get a consistent and repeatable approach to finishing, that was quick, easy to do, repeatable and gave my boards a look that really emphasized the warmth of the wood grain but didn't look plasticy or fake! Rather, it gave a look of depth to the wood and it's grain.
So last week, I was sanding and finishing up 10 soon to be released boards and I thought about all my previous attempts at trying to get a consistent and easily repeated finish and this time really stepped through what I was doing with a very methodical approach. I took notes of what I did, I repeated the approach and I got it! Finally!!!!
I didn't invent some new finishing approach. Rather, I just finally made sure I was consistent in my approach and paid careful attention to what I was doing. Too often, I get distracted and or impatient when finishing, so I veer off course. The key this time was to make sure that I prepped the board properly when sanding and sealing. Prep is everything when it comes to finishing. No surprise there.
At a customer request, I made a template based on the board by ACC Tournament Board maker, Roy Boyles. The customer sent me one of Roy's boards to work from. I sent back the board and the template and never heard another word from the customer. I made the template for free and didn't charge for shipping it back. So much for common courtesy.
Speaking of Karma...
I was reminded why you don't treat people like SH*T (see above). The reason is Karma. Yes, the universe really does keep score. This was once again demonstrated to me when I had to replace my bandsaw this week. I've given away many things on craigslist for free. One of the more useful things I've given away was a perfectly good electric water heater. It was used, but it hadn't been used that much. I gave it away to a gentleman who, like a lot people these days, is financially strapped and couldn't afford $400 for a new water heater. He picked up the water heater, took it home, had a friend who was plumber/electrician install it for him and he had a perfectly good water heater and didn't have to take cold showers anymore. He made a point to send me a follow-up email and thank me for the water heater.
Fast forward a couple of years. My smaller vintage Powermatic 41 14" bandsaw, which I've always secretly hated, finally breaks! Yeah! I've hated it because the blade never tracked right, it was a pain to tension the blade correctly, it took a funny blade size (99") that most vendors don't stock, and the blade frequently jumped off the wheels if you put any pressure on the blade.
So now I have to get another bandsaw. I too, am watching every penny and can't afford a new bandsaw (and I don't want new, I'd rather get a vintage one) and I can maybe afford $100. I found a nice old delta 14" band, but it was pretty far away. A couple of days later, I'm trolling Craigslist and sure enough, an old Rockwell 14" bandsaw shows up and the guy is only 10 minutes away.
A New Old Bandsaw Rube Goldberg Would be Proud Of...
I get over to the guy's house and boy, did I hit the jackpot. A nice, clean vintage 14" Rockwell with some Rube Goldberg type modifications. He added 2 table extensions to either side of the table. The stock table had been extended 12" in either direction. The original owner had built a complicated looking 4-tier tower to raise the motor and then added 5 Pulleys to the original single pulley. He created and welded on a nicely integrated dust collecting shroud to the lower door of saw. He wired in 2 sets of enclosed 110V outlets (total of 4 outlets) nicely integrated into the switch area. He beefed up the power cord to handle the extra juice required by the extra outlets. And it had the original stock motor.
Finishing Notes
For the first 200 or so crib boards I've made, I've really struggled to get a consistent and repeatable approach to finishing, that was quick, easy to do, repeatable and gave my boards a look that really emphasized the warmth of the wood grain but didn't look plasticy or fake! Rather, it gave a look of depth to the wood and it's grain.
So last week, I was sanding and finishing up 10 soon to be released boards and I thought about all my previous attempts at trying to get a consistent and easily repeated finish and this time really stepped through what I was doing with a very methodical approach. I took notes of what I did, I repeated the approach and I got it! Finally!!!!
I didn't invent some new finishing approach. Rather, I just finally made sure I was consistent in my approach and paid careful attention to what I was doing. Too often, I get distracted and or impatient when finishing, so I veer off course. The key this time was to make sure that I prepped the board properly when sanding and sealing. Prep is everything when it comes to finishing. No surprise there.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
T and T (Templates and Tournament Boards)
As I've mentioned before, template sales seem to come in waves. I won't sell any templates for a couple of weeks and then all of a sudden, I'll be drilling 10 templates that week. So seems to be the case for new template designs. This week, I received 3 requests for new template designs: a spiral, the "29" shaped board and an intriguing request to downsize the size of the Standard Tournament model by a few inches (more on why it's intriguing in a moment). Since I don't do my templates in CAD, new template designs pose a challenge - how to make new templates using existing templates. For the "29" shaped board, I can print out a picture of a "29" shaped cribbage board, enlarge it to size I want and then spray mount the picture onto piece of wood and use it as rough guide to make the template. For the spiral board, I can draw a perfect spiral with Adobe Illustrator and then paste the picture spiral picture down and drill accordingly, using the spiral line as a guide for the center hole (for a 3 player board).
The third and most intriguing request came from someone who recently bought the tournament style template, but didn't realize till he received it, that it was longer than he expected by about 3-4 inches. The gentleman was looking for a tournament board template to match the length of his existing tournament board which had been made by a gentleman named Roy Boyles. A little bit more investigation showed Roy used to sell this size of tournament board (around 19 inches long) through ads he placed in the ACC newsletter and then all proceeds from his sales were donated directly to the Lymphona Society.
So I offered to make him a template to match Roy's board (as close as I reasonably can) and he will loan me Roy's board, so I can take measurements from it.
Apparently, at ACC sanctioned tournaments, the standard tournament board used is around 19 inches long. I have never attended an ACC tournament and thus, I didn't know this. (I really should get out more). I looked around on the Internet a little bit and could not find anyone who sells 19" tournament boards. My tourney boards are typically 22-23" long. One place sold a 29" long tourney boards and yet another place sold tourney boards that are only 15" long.
Roy has stopped selling his tournament boards, but he still gets requests for them. So...this gentleman was kind enough to offer an introduction of sorts between myself and Roy, with the intent that I could possibly fill the niche left by Roy and offer for sale these size of tournament boards.
It's an exciting proposal, so we'll see.
The third and most intriguing request came from someone who recently bought the tournament style template, but didn't realize till he received it, that it was longer than he expected by about 3-4 inches. The gentleman was looking for a tournament board template to match the length of his existing tournament board which had been made by a gentleman named Roy Boyles. A little bit more investigation showed Roy used to sell this size of tournament board (around 19 inches long) through ads he placed in the ACC newsletter and then all proceeds from his sales were donated directly to the Lymphona Society.
So I offered to make him a template to match Roy's board (as close as I reasonably can) and he will loan me Roy's board, so I can take measurements from it.
Apparently, at ACC sanctioned tournaments, the standard tournament board used is around 19 inches long. I have never attended an ACC tournament and thus, I didn't know this. (I really should get out more). I looked around on the Internet a little bit and could not find anyone who sells 19" tournament boards. My tourney boards are typically 22-23" long. One place sold a 29" long tourney boards and yet another place sold tourney boards that are only 15" long.
Roy has stopped selling his tournament boards, but he still gets requests for them. So...this gentleman was kind enough to offer an introduction of sorts between myself and Roy, with the intent that I could possibly fill the niche left by Roy and offer for sale these size of tournament boards.
It's an exciting proposal, so we'll see.
Friday, June 26, 2009
A Silly Slogan on Some Enumero "Schwag"
I wandered over to CafePress last week and put together a small collection of Enumero Cribbage Board "schwag". Just a picture with the Enumero website location didn't seem like enough, so I decided to make the "schwag" functional as well fashionable. With Enumero "Schwag", not only will you look cool and hip and stylish at your next Cribbage Tournament, you can indulge your desire to find a suitable cribbage partner with the humorous slogan, "I'm Begging for Some Pegging...". The image and slogan is available on thong underwear, T-Shirts, mugs, hats and bumper stickers.
Here is the location:
http://www.cafepress.com/enumerocribbage
And for those of you who would like to point some of the other definitions of "pegging" (aside those related to Cribbage), I'm way ahead of you. Urban Dictionary.com actually gives (ironically) 19 definitions for "peg".
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=peg
Here is the location:
http://www.cafepress.com/enumerocribbage
And for those of you who would like to point some of the other definitions of "pegging" (aside those related to Cribbage), I'm way ahead of you. Urban Dictionary.com actually gives (ironically) 19 definitions for "peg".
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=peg
Some Random Thoughts about Self-Centering Bits and Crib Templates
The holes in most of templates I sell are 1/8" and are meant to be drilled straight through with a 1/8" bits. I prefer cobalt bits since they drill very clean. So I don't believe the templates I sell will work with self-centering drill bits. As we all know, 1/8" is the most common size for cribbage pegs.
I see the closest you can get to 1/8" is 7/64" in terms of self centering bits? The problem with self centering bits (and my templates) is that there is no recess for the outer shank of the self-centering bit, like you would find on a hinge. Alternatively, you could have a drill template with a hole big enough to accommodate the outer shank of the self-centering bit. For example, Rockler's shelf-hole jigs work this way.
These folks:
http://www.coastaltool.com/a/ab/snappy/self_centering.htm
sell a 7/64" self centering bit which works with a #6 screw. I include #6 screws with my templates, so it seems like its close...but I know from experience that some pegs don't always sit right in 7/64" holes vs. 1/8" holes. So even if this did work, you might have to go back and re-drill everything at 1/8".
That said...Rockler sells cribbage templates and they sell self-centering bits to with the templates. See this URL:
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=10120&filter=cribbage%20template
As far as hitting the drill bit hitting the edge of the hole on the template or the bit missing the hole or the drill bit wandering , I've never given that one much thought. I drill pretty fast, and if I miss the target hole and start to drill a "new" hole in the plastic template, I simply stop, put some Tightbond II Glue in the "new" hole, cover it with a very small piece of blue tape and move on. Needless to say, some of my more well used templates have a lot of "new" holes filled with glue. But it adds character to the template. It shows that it’s well loved.
Could you make templates to accept countersink drill bits?
Unfortunately, I can't really make templates to accept a self-centering bit due to the fact that I "clone" my plastic templates from metal templates which were originally made on a CAD drilling machine. In order for me to make ones that could take self centering bits, I would have to drill a regular template, and then enlarge each hole to fit the cap or insert piece of self centering bit. Given how close the holes are to each other on some of the templates, I can't guarantee that this would work so well. Holes too close together in plastic might lead to problems - making the templates too brittle? Alternatively, I could countersink, the edge of each template hole, similar to the way they do for hinge holes, but this would likely take a long time and would probably wear out my good countersink bit. :->
These folks sell a very nice countersink bit - that might work - but I can't guarantee how well it will do in plastic. Just a thought. :-> I use this bit (and their wood threading tools) to tap holes and make threaded caps for crib pegs in the crib board.
http://www.bealltool.com/products/threading/countersink.php
I see the closest you can get to 1/8" is 7/64" in terms of self centering bits? The problem with self centering bits (and my templates) is that there is no recess for the outer shank of the self-centering bit, like you would find on a hinge. Alternatively, you could have a drill template with a hole big enough to accommodate the outer shank of the self-centering bit. For example, Rockler's shelf-hole jigs work this way.
These folks:
http://www.coastaltool.com/a/ab/snappy/self_centering.htm
sell a 7/64" self centering bit which works with a #6 screw. I include #6 screws with my templates, so it seems like its close...but I know from experience that some pegs don't always sit right in 7/64" holes vs. 1/8" holes. So even if this did work, you might have to go back and re-drill everything at 1/8".
That said...Rockler sells cribbage templates and they sell self-centering bits to with the templates. See this URL:
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=10120&filter=cribbage%20template
As far as hitting the drill bit hitting the edge of the hole on the template or the bit missing the hole or the drill bit wandering , I've never given that one much thought. I drill pretty fast, and if I miss the target hole and start to drill a "new" hole in the plastic template, I simply stop, put some Tightbond II Glue in the "new" hole, cover it with a very small piece of blue tape and move on. Needless to say, some of my more well used templates have a lot of "new" holes filled with glue. But it adds character to the template. It shows that it’s well loved.
Could you make templates to accept countersink drill bits?
Unfortunately, I can't really make templates to accept a self-centering bit due to the fact that I "clone" my plastic templates from metal templates which were originally made on a CAD drilling machine. In order for me to make ones that could take self centering bits, I would have to drill a regular template, and then enlarge each hole to fit the cap or insert piece of self centering bit. Given how close the holes are to each other on some of the templates, I can't guarantee that this would work so well. Holes too close together in plastic might lead to problems - making the templates too brittle? Alternatively, I could countersink, the edge of each template hole, similar to the way they do for hinge holes, but this would likely take a long time and would probably wear out my good countersink bit. :->
These folks sell a very nice countersink bit - that might work - but I can't guarantee how well it will do in plastic. Just a thought. :-> I use this bit (and their wood threading tools) to tap holes and make threaded caps for crib pegs in the crib board.
http://www.bealltool.com/products/threading/countersink.php
Friday, May 22, 2009
19 States, Quarters & Caps
I keep track of a lot of metrics around the selling of my cribbage and chess boards. I keep track of which states I've sold in and I've been hovering around 32 states for a while. I figure I have a long way to go before I hit the 51st state, seeing how I have to sell boards to crib players in another 19 states, but I've already planned how commemorate when I finally hit the 51st state. The 51st state buyer will receive their board with their state's quarter inlaid into the bottom of the board. I'm counting the District of Columbia as a separate state, BTW. For the curious, here's a list of the 19 remaining states to be sold in: Arkansas - Delaware - Illinois - Louisiana - Maine - Missouri - Montana - Nebraska - Nevada - New Hampshire - New Mexico - North Dakota - Oklahoma - Rhode Island - Tennessee - Utah - Vermont - West Virginia - Wyoming. Since I turn my own threaded caps from hardwood dowels, I decide to start numerically numbering boards with their caps. This be will just another fun way of keeping track of the numeric order in which boards are sold. So for example, if you bought board #168, the bottom of the screw cap on your board would have the number "#168" etched onto it. The number will be on the bottom of the cap (below the threads so as not to be visible).
Price Fixation
Since I'm just about done drilling the 150+ boards that have been in the work queue for the last year or so, I can start to turn my attention to actually finishing and releasing the new series (there are 22 new series). I will try and finish and release a couple of series at a time. With a few exceptions, there probably won't that many boards under $15 anymore. Back in the day, I sold boards for as little as $3. There will still be a fair amount of boards under $20 though. Most of the more expensive boards (any board selling for over $29) will come with free shipping, free deck of sealed playing cards, etc. I really struggle with pricing and I will continue to - since I don't want to price my work so high I never sell anything, but not so low - that people question the quality and/or workmanship. Cribbage boards can be bought for as cheap as couple of dollars, so charging $50 or $100 for board can be a little challenging. Based on my own experience, I know what sells in that price range, albeit slower.
100th Template Sold and the lucky buyer got some "Schwag"
I zoomed right by the 100th Template sold and the lucky buyer got some "Schwag". I thought I wouldn't hit the 100th template sold until Mid-June, but I was off by a month. The 100th template sold on May 15th, via eBay. The lucky buyer of the 100th template received a complimentary "Schwag Pack" which included an EnumeroCribbageboards.com T-Shirt and a set of 8 fancy pegs. For those of you keeping score, the 100th template was a 2 Player Continuous Track Compact Model. I've also noticed that template sales seem to come in batches. For example, the last batch of templates ( a total of 8 templates ) all sold between during a 5 day period. And it looks like I will have some more "Factory Seconds" of templates to sell sometime in June. If I make a template and don't like it, then it ends up in the "Factory Seconds" pile. Once I get about 10 templates in the pile, I sell the whole lot on Ebay. The factory seconds are not counted in the template sold count. Nor do they have labels and they are not numbered, like the regular templates. Since I've cracked a 100 templates sold mark, I'm won't update the template count for a while. I'll just leave it at "100+" sold. I surprised myself how quickly I hit a 100 templates sold - it took just under a year. I started selling templates in late May of 2008.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Got both motors running - an amateur's guide to upgrading your Hitachi Resaw Bandsaw
I've noticed that the price on the current model of the Hitachi Resaw Bandsaw is now a wallet busting $3700 @ amazon.com. I've also noticed along with the higher price, is a bigger 2.8 HP motor. As per amazon's website: "The motor is a powerful 2.8 HP that you can upgrade and attach to the side mount with ease for that extra power." I guess someone in R&D @ Hitachi noticed that people tend to do the motor upgrade, swapping out the smaller 1.5 Hp motor and thought they'd join the party. Speaking as someone who as just successfully completed the upgrade on their fairly old 600A model (the predecessor to the current model), I couldn't be happier with the results. The saw just cuts and cuts and cuts. NO MORE BOGGING DOWN! So...for the curious here is a brief synopsis of what I did and how I did it. Keep in mind, I am not a professional, strictly an amateur who is not afraid to cut upgrade his tools. My total cost for the motor upgrade was about $300. I did all the work myself - took about 4-5 hours total. The best part of the upgrade was finding a NEW 5HP Baldor Motor on ebay, for a fairly decent price.
Now the title says, "Got both motors running"... The original motor on the saw, which I had thought had died, thus prompting me to finally upgrade it to a bigger motor, still works. In fact, I took all of the original power cords, etc. off the saw, plugged it in, and it fired right up. It was released back into the wild via ebay.
A couple of things to keep in mind. The rated RPM of the existing motor is about 900 rpm (according to the Hitachi Manual). Thus, depending on the RPM of the replacement motor, you should shoot for that as well. Turns out it's pretty easy to calculate using this URL:
http://www.temecularodrun.com/ref/rpm_calc.asp
There are 3 known values and one unknown, which is the NEW pulley size, assuming you don't reuse the old double pulley.
RPM Drive Motor: 1725
Drive Pulley Size: ???
Driven Pulley Size: 5"
Desired RPM: 900
The calculator then says I need a drive pulley (pulley on the motor) of 2.61 inches. I erred on the size of caution and I got one that was 2.75 inches. A 2.75 pulley gives an RPM of 949. Close enough! A 3250 RPM motor would need a pulley around 1.4".
So the next problem to solve was how to mount the thing to the saw. I was able to mount it "simply" by drilling some new holes in the motor mount plate and the saw's exterior mounting plate. I had to drill an elongated hole, so the bolt that sits at the bottom of the plate and allows you to adjust the belt tension, would simply slide through. The metal is thick, so I used a Cobalt bit and lots of cutting oil.
Once the new motor was mounted it seem to line up pretty well with the other pulley. Next, I put the motor's pulley on and wired in the new switch. I mounted the magnetic switch a small piece of plywood and used the old switch's mounting holes to mount the plywood.
The default rotation of the motor was backwards, so I had to reverse the motor direction as per the motor's wiring diagram. So...make sure you buy a reversible motor!
Now, everything is mounted and wired, it was time to put the belt cover back on. Of course it didn't fit with the new bigger motor - so I cut a hole in the belt cover where the pulley shaft of the motor was, to allow the shaft to "stick out" beyond the edge of the belt cover.
The old motor weighed about 15#. The new motor weighs about 85#.
Here is synopsis of parts/prices:
=================================
Motor: 5 HP Baldor 1725 RPM, 220V 21 AMP Motor. Frame 184T.
Source: Ebay.com
Cost: $225 (new).
Switch: 5 HP Rated 220V Magnetic Switch
Source: Taken from the Rockwell-Delta disk/belt sander combo machine
Cost: $0 (but I will have to replace the sander's switch and that will cost ~ $10)
Pulley: 2.7" OD 1-1/8" Bore 2-Groove 'B' Belt Pulley Maska
Source: ebay.com
Cost: $35
Belts: 2 48" Long New Goodyear V-belts (old belts were 45" long and just a little too short)
Source: Local auto-parts store
Cost: $41
Mounting Bolts with rubber washers inside the bolt
Source: Hardware Store
Cost: $2
Cord/Plugs: Heavy duty 220V power cord and 220V Twist n' Lock Plug
Source: The Shop
Cost: $0
Now the title says, "Got both motors running"... The original motor on the saw, which I had thought had died, thus prompting me to finally upgrade it to a bigger motor, still works. In fact, I took all of the original power cords, etc. off the saw, plugged it in, and it fired right up. It was released back into the wild via ebay.
A couple of things to keep in mind. The rated RPM of the existing motor is about 900 rpm (according to the Hitachi Manual). Thus, depending on the RPM of the replacement motor, you should shoot for that as well. Turns out it's pretty easy to calculate using this URL:
http://www.temecularodrun.com/ref/rpm_calc.asp
There are 3 known values and one unknown, which is the NEW pulley size, assuming you don't reuse the old double pulley.
RPM Drive Motor: 1725
Drive Pulley Size: ???
Driven Pulley Size: 5"
Desired RPM: 900
The calculator then says I need a drive pulley (pulley on the motor) of 2.61 inches. I erred on the size of caution and I got one that was 2.75 inches. A 2.75 pulley gives an RPM of 949. Close enough! A 3250 RPM motor would need a pulley around 1.4".
So the next problem to solve was how to mount the thing to the saw. I was able to mount it "simply" by drilling some new holes in the motor mount plate and the saw's exterior mounting plate. I had to drill an elongated hole, so the bolt that sits at the bottom of the plate and allows you to adjust the belt tension, would simply slide through. The metal is thick, so I used a Cobalt bit and lots of cutting oil.
Once the new motor was mounted it seem to line up pretty well with the other pulley. Next, I put the motor's pulley on and wired in the new switch. I mounted the magnetic switch a small piece of plywood and used the old switch's mounting holes to mount the plywood.
The default rotation of the motor was backwards, so I had to reverse the motor direction as per the motor's wiring diagram. So...make sure you buy a reversible motor!
Now, everything is mounted and wired, it was time to put the belt cover back on. Of course it didn't fit with the new bigger motor - so I cut a hole in the belt cover where the pulley shaft of the motor was, to allow the shaft to "stick out" beyond the edge of the belt cover.
The old motor weighed about 15#. The new motor weighs about 85#.
Here is synopsis of parts/prices:
=================================
Motor: 5 HP Baldor 1725 RPM, 220V 21 AMP Motor. Frame 184T.
Source: Ebay.com
Cost: $225 (new).
Switch: 5 HP Rated 220V Magnetic Switch
Source: Taken from the Rockwell-Delta disk/belt sander combo machine
Cost: $0 (but I will have to replace the sander's switch and that will cost ~ $10)
Pulley: 2.7" OD 1-1/8" Bore 2-Groove 'B' Belt Pulley Maska
Source: ebay.com
Cost: $35
Belts: 2 48" Long New Goodyear V-belts (old belts were 45" long and just a little too short)
Source: Local auto-parts store
Cost: $41
Mounting Bolts with rubber washers inside the bolt
Source: Hardware Store
Cost: $2
Cord/Plugs: Heavy duty 220V power cord and 220V Twist n' Lock Plug
Source: The Shop
Cost: $0
Friday, March 27, 2009
Get the Motor Running
Pretty much ever since I bought a used Hitachi Bandsaw for re-sawing, I've hated the puny little stock motor that it came with. Don't get me wrong - it's a cute little motor, if all you ever resaw is cute little pieces of wood. The motor is rated 1.5 HP, but I think they misplaced the decimal point and it's really 0.15 HP. Naturally, I've ignored the need to replace the motor until I've actually needed to replace the motor. I suspect the motor felt my contempt towards it's meager performance and very graciously and unceremoniously died on me last week. So...motor shopping I went. I looked at various online vendors and then wandered over on Ebay. There, I stumbled onto someone selling overstock BALDOR motors running at the lower RPM of 1740. And it was the frame size I needed for the Hitachi. So I ordered it and am now waiting patiently to get the motor running. The whole idea of replacing the motor came about 3 years ago I asked Bruce Creps at Notable Woods (http://www.notablewoods.com) who also uses the same type of Hitachi as I do, what he did to upgrade his motor. And he very graciously responded and gave me a few tips about the pulley size. BTW, they sell very beautiful wood and they re-saw A LOT of wood.
Coupons
Everybody loves coupons, especially on the Internet. I can't tell you how many times I go to check out on an Internet shopping site and I see a little box that says, "Enter Coupon Code" and I immediately ask the Google and it politely responds with a relavent Coupon Code thus saving me some $. I've looked into how to add coupon(s) code(s) to my own site and Paypal (my payment Pimp), has been promising coupon code like functionality for payment processing at least 3+ years, but has yet to deliver. So...it leaves people such as myself, the option of either going out and using a 3rd party shopping cart application which does support coupons, or rolling my own. I opted for the latter. So...if and when I ever finish the 115 boards currently in the work queue, select boards will have a little Coupon Code box next to the "Add Item to Cart" button. I will offer the coupon code as some type of certificate towards future purchases for anyone buying a board, once I start completing the current set of boards and offering them for sale. And for those of you who happen to be reading this, I will reveal one of the 3 coupon codes now. You can probably guess the other 2! :-> The code is "envmero-10" which will give 10% off the price of selected boards (i.e. those boards with a coupon code box next to the "Add to Cart" button). The other 2 coupon codes will be for 20% off and 30% off. *** REMEMBER - you have to enter the coupon code, click the "APPLY COUPON" Button AND then add the item to the cart. When you go to checkout via Paypal, the discount should be reflected in the checkout price (or view cart). The coupon will only apply to select boards.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Have Cribbage Board Will Travel and Saving $ on Supplies
Now that I've seemed to reached the Saturation Point of selling templates on ebay, I am focusing my attention on back on drilling cribbage boards. I'm about 1/2 way through drilling the 100+ boards currently in the work queue. Some of the smaller boards which would have been relegated to the classic 2 pass, 2 street, no continuous track layout, have instead gotten a new continuous layout. I'm calling this new drill pattern a 2 or 3 player continuous track layout in a convenient travel size.
I actually got the idea to do a layout like this about a year or so ago when someone emailed me wanting a continuous track template layout for a board length of 12" or less. At the time I couldn't think of a way to do it, but recently, when thinking about new template layouts, I remembered the request and came up with the layout. The 2 player size length is actually less than 12". It's 10" long and about 3" wide. The 3 player travel size board is 10" long about 4" wide.
There seems to be a consistent pattern to supplies and running out of supplies. I have 5 items (not counting wood), that I have to restock from time to time. These include packaging tape, bubble wrap, complimentary frig magnets, template mounting screws and plastic cleaner/glazer. I hate running out, so I keep a look out for ways to save $ and stock up at the same time. Costco recently had a sale on packaging tape, so I stocked up on that. VistaPrint.com constantly wants to give me free magnets (I just pay a nominal shipping fee), so I stock up on those. I bought 2000 mounting screws from McFeely's, so I'm good with those for the next 200+ templates. To tackle the running low on the plastic glazer/cleaner problem, I'm going to pick up a gallon of the stuff next I'm at Tap Plastics. Finally, that leaves bubble wrap. Last time I bought it, I got a good deal on 4 100 ft rolls at ebay. And its almost time to buy some more.
I actually got the idea to do a layout like this about a year or so ago when someone emailed me wanting a continuous track template layout for a board length of 12" or less. At the time I couldn't think of a way to do it, but recently, when thinking about new template layouts, I remembered the request and came up with the layout. The 2 player size length is actually less than 12". It's 10" long and about 3" wide. The 3 player travel size board is 10" long about 4" wide.
There seems to be a consistent pattern to supplies and running out of supplies. I have 5 items (not counting wood), that I have to restock from time to time. These include packaging tape, bubble wrap, complimentary frig magnets, template mounting screws and plastic cleaner/glazer. I hate running out, so I keep a look out for ways to save $ and stock up at the same time. Costco recently had a sale on packaging tape, so I stocked up on that. VistaPrint.com constantly wants to give me free magnets (I just pay a nominal shipping fee), so I stock up on those. I bought 2000 mounting screws from McFeely's, so I'm good with those for the next 200+ templates. To tackle the running low on the plastic glazer/cleaner problem, I'm going to pick up a gallon of the stuff next I'm at Tap Plastics. Finally, that leaves bubble wrap. Last time I bought it, I got a good deal on 4 100 ft rolls at ebay. And its almost time to buy some more.
Friday, February 6, 2009
19 Templates & Counting off to 29
So having settled on 19 template designs, I've mapped out the last 10 designs - which will give me a total of 29 template designs. It wasn't that hard to come up with another 10 designs. I actually came up with more than 10 designs, so I had to pare it down. The last 10 template designs will be as follows:
1) 2 Player CT Tournament Style - with half circles - 180 Degree curve every 10 points - kind of like a Sin Wave.
2) 3 Player CT Smaller/Compact Oval Design - similar to the existing oval design, but more compact
3) 3 Player CT Rectangle with an "S" Curve track orientable in either direction
4) 3 Player CT Square
5) 3 Player CT Triangle
6) 3 Player CT Star
7) 3 Player CT Full Circle - right now the circle template is a half template, that you flip to come full circle - assuming I get the plastic in this larger size
8) 3 Player CT Quasi Circle
9) 3 Player Spiral - Spiral inward - not outward
10) 3 Player CT - Board in the shape of a 29!
1) 2 Player CT Tournament Style - with half circles - 180 Degree curve every 10 points - kind of like a Sin Wave.
2) 3 Player CT Smaller/Compact Oval Design - similar to the existing oval design, but more compact
3) 3 Player CT Rectangle with an "S" Curve track orientable in either direction
4) 3 Player CT Square
5) 3 Player CT Triangle
6) 3 Player CT Star
7) 3 Player CT Full Circle - right now the circle template is a half template, that you flip to come full circle - assuming I get the plastic in this larger size
8) 3 Player CT Quasi Circle
9) 3 Player Spiral - Spiral inward - not outward
10) 3 Player CT - Board in the shape of a 29!
Ebay and the Mafia - they both skim 20% off the top
2009 marks ten years that I have been a buyer and seller on ebay. I like ebay for buying things, not so much for selling. I don't sell crib/chess boards on Ebay anymore. I prefer etsy.com for selling crib/chess boards as a supplemental selling channel to my website. By far, my biggest complaint about selling on Ebay are the high fees (as a percentage of the item sold). For me, it's approximately 20% of the cost of the item sold. (Insertion Fee + Final Value Fee (12%) + Paypal processing Fee (%6)). Ebay owns paypal.com BTW, so it's all going into ebay's pocket. In the end it adds up to about 20%. Ouch! So why bother? If you have something to sell on the Internet, ebay is still a viable way to sell it, despite the ridiculously high fees. That said, I'm testing the waters of selling crib templates on ebay. I've sold a lot of templates off the website, but I thought I'd test the ebay waters to see what kind of response I get.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Holiday Doldrums - And Looking to New Year
My tracking software I use to show unique hits per day on the website, showed a high traffic peak in Early December, and then it tapered off for the rest of the month. Since I had planned to have 100+ new boards ready in time for the Holidays (and I didn't), I figured I would just settle in and wait for the next Holiday Season. January rolled in and order for Templates picked up quite a bit. So...right now I offer 19 different style of templates with plans for 10 more styles of templates. Templates have proven to be an interesting little side business. Obviously, a lot less time and effort goes into making a template than a board. Whereas I spend 2-4 hours on a given board, I typically spend 15 minutes (or less) to drill a template and about 15 minutes cleaning, packaging and shipping the template. But, given the strong sales of templates, it's pretty clear people enjoy making their own cribbage boards. Sales seemed to peak in Mid January when I shipped 10 templates in one week. I think offering a discount on shipping of multiple templates help encourage people to buy more than one template.
Looking into the new year, I should be able to finish all the items that are in my work queue at the moment. As always, I think the boards I'm working on now and better than boards I've done in the past - which is the way it should be. I'm trying to come up with a new and clever way to sell more boards - maybe offer a free cribbage template, if you buy a cribbage board. :-> Etsy is definitely a Holiday Place for shopping. I won't expect sales from it until next Holiday Season. I still don't know if I will ever figure out the magic formula for pricing my boards.
Looking into the new year, I should be able to finish all the items that are in my work queue at the moment. As always, I think the boards I'm working on now and better than boards I've done in the past - which is the way it should be. I'm trying to come up with a new and clever way to sell more boards - maybe offer a free cribbage template, if you buy a cribbage board. :-> Etsy is definitely a Holiday Place for shopping. I won't expect sales from it until next Holiday Season. I still don't know if I will ever figure out the magic formula for pricing my boards.
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