Enumero Cribbage Boards

EnumeroCribbageboards.com State of the Union for 2011

2011-12-31T17:32:00.000-08:00

State of the States Sold In

2011 saw me pick up four more states. I’m up to 45 states sold. I’m still missing these 5 states: Arkansas, Delaware, Nevada, Okalahoma, Wyoming. And I believe Enumero Cribbage boards are now in China as well.

A Documentary on Koa

I saw this really fun little documentary about Koa (a beautiful and very distinctive wood native to Hawaii) and I was quite impressed to see that a full size Koa tree (that had blown over and uprooted itself in a storm) had a street value of about $100,000. One single tree had a market value of $100,000! I think the guy was inflating the price a little bit, but still Koa is by no means cheap. It typically sells for $25 (or more)/board foot. Koa I’ve used, I’ve gotten from Bruce over at www.notablewoods.com. Bruce graciously sells me the miscellaneous pieces of Koa that Luthiers might not be able to use. Bruce has a very nice write-up about Koa at this link. http://www.notablewoods.com/pages/koa.html. The last batch of 25 or so Koa slices I bought from Bruce, I made 30 boards from. I don’t waste Koa. I even made 3 of the boards (Famous Literary Rejects II Series) from the cut-offs from other Koa boards. If you’re looking for beautiful luthier wood, Bruce is your guy! In the late summer/early fall I got another great box of Koa cut-off miscellaneous pieces. This time I went with the $50 box and I was not disappointed! The new box should keep me busy for a while. When finished, Koa imparts a warm rich glow.

Calling All Cribbage Board Collectors

For those of you wanting to collect Enumero Cribbage Boards, I replaced my templates page with a page dedicated to Cribbage Board Collectors. Essentially the pages are a year by year inventory of sold boards with links to the picture of the board and the series the board belongs to. It’s similar to the Sold-Out page, but boards are shown in the chronological order in which they were sold.

Since the vast majority of my boards have been sold via the mighty and powerful Internet, I have, at the very least an email address of the person who bought a board. If you see a board you would like to add to your collection, drop me an email, and I will forward your request to the owner. If the owner is open to the idea of parting with their board, I will provide the owner with your email address, at which point I step out of the picture and let the two parties hash out the details and decide among themselves a selling price, shipping arrangements, etc.

If you are successful in pursuing your board, you can also let me know that you are the new owner and I will update my records to reflect this fact.

Speaking of Similar Sounding Domain Names…

When I first registered my domain, I also registered the non-pluralized version of it as well. Well I let the singular version registration slide (I didn’t renew it), partly because I’m cheap and partly because I wanted to see if someone else would grab it and try to resale it to me at some point.

Well that experiment only took 2 years to complete. In late June of 2011, I started getting emails offering me to the chance to bid on a domain name I previously registered.

They very kindly offered me first crack at buying back my own domain name like so:

“ENUMEROCRIBBAGEBOARD.COM has been flagged as a premium domain and we expect it to sell quickly. Since you received a priority notice from us, you will be given first chance to acquire this domain.”

I’m not sure when getting 5-8 hits a day (a dozen hits on a good day), qualified a website as premium domain. Personally, I think they’re setting the bar pretty low. Keep in mind that it’s the non-pluralized version.

Playing Favorites

As long as I’ve been making boards, I’ve noticed a tendency that in any given series of boards, one board always seems to stand out just a little bit more than the other boards in a given series.

In 2011, I’ve decided to give into this urge to denote what I think is the standout board in any given series and started adding an inlaid circle (similar to the inlaid skunk marker dot) on the short edge of the board, on on the opposite side of the peg hole.

But you may ask, how can I, the discriminating cribbage board buyer know if a given board for sale, is in fact your favorite board in a series, since I only show the board face (top of the board) in the picture.

And my answer is “Easy, just look for the dot next to the board name on the “For Sale Page.” This will indicate what I think is the stand out board for that series.

For example, in the “Human vs Machine in Game Play – 6 Notable Examples,” there was a board titled “Cribbage” denoting Hal’s Crib vs. The Rest of the World and next to it is a little “o” in parens – like so: (o).

And since my selling prices generally correlates to how much I like a particular board, the favorite board will, in most instances, be more a little bit more expensive than other boards in the same series.

Why I Love Wikipedia

Back in 2008, I did a small series titled “Fictional Elements of the Universe – Series I” implying that there would be more elements. At the time, the list of fictional elements on Wikipedia was a bit short. Like the list of Saturn Moons, which was only 35 when I originally did that series, the list of fictional elements has grown significantly! As of this writing, they have mapped 62 moons around Saturn and 100+ fictional elements.

I love Wikipedia because it’s an endless source of information and inspiration for series ideas and names.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_elements,_materials,_isotopes_and_atomic_particles

Recycled Boards

I had about 15 or so old boards floating around the shop for the last several years. They were not sellable due to serious cosmetic flaws, blown out holes, badly sanded through inlay, etc. Not sure what to do with them, I kept them. This year, I found a new way to recycle old boards. Use the old board as a new board blank! It was a elegantly simple solution as to what to do with blown out boards. The net result is that the board is tad thicker and there is some extra inlay on the bottom side, but other than that, they look like a normal board.

New & Improved

I made some thicker boards in 2011. To keep the proportions nice, I started doing 1” caps.

Drill Templates

2011 saw me finally get around to doing a proper inventory of my templates. I got rid of duplicates, etc. and finally have a good handle on what I have. I got a bug up my butt and created about 15-20 new designs (mostly curves and street mixtures) and I’m up to 69 unique drill pattern templates. I suspect there are probably thousands of combinations for drill templates and I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. Needless to say, I’m pretty well covered in terms of being able to find a template for any size of board. My supply of inexpensive plastic finally really ran out and so I stopped selling templates again. I won’t say I that will never sell templates again, but it may just be a while before I circle back around to to selling them again.

Big Releases

A couple of years ago I did a big release of about 50+ boards in several series all at once. After I completed it, I said I’d never do that again. Well, apparently my own advice is fell on deaf ears and in July 2011 I did even a BIGGER release of 87 boards in 12 series.

Reward

A board called Banjo Guitar was sold to a client in Southern California. It went MIA off my mailbox – a first! It never even made it into the USPS tracking system. Consistent with the USPS laws on Postal Theft, there could be up to a $10,000 reward for information leading to arrest and conviction of the perpetrator. More likely, it just got eaten by a USPS processing machine and/or stolen by a USPS employee. It’s likely it would not have gotten processed in the USPS system until it got to Southern California – based on the information I see for the replacement board I sent out. Don’t know. The USPS is BIG, BLACK hole, that happens to work really well, MOST of the the time. Where else can you can send a package for $5 (from your front door) to someone else’s front door 3000 miles away and know with 100% certainty that it arrived there (and in 3 days or less) After 5 years and shipping 600+ items off my mailbox, I had to come up with a new shipping strategy.

California Ghost Towns IV

Normally, I wouldn’t mention a specific series, but this one had a bit of bad luck associated with it, so it bears mentioning

When I was drilling out the holes for the “legs” on these boards, I was using a large ¾” Fortsner bit on a hand drill. For whatever reason (most likely stupid user error) the drill jumped and landed on my left thumb and in an instant, it cut/drilled/managled a ¼” square section out of the center of my finger nail. And yes, it hurt alot. Also, I broke about 6 or 7 titanium bits while drilling these boards. It seemed like every board broke a bit. This is notable, since I’ve literally drilled a 100+ boards using the sam drill bit, so breaking a bit is a very rare occurrence for me.

Varnish

Like many woodworkers, I have been somewhat terrified of trying my hand at a varnish finish – the exception being some of the California Ghost Town series – where I just slapped a couple of coats of varnish on and called it a day.

So I finally tried it and just like Mikey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Mikey), I liked it. There is some technique involved with the wet sanding in between coats, but I’m starting to get the hang of it. And it really makes the less interesting looking board faces, pop.

Shop Tour

A very nice gentleman (a Crib Enthusiast who’s currently working in China, but who has ties to the Bay Area) and his girlfriend stopped by the shop. While my shop is so small, giving a tour of it would prove challenging under the best of circumstances, they did procure a few boards and graciously bought my remaining supply of colored wood pegs.

10,000 Pegs Later

And speaking of China, I purchased 10,000 silver pegs directly from China – a minimum order when buying anything from China. These are nice functional little silver pegs, nothing flashy. I got a good deal on them and once they shipped, they got to my front door in 2 days (from China, over the New Year’s Holiday) courtesy of DHL Express.

And the final count for 2011 was…

I sold 118 boards and sold out 13 Series in 2011. Overall, a decent year. I broke my personal best of 99 boards sold from 2010 (previous highest count from last year). In the numerically ironic department, the last board sold for the year was “Apollo 13” from the NASA Moon Bible Missions Series. It sold for $1.00. It also sold out the series and that series was the 13^th series sold out for 2011.

Cost Cutting Measures

I’m getting away from including the nicer pegs with all of my boards. Most boards now come with the little silver pegs, which are perfectly nice little pegs. Only the higher end boards will get the good pegs and only the REALLY higher end boards will get the really FANCY pegs. Older boards are still coming with the nice pegs,simply because I’m too lazy to re-shoot the boards with the cheaper pegs. My margins are just so small (or non-existent and/or negative for a lot of boards), I just can’t justify giving out $1.50 or $2.25 worth of pegs (my wholesale cost) on a $10 or $15 board. The little silver pegs are an order of magnitude cheaper than the good pegs. Costco gave me a break when they put their brick of Bicycle Playing cards on sale this year for about $12 a brick. I stocked up and when I went back to get more, they were sold out. During the NON-holiday season, I include a pack of cards on boards that cost $31 or more. During the holiday season, every board gets a pack of cards with it (plus a 29% off etsy coupon).

Final Random Thoughts for 2011

I got a few repeat customers (so that was nice) and I drove right past board #400. I tried A LOT of new styles of drill patterns this year, so it was fun to mix things up. I didn’t really do that many tournament style boards this year. Right at the end of 2011 I released a series of ACC style tournament boards (some with 9/64” holes) – which didn’t haven't done much. I don’t advertise in the ACC newsletter or try and promote my boards with ACC players or local clubs.

Looking ahead to 2012

I would expect to see A LOT of Koa boards in 2012. I have about ~90 Koa board blanks glued up and in the middle of being drilled. They’re always a good seller. Zebrawood boards are in the works, along with a maple/cocobolo combination board. I have a TON of Cocobolo tournament boards I just need to finish. I will be releasing 3 new point count boards. “Manchester” style boards (90 point Crib Boards) and 7-Card Boards which come in 2 flavors: The 150 point board (American Version of 7 Card Crib) and the 180 Point (English Version of 7 Card Crib).

Chess Boards

With any luck I will finish the remaining 3 chess boards that have been sitting on the shop floor for 2+ years and finally start some new Chess Boards in 2012. The new chess boards will be made like the cribbage boards - pretty woods glued to stable substrates. Some of my early chessboards (made strictly with solid hardwoods, warped).

EnumeroCribbageboards.com State of the Union for 2010

2011-01-04T14:09:00.000-08:00

State of the States Sold In

I’m up to 41 states sold. I’m still missing these 9 states: Arkansas, Delaware, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Okalahoma, Tennessee and Wyoming.

A Quick Note about NotableWoods.com

I sold a couple of old band saw blades to Bruce over at www.Notablewoods.com via Ebay. This is notable for a couple of reasons. It’s from his website, I got the idea to dump the stock motor on my Hitachi Resaw BandSaw and replace it with a REAL motor. I put a 5 HP Baldor motor on my Hitachi and I blogged about how I did it, how much cost, how to calculate the right pulley size to get the stock blade RPM, etc.

Anyway…Bruce is quite knowledgeable about the bands for the Hitachi Bandsaw, unlike me. I thought the bands were OK and could be sharpened and used again. Turns out, they weren’t. So upon hearing this, I gladly gave him his money back. Bruce genuinely appreciated this and sent several beautiful pieces of Koa cut-offs my way. Notablewoods.com sells beautiful Koa (and other species of wood) to Luthiers all over the world. They also sell their cut-offs (small pieces) at very reasonable prices. I in turn made the “Variation on Theme – Series I” out of the pieces he sent over and sent him a complimentary crib board.

The boards sold well, so I contacted Bruce in November of this year. He provided a Box-of-Koa (shipped in band saw blade box of course). It’s a nice selection of Koa shorts/cutoffs that for Luthiers, might be too short/small. But just like the third bowl of Porridge in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, it’s just right for cribbage boards. I got a beautiful box of 25+pieces in various sizes and have delineated them for 4 new series (about 28 or 29 boards): Variation on a Theme Series II, III & IV and Famous Literary Rejects II (cutoffs).

An Annual Tradition I would like to Avoid – Double Booking

As it crept ever closer to the 2010 Holiday season, sales picked up, which is a good thing. The bad thing was I thought I’d repeated a mistake I’d made the year before. I thought I’d sold a board off the website and neglected to pull the board off of etsy.com. Fortunately I didn’t and the customer was very cool about a flurry of confusing emails I sent to her, and she got her board.

Money vs. the Cribbage Board

I sold a board for $1 in 2010. Such a deal! The great “secret” to my pricing structure is really quite simple. The more I like the way a board turned out, the more I charge for it. That’s not to say I don’t like the $1 board. I do. I like all my boards. But, for whatever reason, not every board turns out as well as I would like. Some boards simply turn out better than others. A $5.00 board is board that might have a mis-aligned drill pattern
http://www.enumerocribbageboards.com/images/guttenberg.JPG or maybe I drilled it freehand and the alignment of the holes if off a little bit: (http://www.enumerocribbageboards.com/images/resonator.JPG)

When I first started selling Crib Boards, I would sell my cheapest boards for $1.00 on ebay (http://www.enumerocribbageboards.com/images/apollo16.jpg) or (http://www.enumerocribbageboards.com/images/ChoOyu.jpg).

A lot of the boards are now ranging between $15-31 per board. The slightly nicer ones creep into the $40 area and the REALLY nice ones are in the $50-$60 range. I sold one board for $121 a couple years back. My highest board purchase to date. I suspect it will be a while before I venture back into that price range for a board. (http://www.enumerocribbageboards.com/images/siarnaq.jpg)

This board is REALLY significant (too me) since its 5 strips of ¼ sawn Cocobolo that are all perfectly book-matched and aligned. It’s tough to get 3 bookmatched strips to align, let alone 5! It’s the first board I got the idea of using ¼ sawn strips to design board faces. It’s the first board I did with Cocobolo. It’s THE board that kind of opened the flood-gates in terms of creating boards with unique and unusual grain patterns. It’s a board I created when I didn’t really know what I was doing and somehow got really lucky on my first try. And good luck inspires us to continue on. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a very good picture – but it still sold during Xmas 2008.

To that end, I’ve come up with a new 4 Tier pricing structure that rates the boards from 3 to 0, 0 being the best. Then the 4 tiers are broken down a little bit more depending on if the board is a Tournament Style, 2,3 or 4 Player board or a Giant Board (the 3 foot long board). Since any given board takes about 2 ½ to 3 hours from start to finish, I decided not to base my prices simply on how long a board takes to make – since they all take about the same amount of time. Instead, prices will vary based on the final appearance of the board and the type(s) of wood that make up the board.

The Custom Board Jinx

I’ve done a few custom boards, but I probably won’t do any more. They’re not really for me. I know of a few board makers that do custom work and have referred people who have asked about custom boards to them. Lots of folks on the Web make custom crib boards, but I can’t seem to get my head around it. At the end of the day, I can only approximate what a given customer wants and handmade objects are undervalued enough without adding an additional parameter (such as customization) into the mix.

Earlier this year, a customer made a custom request and asked me to repeat an earlier design. I made 4 boards in the design and the boards just didn’t come out very good. I declared all 4 of them “Postpono” and sold them for almost nothing. Naturally, the person who requested the board didn’t buy any of the 4 boards – I couldn’t blame him. He didn’t get what he requested and I couldn’t see redoing a 4 board series completely from scratch for the possible chance of selling one board from that series for the whopping sum of $24.

In my world, wood always dictates the final product. Least with boards that are complete and offered for sale, the customer chooses either to buy a board, because they like it or not to buy a board, because they don’t. Most people fall in the latter category. Most people are window shoppers.

As a Percentage…

My favorite place to sell crib boards, etsy.com, started offering coupons right before Cyber Monday! Yeah! I went ahead and offered a 31% off coupon (any board on the etsy.com site) and sure enough, people started using it. I’m actually pretty happy that I can do this now. I’ve been amassing a large collection of email addresses (from my 600+ template/boards sales over the last 5 years) and have wanted to start email marketing past clients – but I didn’t want to SPAM people just for the sake of sending them SPAM – I wanted to send them something they might actually find useful – like a DISCOUNT coupon for a future purchase.

I’ve played around with coupons on paypal, and it’s kind of doable, but it’s not very elegant and difficult to implement. It’s much easier on etsy.com.

CafePress.com

Custom made, short-run hats and T-shirts available over the Internet seems like a good idea, but seriously, it’s not. I am of course bitter because I’ve had items on cafepress.com for 2 years and have made exactly no money. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

On the off chance you wander over to it in search of an Enumero Bike themed bike Messenger bag, thong underwear or even a T-shirt, here is the address:

http://www.cafepress.com/enumerocribbage

It’s a Holiday…

I sold at least on board on the following Holidays this year.

Xmas (2009)
New Year’s Eve (2009)
New Year’s Day (2010)
Valentine’s Day (2010)
Turkey Day (2010)
CyberMonday (2010)
New Year’s Eve (2010)

Etsy.com is “Your place to buy & sell all things handmade ™ ”

Etsy.com still seems to be a great place to sell boards. As always, it’s a great place for the consumer/buyer since the immense amount of competition on the site can only drive places one direction (down) and the selection is equally immense.

Unlike flea-bay (ebay.com), etsy doesn’t gouge you on fees and your 20 cent insertion fee is good for 6 months! Their fees are reasonable and fair, not excessive. There are many things I like about etsy.com. The website is very nicely laid out, it’s easy to navigate and easy to post items to. If you want to promote your items on their site, you can easily do this for a small fee. In my experience, the buyers “get it” and respect the fact that the items they’re buying are hand made and not churned out by the thousands in some factory somewhere.

Pegging Along…

In order to make better use of my less expensive pegs on 3 and 4 player boards, I’ve taken to painting the pegs copper and black with some success. The trick is to spray on as little paint as possible, otherwise it flakes off too easily.

Recycling

I’ve had ½ dozen chess boards not quite done for some time. One chess board was hastily completed and given to a customer as a replacement chess board. The board they bought from me a couple of years earlier (one of my early chess boards, had warped rather seriously). Yes, I do honor my lifetime warranty. So that leaves 5 chess board to still be finished. Of those 5 chess boards, 2 of the boards had some issues – they also warped – so I re-glued them to a stable substrate. When I first started doing chess boards a couple of years ago, I thought I could do them in solid hardwoods, but I’ve since decided to make chess boards the same way I do crib boards: re-saw the material, glue the material to a stable substrate and then add edge layers, thus preventing any chance of warping. The old woodworker’s adage still applies: Wood Moves.

Even after re-gluing the 2 warped chess boards to a stable substrate, the 2 boards still had issues. Since both boards were Maple & Purpleheart squares, I thought, Ah-ha. I can make one good chess board from the 2 slightly screwed up chessboards. Well that idea didn’t pan out. So there I am staring at all these various parts of 2 cut up chess boards…trying to decide what to do…and the obvious solution didn’t really come to me right away. It took me a minute to realize that the random assortment of glued up squares would actually make interesting looking crib boards!

Which then got me thinking about my box of board rejects – boards I couldn’t sell even for $1, but hated to throw away. Perfect for re-purposing to another board. So I went to my freshly arrived box of Koa pieces and voila – in a matter of a few minutes, I re-purposed 8 dead boards – giving them a 2nd chance. In most cases the board face was the problem – the board bottom and substrate were perfectly usable.

Some Words about Drill Templates…Rants & All!

I finally ran out of the longer pieces of plastic and since I won’t pay full retail for plastic, I’ve been making do with what I’ve got. In other words, I’m not currently selling any templates requiring plastic over about 15” long. This eliminates quite a few templates, many of which sell well.

I tried to mitigate this problem by buying what I thought was the good, high grade chemcast (paper backed) plastic from the folks at http://www.freckleface.com. Unfortunately, the folks there are terriblely rude and just plain nasty/awful people to deal with. Don’t let the as asinine picture of the stupid Freckle Face kid on the web site fool you. These people are DICKS! And on top of that, they’re dishonest. And the owner of the company, with whom I corresponded directly with, is pretty much a royal DICK! Just my opinion, but I would never deal with them again. They charge top dollar for SHIT quality plastic (the lowest grade of plastic available). And when I pointed this out to them, let’s just say, the email correspondence between them and I went from PG-13 to down right nasty! A Better Business Bureau complaint produced nothing, further confirming my suspicion that the BBB is an equally worthless entity as these people are. Every single complaint I’ve ever filed with the BBB has gone absolutely nowhere and produced no tangible results.

So to mitigate my supply chain issues (aka the Scrap Bin at my local Tap Plastics), I came up with the idea of the NFS template. I quasi gave up Tap Plastics in Dublin. They started charging way to much for their chemcast pieces. They want $8 or $10 for little cast off pieces.

The NFS Template is a shortened version of the full size template. NFS is short for “Not Full Size”. The idea is that you don’t need full size templates – it’s really only a convenience. The only part of the template that is shortened are the straight streets in the middle of the template. If you have the turns and the corresponding streets to align from, then you can easily drill a full size board with an NFS style template. The only drawback is that you have to “pick up” the template and remount it. But the NFS templates are drilled in such a way you have to do this once. So you drill half the board, then pick up the template, remount it aligning it to the existing streets you’ve just drilled and then drill the other half. The secondary advantage to NFS templates is that people can’t use them for full size 120 point cribbage boards! The NFS template approach is similar to the “mirror” template approach, where you drill half the board + the registration holes for the 2nd half, and then flip the template, align it to the registration holes and drill the other half.

A quick check revealed that www.cribbageboardtemplate(s).com is still parked but not used. At last check, you cannot purchase templates off of this website. You can however, purchase the website (minimum bid is $100) if you choose to get into the highly lucrative cribbage board template market. Yeah…good luck with that!

A couple of URL derivatives that seem to still be up for grabs (in other words, no one has registered them yet):

http://www.cribboardtemplate.com/
http://www.cribbagetemplate.com/
http://www.cribbagedrilltemplate.com/

And of course my personal favorite…

http://www.its-a-cribbage-drill-template-dammit-and-not-a-plastic-cribbage-board-and-besides-plastic-crib-boards-are-ugly-lack-depth-and-warmth-unlike-wood.com/

The bottom line is that template sells were down quite a bit this year. It’s to be expected that template sells would taper off. As I will readily testify to, there is no money to be made making cribbage boards, so…why would there be any money in selling templates.

I clicked over the 300th template sold right before Halloween. It seemed like a good stopping point for templates made to order, thus I’ve decided to stop selling templates made to order. Rather, I’m now selling templates that are made when I drill out a given board. The obvious advantage of this is time savings. I mean it seems pretty obvious to drill a template at the same time you drill a board, but I didn’t come to this conclusion very quickly or easily. After all, I did 300 made to order templates!

So just like the crib boards, there is a picture of the actual template for sale, which would have been created at the time a board was drilled. And like crib boards, the template picture would have to be removed and the listing updated every time a given template sold.

In a perfect world of template making, I would have a $5,000+ CAD machine do the drilling for me and I would only make templates out of ¼” thick bullet proof polycarbonate plastic (the stuff that can’t crack or break and costs about $20+ sq. foot). And since this world is so perfect, I would charge $50 - $60 for these CAD made templates.

COA

I was never happy with the way I did my little Certificate of Authenticity cards. These are little Maple Veneer cards that I imprint my maker’s stamp on and on the back I write the board name and the series it belongs to. So…instead of writing the information out on the back of the card, I now print this information out on a medium grade copier paper readily available in most corporate laser printers. The advantage to this is 2 fold. One, since I have lousy handwriting, the board name and series is actually legible when it’s printed out. And the 2nd, less obvious advantage is that the paper on the back of the veneer card acts as a sort of a paper backing on the maple card veneer and stiffens up the card and prevents it from cracking or breaking after it’s been stamped with my electric maker’s stamp. These little veneer cards as so thin, I don’t think they were ever designed to have an imprint burned into them.

To Finish Up…

I continued to enhance my techniques this year. A good finish is elusive, but I’m very pleased with my results this year.

My 2nd Advertising Link

I picked up a 2nd ad link in 2010. The gentleman didn’t pay as much as the guy for the first link…but with the economy as rocky as it is, any ad revenue is appreciated! My first ad link from late 2009 renewed as well.

Schwag Alert

The template counting Odometer clicked over 300 on Oct 29th with the 4 Player Compact template. The buyer naturally received some schwag with it. I’ve loosened up my rules on giving schwag (cups, T-shirts, mouse pads, pens, tote-bag, key chains, hats, etc.). And of course, the person who buys Cribbage Board #300 will not only get some schwag, but the pretty fancy Austrian pegs, just like the folks who purchased board #100 and #200. I still get all my schwag at vistaprint.com. For example, my last order of enumerocribbageboards.com imprinted schwag consisted of the following 5 items:

1. XL T-Shirt
2. Hat
3. Custom Rubber Stamp
4. Mouse Pad
5. 25 Small Business “Fridge” Magnets

And all of it cost me a total of $7.45. All the items were “free”. The $7.45 was the cost of shipping.

Trading

I nice gentleman from the Pacific Northwest and I traded an assortment of pegs and a couple of templates for a piece of Indian Rosewood. I think he was a little surprised when I told him I would make 10 boards (10 Notable Native Americans Series) out of it. It was a blind trade on my side – I didn’t see the wood until I received it on my side. I like the wood, but I would probably not use it for board faces again. For my style of boards, Indian Rosewood would work much better an accent piece.

Coupons work very well. Who knew?

The good folks @ etsy.com started supporting coupons on their website right around Thanksgiving. They seem to work really well. I believe if you’re going to give someone a discount or coupon, at least make it worth their while. 10% coupons are lame! I opted for a meaty 31 point discount (enough for a skunk!)

Made In China

For the last few years, I’ve been buying pegs (in bulk) from woodexpressions.com. I include metal pegs and playing cards with my board as a courtesy so people can start playing on my boards right away – no need to cut up match sticks to start playing. For me, pegs are a supply expense and not something I construct from scratch and sell. Much to my surprise, I started to run really low on pegs during the Holiday Season.

I get the pegs at quasi-wholesale from woodexpressions.com which is quite a savings over retail. Not surprising, the pegs that I have gotten from them are made in China.

So I started wondering what it would take to cut out the proverbial Middle Man and just buy the pegs directly from the manufacturer in China myself. So I asked “The Google” and I found alibaba.com which is a website that connects overseas suppliers with buyers. I made few email inquiries and found I could get 10,000 pegs for a very good price, much less than what I’m paying WoodExpressions.com. Following the Henry Ford mantra of “You can get it in any color you like, as long as it’s black”, the first order of 10,000 pegs will be silver. Even with shipping factored in, I still realize a substantial cost savings. And yes, 10,000 pegs is the minimum order. So if you need silver pegs for cheap, look no further!

The 300

For some silly reason, I really wanted to hit 300 total cribbage boards sold before the end of 2010. And I did so on Dec 13th, 2010. I also picked up a new state, Utah. My basking in the glow of this personal milestone didn’t last long and about 20 hours later, board # 301 sold. You got to love the Holiday Shopping Season!

And the final count was…

I have I sold out 17 series in and 99 boards in 2010. A nice increase from 2009, largely due to etsy.com. Comparing page views from etsy.com to page views to my website, they definitely seem comparable. If anything, my website is slightly more in terms of page views. The bottom line is that page views on etsy.com translate to actual sales – not so much on my website. I think folks inherently trust a product hosting site like etsy.com (or ebay.com), over an individual’s website. Also, I think etsy.com has really grown and people recognize it as the place to go when looking for something vintage or hand-crafted, especially during the Holiday Shopping Season.

For 2011…

Tropical Exotic Hardwoods of Latin America have provided me with quite a bit of material to some nice single piece Cocobolo tournament size boards. As always, Cocobolo ain’t cheap, but it is sure pretty!

I had very good success with another vendor on ebay, Chitswood. I really dig the smaller thinner pieces he sells, perfect for travel size boards. I did the Comedic Teams IV – Monty Python series using his wood as well. That turned out to be a very popular (sold out relatively quickly) series as well. I hope he starts selling wood again!

The Koa boards should do quite well as well.

And as usual, I have a large collection of boards on the shelf that have been drilled, they just need to be finished. So I will be throwing those into the mix as well

Changes for 2011

I finally got all the states and appropriate shipping rates entered into my paypal account, so I can do location based shipping costs (assuming someone buys

The Fickle Hand of Fate aka My Drum Sander and The End of Cheap Plastic

2010-03-31T10:09:00.000-07:00

The Fickle Hand of Fate aka My Drum Sander

When I come up for name for a series of boards, I have to find a collection of of related things to match the number boards. Recently, I announced a new series, "The 10 Named Space Shuttles" to match a series of 10 Cocobolo Faced Tournament Boards. There were actually 9 shuttles produced by NASA and a 10th shuttle that was a Amusement Park Ride at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. Unfortunately, one of the 10 boards met with an unfortunate sanding accident when going through the sanding clean-up phase and it wasn't really fixable. So, my carefully crafted series of 10 boards was reduced to 9 boards. I had to eject one of the boards. I was never 100% comfortable grouping a Space Shuttle Amusement Park ride in with the real Space Shuttles so it was an easy choice. Thus the series of 9 boards, each named after an actual NASA Space Shuttle, became "NASA's 9 Shuttle/Orbiter Vehicles". The prices on the boards named after vehicles that went into outer space (not all of NASA's Space Shuttles went into space), reflect something about the Space Travel history of the board. For example, the "Challenger" board will cost $73, for the 73 seconds that Challenger flew on it's last mission before it's catastrophic and tragic failure. The "Columbia" board will sell for $48.08 (one penny for every one of it's 4808 trips around the earth). The Discovery" board will cost $52.47, honoring it's 5247 trips around the Earth thus far.

The End of Cheap Plastic

I like a bargain as much as the next person. I've been able to keep the costs of some of my bigger/longer templates cheaper due to the fact that I had a large stash of 2 foot long Polycarbonate plastic pieces that I picked up pretty inexpensively. Alas, I've almost sold out of these pieces and will have to buy longer (2 foot long) plastic pieces at full retail. The prices on the longer templates will go up a couple of dollars to reflect this.

Where the Wild Things Are

2010-01-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

My wife keeps horses at a nearby retirement Community. And near where the horses live, this Retirement Community has a large and pretty active dumpster facility. It's not uncommon for someone who has passed this world and unto the next to have all their worldly goods taken up to the dumpsters and "dumped". It makes for some interesting treasure hunting for the locals.

My wife casually mentioned the other day that someone had thrown away a leather chair - covered in Zebra Leather. I didn't give it much thought until I went over there to help out with some maintenance chores for the horses and I saw the chair. The Zebra leather was in pretty decent shape.

I'd previously made a couple of boards with palm leave pieces, so I thought I'd give the Zebra leather a try. I was able to salvage quite a few good pieces - but like most of the boards I make, the material itself (and not me) will determine what type of board, it's size, etc.

I wouldn't normally make a board out of animal hide, but there is a lot precedence for making crib boards out of animal type material (ivory tusks, deer antlers and moose antlers - to name a few), so it's not all that far fetched. The hide fits my general criteria of being unusual or interesting, so it seemed like a good fit. On a at least of a few of the boards, I will mix the Zebra Hide face with some Zebrawood.

I would never have gone out and actively looked to make a board out of an animal hide - but since this re-purposing the hide (it would have gone to the landfill), I was OK with it.

Post Holiday Wrap Up and New Templates

2010-01-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

I actually sold boards on and after Christmas

Admittedly, the cribbage board business can be somewhat seasonal since the majority of them are given as gifts. Given that etsy is now a strong selling avenue for me, I pretty much expected not to see another cribbage board sale until next November, so I was bit surprised I’ve actually sold a few boards since Christmas. In fact, I sold a board on Christmas day.

Templates

Now that the holidays have passed, I’m selling templates again with one notable exception: I added a disclaimer letting people know I don’t have and I don’t use CAD machinery to drill my templates. My goal has always been to sell reasonably good looking templates with out the holes wandering all over the place.

I got the idea of making really small templates, what I will call micro-templates. I cruised around the web looking for ideas of how to squeeze a 120 point continuous track format into a very small area – say 5” x 5”. I found some interesting wrap around type drill patterns (from other crib board vendors) which I shrank down by about half to fit the micro-template paradigm.

I also came up with a bunch of new designs in the geometric section: trapezoid, Compact Ovals, Heart, star, race-track, and rectangle/triangle/square with tapered corners.

I’m also adding what I call SCT templates (Spiral Cascading Turns), where the number of turns equals the number of streets.

With all the new template designs, I up to 55 template designs – the trick now is to get caught up and drill them all. So I’d be increasing my current template count from 30 templates to 55+ templates.

In addition to the little freebies I include with the plastic templates I sell, I’m now throwing in a paper template (3 person continuous track) loosely based on the paper template Lee Valley sells on their website. You tack the template to the board material, us an awl to mark the hole center and then come back and drill the hole. I include 2 copies of the template – one to use and one to share.

Enumero State of the Union 2009

2009-12-23T14:48:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

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.

New 3/16" Pegs Arrived and I couldn't be happier

2009-11-10T14:22:00.000-08:00

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!

An Ah-hA Moment, 3/16" Pegs and "Free Shipping" Doesn' t Work

2009-10-28T15:46:00.001-07:00

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!

Selling Out, International Shipping Woes and a Schwag Alert

2009-10-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

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.

A quick Follow-up, Karma, A New Old Bandsaw Rube Goldberg Would be Proud Of and Finishing Notes

2009-09-04T10:32:00.001-07:00

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.

T and T (Templates and Tournament Boards)

2009-07-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

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.

A Silly Slogan on Some Enumero "Schwag"

2009-06-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

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

Some Random Thoughts about Self-Centering Bits and Crib Templates

2009-06-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

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

19 States, Quarters & Caps

2009-05-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

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"

2009-05-22T12:10:00.000-07:00

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.

Got both motors running - an amateur's guide to upgrading your Hitachi Resaw Bandsaw

2009-04-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

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

Get the Motor Running

2009-03-27T12:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

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.

Have Cribbage Board Will Travel and Saving $ on Supplies

2009-02-23T11:45:00.001-08:00

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.

19 Templates & Counting off to 29

2009-02-06T10:44:00.000-08:00

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!

Ebay and the Mafia - they both skim 20% off the top

2009-02-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

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.

Holiday Doldrums - And Looking to New Year

2009-01-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

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.

My very own State of the State Address for 2008

2008-12-19T14:54:00.001-08:00

It’s been an interesting year for selling cribbage and chess boards (and now plastic drilling templates as well). There were many firsts for me this year. 2009 will mark my 3rd year of selling cribbage and chess boards.

I sold my first Tournament Size Chess boards this past year.

I sold a Cribbage board for over a $100. Granted, this was a personally significant board, but still…for a guy who started selling boards for $3, this was a personal milestone. This board sold on esty.com, by the way. If you have handmade wares to sell, etsy.com is the way to go.

I stopped using my metal templates to drill with and now I drill boards with the plastic template clones (just like the ones I sell). There are a couple of reasons I did this. One, it’s a lot easier to drill a board with an 8 ounce plastic template mounted on it, instead of a 3 pound rolled steel metal template. It cuts down on tear-out on the board since I can get the template really tight against the board. And since I’m using clear plastic, I can position the template somewhat in case the board pattern/wood grain pattern nicely compliment each other.

I sold 33 plastic drilling templates in just 6 months. I now sell 12 different styles of cribbage board templates, done in various kinds of plastic (chemcast, poly-carbonate, and the blue plastic backed kind). Hopefully, I will increase the number of templates I sell to 19 different types in 2009.

My website started showing up on the first page of Google/Yahoo/MSN search results, when searched on the words, “Cribbage board(s)”. It doesn’t consistently show up on the first page – it’s more of an intermittent thing.

The number of unique (new) visitors per day to my website finally got out of the single digit range. In the month of December, I saw 30-50 unique (new) visitors to the website per day.

I started selling cribbage and chess boards on etsy.com with some success. I abandoned my first etsy handle (“19pointhand”) and went back to the more familiar "enumerocribbageboard". I would have added an “s”, but etsy.com has a 20 character limit on names.

I learned that people really, really like the 3 player continuous track style board and I will be making a lot more boards in that style (just a soon as I finish drilling the 80+ tournament style boards), I have the queue right now.

I’m finally started to feel (after completing about 200 boards) that my self-imposed apprenticeship in board making is coming to an end. I’m looking forward to taking what I’ve learned thus far and carrying it forward.

PolyCarbonate and Google Searches

2008-11-24T15:13:00.000-08:00

It would appear that after 2+ years of selling cribbage boards on the Internet, my website is starting to show up on the first page of google.com search results under the very generic terms, "Cribbage boards" and "cribbage board". I've been as high as position #4 on the first page of google.com results. I wish I could say being in such a high position has sent sales through the roof, but it hasn't. I'm not surprised. I know from first hand experience my cribbage boards sell much better when the buyer can see them up close and personal, touch them, look at the different kinds of boards, rattle the boards and hear the metal pegs rolling around in the peg storage department. I will say that etsy.com has been helpful in selling boards. Buyers go to etsy.com looking for artisan quality hand made items.

On a different note, my little side business of selling crib templates is humming along. Making a board template involves little more effort than simply drilling the holes, so they are pretty straight forward to make. Right now I offer 11 different templates for sale (and counting).

I was fortunate enough to get a decent supply of Polycarbonate plastic from my local Tap Plastics. I now use 3 different kinds of plastic for cribbage board templates: resin cast (the blue plastic backed plastic), chemcast (the paper backed plastic) and now the "bullet-proof" polycarbonate plastic. The polycarbonate plastic seems pretty indestructible.

Chessboards 10-12 (in the series of 64) have been released.

2008-10-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Chessboards 10-12 (in the series of 64 Great Chess Games) have been released. These are tournament friendly boards. The squares measure APPROXIMATELY 2 1/4" x 2 1/4". There are still 6 boards (#13-18) that aren't quite complete and should be finished soon. All boards now come with a complimentary set of 32 wood chess pieces (Kings Measure 1 3/4" high) and a small hardwood box for chess piece storage.

Board #10 has 147 distinct pieces of wood. This board is made up of the following 9 species of woods: Squares: IPE & Maple, Inlay Around Squares: Paduak& Purpleheart Border: Cherry, Mahogany& Walnut Bottom Strips: Poplar and Redwood.

Board #11 has 146 distinct pieces of wood. This board is made up of the following 9 species of woods: Squares: IPE & Maple, Inlay Around Squares: Paduak& Purpleheart Border: Cherry, Mahogany& Walnut Bottom Strips: Poplar and Redwood.

Board #12 has 91 distinct pieces of wood. This board is made up of the following 7 different woods: Squares: Walnut & Maple Inlay on One Sides of Squares: Purpleheart Border: Cherry, Mahogany& Walnut Bottom Strips: Poplar & Redwood.

The Sander is Fixed - More chessboards coming soon

2008-10-15T10:32:00.000-07:00

Turns out the good folks at Woodmaster sent me the wrong size threaded rods for my broken Drum Sander. The ones they sent were too short. Of course I found this out AFTER I put them in the sander. But...much to my surprise, I was able to re-use the old rods. I spent the better part of my Saturday drilling for the new support brackets and putting the old threaded rods back in, but my beloved drum sander is working again. I tested my fix by cleaning up 3 chess boards and I'm almost ready to post those 3 boards for sale on the Website. I've also completed the initial face glue ups on about 95 cribbage boards and I've started on gluing up the bottoms for those boards. I have to say some the tournament size Cocobolo boards are pretty wild looking! The grain patterns of book matched Cocobolo are just amazing. The 10 most prettiest/most exotic looking boards (of the 35+ Tournament style Cocobolo boards) will be in a series titled "Favorite Comic Strips of the Past & Present". The 10 boards are named after my 10 favorite comic strips and each board will include a signed Anthology (collection of various comic strips) from my self-published comic strip, "The Help Desk".

The Saga of my Broken Drum Sander Continues...

2008-10-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

The saga of my broken drum sander continues . I found out that the threaded support rods aren't the only stripped out part on the sander. It turns out that threaded rods thread through brackets that supports the entire roller bed-the part of the sander where you place an item to sand. Fortunately, I found this out AFTER I called the maker of the Drum Sander (Woodmaster Tools) and was told that I would likely findthat these brackets wouldhave stripped out as well. But all is not lost. Woodmaster sells a retro-fit bracket that should (hopefully) allow me to fix this problem and finish sanding up the 9 chessboards that have been sitting in the queue awaiting completion for the last several months.

Templates, Window Shoppers, A Broken Drum Sander and Gluing Like Crazy

2008-09-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

"Templates, Window Shoppers, A Broken Drum Sander and Gluing Like Crazy" is kind of a funny title, but accurately reflects the status of EnumeroCribbageBoards at the moment. I see lots of Window Shoppers (in etsy.com) and to a lesser degree on my website, my beloved drum sander is broke at the moment and I'm gluing up new cribbage boards like crazy.

Templates

Crib board template sales seemed to peak in September, maybe due to the fact people are making crib boards for the Holidays? I'm no longer using the cheaper plastic for the templates. I'm using a material called Chemcast Acrylic Plastic, either in a 1/4" or 3/8" thickness. It costs me between $11.00 to $15.00 a square foot. It's expensive, but it's really nice stuff to work with. It drills nicely and is really solid - not likely to crack or chip. My templates are still quite a bit less than other vendor's who sell plastic drill templates and the material is really thick!

Window Shoppers

Etsy.com is a pretty neat site, since it caters to people who make "stuff" and gives them another outlet to sell their wares. I like it and it's very affordable. A quick count shows I've gotten about 1100 viewings on the inventory sitting on etsy.com at the moment, but no sales in the last couple of months.

A Broken Drum Sander

My beloved 38" Woodmaster drum sander has been acting odd of late, and I finally figured out why. Two of it's 4 threaded rods used to raise and lower the feed bed, are stripped out. Needless to say, you want things to be pretty level when sanding, and stripped rods cause the feed bed to list to one side and make for very inconsistent results. The replacement parts have been ordered. I'm not looking forward to replacing those rods.

Gluing Like Crazy

The large group of boards I'm working on at the moment (100+ boards) are all mostly tournament style (long, narrow, single pass). I've glued faces to about 50 them and I am humming along on the rest. The prices on these boards will be vary from anywhere from $19 on the low end to $53 on the high end. The board faces on the $53 board will be pretty amazing looking. They're made from 2 strips of book-matched cocobolo and the grain patterns are just out of this world! These 100+ boards will be divided into 15 new series.

Templates are Selling Well - Who Knew?

2008-08-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

I offer cribbage board drilling templates for sale. They are made of 3/16" or 1/4" thick plastic cloned off my existing metal templates or made from scratch using my template maker. In a sudden and unexpected surge of interest in cribbage board templates, I've sold 3 templates this week and I am working on a 4th custom template as per a customer's request. I figured if I sold one template a year, that would be cool.

If I had one pet peeve in this universe, it would be craftspeople who make and sell cribbage boards with sloppy, misaligned hole patterns. We as humans, simply cannot drill several hundred very tiny holes in perfect alignment. I don't buy the argument that it makes the board look more authentic, more hand-made.

My wife wonders if I'm hurting my own cribbage board business by selling templates and I don't think so. There are an estimated 2 million people who play cribbage on a regular basis. To date, I've sold 8 templates.

Clawing My Way Up the Search Engines

2008-08-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

Like the hundreds of millions of other people selling "stuff" in Cyberspace, my website suffers from the common malady of not being noticed. In order to be noticed on the Web, you have to be on the first page or second page of Google or Yahoo search results.

So then the question arises, how do people find my website? About half the time, it's from other Websites who have graciously provide a link to my site. And the other half of the time, people come to the website base on a link provided by the Search Engines from Google and Yahoo. When someone searches on the words "cribbage boards" on Yahoo, my website shows up on page 1 of the results. On google, I'm still stuck in the never world of page 2 of the search results.

On average, I get about 7 unique visitors a day or around 210 visitors a month. I'm still not convinced that a website is the best way to sell my cribbage boards. The couple of times I've sold cribbage boards at a local craft show have shown me that people like to touch and feel cribbage and chess boards, and thus my boards sell well at the local craft show.

In general, it takes about 500-700 unique visits to generate one cribbage board sale. The results are about the same on etsy.com, although buyers seem more focused when buying off of etsy.com, since it's a website dedicated to all type of handmade and hand-crafted items.

Go by Bike!

2008-07-22T11:26:00.001-07:00

Stop by www.etsy.com

2008-06-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I read an article in our local paper about an Ebay-like, Artisan friendly website called www.etsy.com. I checked the site out and saw that other folks sell their Cribbage and Chess boards on it, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. I like the fact it’s only 20 cents to list (much cheaper than ebay) and works with Paypal. It’s simple to use and easy to browse on. Like Ebay, it has buyer based feedback system.

I’ve listed a couple of dozen boards on it and have gotten my first sale already. It’s especially easy to browse a given person’s listing, sort by price, etc.

My most expensive, beautiful board to date

2008-06-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

If you take one glance at the picture of the Siarnaq board (Saturn Moon Series), you realize the grain pattern is quite striking. I feel it’s the most beautiful board I’ve made to date. This board set the bar pretty high in terms of how striking I can make a cribbage board.

Ironically, this was the first board where I stumbled onto the idea of re-sawing cocobolo strips and book matching them to make interesting and pleasing patterns. This particular board is triple book-matched for the 3 inside strips and double book-matched on the 2 outside strips. This is the only board that I ever made with this combination of book-matching. It is also the very first board I made with Cocobolo. So, in terms of my personal history of cribbage board making, it’s a very important cribbage board (to me).

Every time I come up with a new look or idea for a crib board, I’m smitten with that board for a short time, but then my infatuation fades and I move on. Not so with this board. I still love the way it looks and get excited every time I see it. But, I’m quick to remind myself that I make boards to sell and share with the world. If I’ve succeeded in making an exceptionally beautiful board, then of course I should charge accordingly, but still within reason.

A 52 Board Release - All At Once

2008-06-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

I decided to go ahead and just release all 52 boards at once, instead of adding them ad-hoc. Doing so many boards at once made it easier when it came time to photograph the boards (although some of the pictures came out fuzzy and I will re-shoot them), if need be. 50 of the 52 boards are part of 6 new series and I FINALLY finished the Saturn Moon Series with the addition of the last remaining board and added the last board to the "7 Time Tour de France" Series. As always, I try and keep my prices reasonable and you get a significant break on shipping costs if you buy more than one board. You may notice that the purpleheart I use in my boards is quite "purple". I tried something new this time around. As soon as I finished the boards, I put them out in the sun for a couple of hours. This did 2 things. It let the oil/wax finish soak in nicely and it oxidized or turned the colors of the wood a little darker and a little richer. I also photographed all the boards with the pegs that are included with the board. I have added (4) 4 players boards - in the Mercury 13 Series. Of those 4 boards, the "Truhill" board is probably the nicest. With this board, I used a thicker cherry boarder and I think the proportions worked out better (given the large size of the board). And despite my best efforts to the contrary there are some "Postpono" or 'Factory Seconds" boards. There are 2 Postpono boards in the "A Seven Course Meal of Extinct Candy Bars" series and there 3 Postpono boards in the "Apollo Lunar Modules" series. As always, Postpono boards are significantly discounted.

In the Home Stretch...

2008-05-21T13:01:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy couple of months. I've finished gluing up 50+ cribbage boards which will be in several series. The only thing left to do on these 50+ cribbage boards is sanding, drilling and tapping the cap holes and final finishing. The chess boards (10-18) are almost done as well. I was going to use IPE as the outermost edging material for these boards, but decided IPE is better for the chess squares than edges. The IPE boards are quite heavy as well. So for Chess boards 10-18, I will be using Walnut for the outer most edge. Chess Boards 19-27 will be similar in terms of the woods used in boards 10-18, but instead of Maple for the white squares, I will be using Curly Maple. I paid way too much for some Curly Maple scrap pieces, but I think those boards will turn out nice. I've been resisting the temptation to start gluing up new cribbage board faces until I completely finished this current batch of 50+ cribbage boards. The current batch is devoid of any tournament style boards, so the next batch will be mostly tournament boards. Also, I'm planning a special "19" shaped board (think of the classic "29" shaped cribbage board, but instead of being shaped in the number "29", its shaped in the number "19". ) These should be ready shortly before the Holidays. I made the template some time ago. It's a pretty big board, but I think it will be fun board to release around the Holiday Season.

Attack of the Clones - Conclusion

2008-04-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

There are simply not a lot of places to buy Cribbage Board Templates. I give a few of the places on my website. I got most of my metal cribbage templates on Ebay several years ago. I looked into having a local machinist make metal clones of my existing templates, but that was way too expensive. So...I sourced some less-expensive plastic (1/8 to 1/4" thick). Now, I offer 2 different templates (in plastic) for $10 (price includes shipping). One template is for making more cribbage drill templates (sort of a universal template) and the other is for the classic 2-street 2-player cribbage board. The prices on the rest of the templates reflect the high cost of good, thick (1/8" to 1/4") plastic. All templates can be ordered off my website, just like the cribbage boards. I also have a FREE paper template that I borrowed from the Canadian Home Workshop. This is a PDF file that can be downloaded, printed to any size, and then glued on to your board.

Attack of the Clones - Part II

2008-02-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

Still flush with success from actually rolling my own cribbage template, I think over the next few months, I will clone all my steel templates (into plastic) and if anyone wants to buy a cloned template from me (made in plastic), I will offer those for sale at a nominal fee - maybe $10-15. About 1/2 the price of what Rockler charges for their plastic templates. I've had 2 or 3 requests from Cribbage Enthusiasts looking for crib board templates. The plastic templates won't be pretty, but they should be functional. I've noticed that the plastic templates are easier to get tighter against the board (than the steel templates) which reduces drill bit tear out (the tendency of the drill bit to pull a little bit of the wood face out with it as it exits the hole). The cool thing is I can make a batch of say4 or 5 cloned templates in one drilling session, since I can just gang them together and drill them all at once.

Drilling My Own...and Attack of the Clones

2008-02-20T15:37:00.002-08:00

A typical crib board can have anywhere from around 125 holes to 500 holes, depending on the board size, number of players, track pattern etc. Oddly enough, I have never thought of drilling as tedious or time consuming part of making crib boards. I can drill a smaller board in around 5 minutes (yes I'm bragging), a larger board in under 15 minutes. The point of this post is not to highlight my drill press prowess, but to note a recent change necessitated by a customer request. A very nice woman emailed me and asked for a 4 - Track board for her husband for her anniversary. Not a problem I thought, since I have a 4 Track template at home. Turns out the only 4 track template I have is for the big boards (i.e. The Drive-Thru Tree Series). Oops. I don't have any smaller 4 track templates. But I do have a crib board template maker template. The gentleman who sold crib board templates on Ebay back in 2003/04, sold this funny looking template with holes in different configurations: curves, straight-away sections, etc. I bought one thinking that I could make any template I wanted, if I ever needed to. I put it in the Crib template drawer and forgot about until I received the request for the 4 track board. Here was big chance to drill my own crib board template - except mine would be drilled in 1/8" inch plastic instead of steel. (( For the record, I only know of 3 places you can buy cribbage templates online and place sell a different kind of template: Rockler (plastic), Lee Valley (paper) and iasco-tesco (steel). Also any reasonable machine shop could also make steel templates for you out of 10 gauge steel. )) So after a little rough layout to make sure I would get all the holes on the size of plastic I was using, off I went. It took a couple of hours since I was taking my time and trying to be careful, but sure enough, when it was done I had drilled my own template. This new found confidence in template making will also allow me to clone my existing steel templates into plastic. I'd tried cloning templates before, but I think the plastic I used wasn't thick enough. 1/8" plastic seems to be about the right thickness.

Drilling My Own...

2008-02-20T15:37:00.001-08:00

A typical crib board can have anywhere from around 125 holes to 500 holes, depending on the board size, number of players, track pattern etc. Oddly enough, I have never thought of drilling as tedious or time consuming part of making crib boards. I can drill a smaller board in around 5 minutes (yes I'm bragging), a larger board in under 15 minutes. The point of this post is not to highlight my drill press prowess, but to note a recent change necessitated by a customer request. A very nice woman emailed me and asked for a 4 - Track board for her husband for her anniversary. Not a problem I thought, since I surely have a 4 Track template. Turns out the only 4 track template I have is for the big boards (i.e. The Drive-Thru Tree Series). Oops. I don't have any smaller 4 track templates. But I do have a crib board template maker template. The gentleman who sold crib board templates on Ebay back in 2003/04, sold this funny looking template with holes in different configurations: curves, straight-away sections, etc. I bought one thinking that I could make any template if I ever needed to. I placed it in the Crib template drawer and forgot about until I received the request for the 4 track board. Here was big chance to drill my own crib board template - except mine would be in 1/8" inch plastic instead of steel. (( For the record, I only know of 3 places you can buy cribbage templates online: Rockler (plastic), Lee Valley (paper) and Iasco-tesco (steel). Also, I suspect any reasonable machine shop could also make steel templates for you out of 10 gauge steel. ))

Geodes

2008-02-18T11:59:00.001-08:00

Flush with cash from selling my biggest board (Wawona) and arguably my prettiest board (Titan), I did a quick (and expensive) shopping trip to Tropical Exotic Hardwoods of Latin America. I found this place on the web and I can only say Wow! Beautiful, amazing wood on a whole different level. I will be a customer for life. Sam Maloof buys wood from these folks. Anyway...I bought a block of turning stock (Cocobolo) and promptly re-sawed several sticks. Re-sawing cocobolo is a lot like cutting open Geodes . I'm always amazed at what grain pattern I get after I resaw that first piece. Depending on the orientation of the cut, I either get very fine intricate lines or very wide open grain lines with lots of wild and beautiful knot patterns. And the colors are amazing - reds, orange, purple and everything in between. Fun stuff. The only downside (for me) when re-sawing cocobolo is I have to wear some serious dust protection, turn the air-filter on in the shop when I'm done and leave the shop for awhile, otherwise I sneeze like crazy! With these sticks and some other pieces of nice wood I've been picking up, I have board faces for about another 70 boards or so, including another 3 1/2 foot long board. I'm still plugging along on the 38+ boards (as per my website) and I've finished all the squares glue-up on the 9 tournament friendly chessboards. The chessboards still need their bottoms and borders.

Tools...Tools...Tools

2008-02-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

I tend to go through tools. I buy 'em, try 'em and if I don't like 'em, I get rid of 'em. Recently, I received a new planer. It is my 4th stand-alone planer. The first planer was a 12" Dewalt portable planer. It was VERY loud, kind of under-powered and would bog down from time to time. I sold it to a co-worker. Planer #2 - now that was a planer. A vintage (made before I was born), 1200 pound 16" Powermatic planer. The entire thing was cast iron. I think it was made sometime in the 1950's. That machine could plane anything and not break a sweat. I really liked that planer, but quite frankly, it was overkill for my little shop. I eventually sold it to a local lumber yard. Planer #3 was a Hitachi 12" Planer I bought from an estate sale. Very, very nice planer. I sold it on Ebay, to make room for Planer #4, another Powermatic planer with a Helical Cutting head. I think the helical cutting head is a concept long overdue in woodworking. Instead of separate elongated knives mounted on a cylindrical shaped head, the helical head has dozens of carbide tipped square shaped cutters arranged in a helical (or spiral) pattern around the cylindrical cutting head. The helical head cuts by shearing off pieces of wood at an angle, similar to the way a hand plane might shear wood off. The results are very pleasing. OK, the results are amazing. This planer looks like a keeper.

64 Great Chess Games - Board Numbers 10-18

2007-12-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

Series Title: 64 Great Chess Games (Chess Boards)

Background:

Boards 4-9 are all done with glue and clamps and just need to be sanded and finished. Any board I make, whether cribbage or Chess always looks a bit "rough" until it gets cleaned up. Once a board goes through it's inital clean-up sanding, it starts to reveal what it's going to really look like, and to me, this is the most exciting part of the whole process. I seem to be getting some traction selling Chess boards on Ebay, so I will try and sell boards #4-9 (6 chess boards) on Ebay before the conclusion of the 2007 Holiday Season. Cribbage board sales have been slow to non-existent this Holiday Season despite advertising on Google AdWords, Yahoo, and actually getting the meta-tags right on my WebSite, which in turns allows the WebCrawlers to correctly index my web site.

As mentioned previously, starting with Board #10, the boards will Chess Tournament Legal, with the squares measuring around 2 1/4".

Coming up, boards 10-18 will lay out something like this:

10-12: Hard Maple/IPE for the squares
13-15: Hard Maple/PurpleHeart for the squares - with Paduak inlay around each Square.
16-18: Hard Maple/Walnut for the squares - with Purpleheart inlay around each Square.

Board #3 in this series had some Purpleheart Inlay around the squares, but only on 2 sides. I would like to try the inlay around all 4 sides of the square.

I still have no idea what to charge for a chessboard. Ebay at least helps me get a feel for what is a fair price since I start the auctions at a very reasonable price and let the buyer determine the final price.

Some of the chess boards are turning out pretty heavy. Especially those with Ipe in them. One board weighed in at around 8.5 pounds. The lighter Chess boards weigh in around 3-4 pounds.

64 Great Chess Games - Board Numbers 4 thru 9

2007-11-06T11:05:00.000-08:00

Series Title: 64 Great Chess Games (Chess Boards)

Background:
Having finished boards 1-3, it was time to turn my attention to boards 4-9. Naturally these will be a little different than boards 1-3. :-> Boards 4,5,6 are PurpleHeart/White Maple for the squares and boards 7,8,9 are Mahogany/Walnut or Ipe/Mahogany for the squares. The purpleheart/white maple combination is turning out quite nice. I will probably use this combination in the not too distant future.

Ipe is a really, really hard, dense and heavy wood. It's at the top of the chart on the Janks Hardness scale. Ipe adds some real weight to the board too.

As you might imagine, chess boards involve a lot gluing. Each Chess board I make goes through 8 separate glue-ups. Glue ups #1-4 are for gluing the 64 squares. Glue up number 5 is the bottom of the board. I don't put felt on the bottom of my chess boards. I use another hardwood for the bottom, typically cherry, oak or mahogany, that is pretty light in color. I do this so I can write a bunch of stuff on the bottom, specifically all the chess moves from the board from the Famous Chess Game your board is named after. Glue ups #6-8 are for the 3 borders that are found on each board. Each border is glued up separately and is successively thicker than the previous border. The outer most border is mitered (45 degree angles) on the corners.

Starting with board #10, I will start making the Chess boards tournament legal. Currently boards 1-9 are made with approximately 1 3/4" squares. Starting with board #10 in the series, I will make the squares 2 1/4" inch.

How to tell if you just bought the 100th Enumero Cribbage Series Board

2007-10-15T12:02:00.000-07:00

Hopefully, the person who purchases the 100th series board will notice that instead of conventional brass pegs, their board has come with a set of Austrian style Cribbage Pegs. They have finally shipped and should be arriving at the Enumero Cribbage World Headquarters soon. They will be included in lieu of the normal cribbage pegs at no charge. I will also write a little something on the bottom of the board as well to denote this milestone as well.

We picked up a new link - Cribbaholics Unanimous.

If you check out the FAQ (question #4) you will see I have made or will be making (eventually) 19 types of Crib and Chess Boards. Chess boards only account for 2 types of boards, the other 17 types are cribbage boards.

Just for fun, I added a new section highlighting some very interesting Cribbage Patents.

My inbox is catching a lot more SPAM these days. Google mail is really good at automatically filtering out the junk mail, so my inbox stays clean and I can eagerly anticipate incoming board orders.

If paying with Paypal is not your thing, I will gladly accept a Personal Check or USPS Money Order. Just email with what you'd like to buy and I will set your board(s) aside. And don't forget - I will gladly ship outside the US of A.

The Apollo Lunar Modules - 9 Boards

2007-10-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

Series Title: The Apollo Lunar Modules - 9 Boards

Background: I did a series on the Apollo Moon Landing Missions, so as a follow up, I'm doing a series on the Lunar Modules, the very thing that carried 2 astronauts to and from the moon. The full LEM was actually quite heavy. The ascent/descent modules together weighed over 32,000 pounds. The most famous of the LEM's was probably Aquarius (aka LM-7) from the Apollo 13 Mission. Aquarius was the life raft that enabled NASA Engineers to get the 3 astronauts home by sling-shooting them around the moon and back to earth.

9 Boards:
LM-3 Spider, Apollo 9
LM-4 Snoopy, Apollo 10
LM-5 Eagle, Apollo 11
LM-6 Intrepid, Apollo 12
LM-7 Aquarius, Apollo 13
LM-8 Antares, Apollo 14
LM-10 Falcon, Apollo 15
LM-11 Orion, Apollo 16
LM-12 Challenger, Apollo 17

8000 Meter Peaks Series II

2007-10-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

Series Title: 8000 Meter Peaks Series II

Background:
The original 8000 Meter Peak Series I had 12 boards and were all made from a single piece of wood. I wanted to make all 14 boards from this single piece of wood, but I simply ran out. So...I finally got around to finishing the peaks with these 2 boards.

2 Boards:
K2
Gasherbrum II

A Seven Course Meal of Extinct Candy Bars

2007-10-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

Series Title: A Seven Course Meal of Extinct Candy Bars - 7 Boards

Background:
The title of this series is probably a little confusing at first glance so allow me to explain. These are pretty big (and heavy) boards. They are Pedalis style boards made from at least a board foot of cherry or walnut lumber. The pegs for these boards (Miller Dowels) that come with the boards are made from the same woods as the board is - Cherry, Walnut, Purpleheart, Ipe & Mahogany. Before I drilled the holes, I thought they looked quite a bit like a big chocolate bar. So...I thought of Candy Bars. But not just any Candy Bars. I chose extinct Candy Bars (those that are no longer manufactured), that you could make a 7 course meal from.

7 Boards:
Brown Pudding
Chicken Dinner
Club Sandwich
Cold Turkey
Denver Sandwich
Lobster Patty
Milk Shake

Updates & Changes as I Approach the 1 Year Anniversary of Selling Boards

2007-10-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

There are a few updates & changes as I approach the 1 year anniversary of selling boards on the Web. I'm really close to my 100th series board, so to celebrate the milestone, I will be doing something a little special for that board (assuming the Austrian Jeweled Cribbage Pegs I ordered ever show up!)

A quick summary:

Curto Style Board Introduced (a very small board with a small price- $10.00). See the "Fictional Elements of the Universe Series I".
I've settled on 19 styles of Crib and Chess Boards. (see FAQ - Question #4). Not all of them have been made yet.
I accept checks or USPS Money Orders. Not everybody likes to use Paypal and other forms of payment, such as a Check or USPS Money Order are fine. Hopefully, the Nigerian Scammer crowd doesn't play cribbage. Email if you want to pay Check or USPS Money Order and I can set your board(s) aside till payment arrives.
I now charge a reasonable amount for shipping/handling and packaging of boards. $6.00 for 1 board, $8.00 for 2 boards, $10.00 for 3 boards, etc.
I ship internationally.
Paypal now supports a myriad of different shipping options. Shipping will NOT show up in the cart, unless it's a Chessboard. Shipping charges will show up at the final checkout, similar to the way 99.9% of other Web Vendors work.

Fictional Elements of the Universe - 10 Boards

2007-10-01T12:41:00.001-07:00

Series Title: Fictional Elements of the Universe - 10 Boards

Background:
I usually make big and/or fairly heavy cribbage boards. This series is a slight departure and is a series of smaller boards that are fairly small and fairly light. This series is also a new type of board, "Curto", which is a Latin approximation for shortening or abbreviating. So you can play a very abbreviated game of cribbage if you want! I considered naming the boards after small sub-atomic particles, but that seemed a little heavy handed. I came across "Fictional Elements of the Universe" on Wikipedia and that just seemed right!

10 Boards:
Bazoolium: Doctor Who - A gold-coloured metal that can predict the weather.
Beerium: From the movie "Young Einstein"
Froonium: Farscape - A substance created by series producer Richard Manning while he still worked on Star Trek to represent any esoteric material. Appeared in Farscape as an in-joke in several episodes. Manning's Fandom nickname is "Froonium Ricky".
Handwavium: From bad science fiction
Impervium: Donald Duck [Magic: The gathering]
Jumbonium: Futurama
Kryptonite: DC Comics
Nitrium: Star Trek
Randomonium: Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
Unobtanium: The Movie The Core (2003)

64 Great Chess Games (Chess Boards) - 64 Boards

2007-09-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

Series Title: 64 Great Chess Games (Chess Boards)

Background: I play chess and I enjoy chess, but I'm not a competive player. I made my first chess board for my wife, Tanya. At her suggestion, I am now making and selling chess boards alongside my cribbage boards. Keeping in line with my charter to make my boards unique and give each board a unique name, I chose a big series to name the boards after. Usually, I don't sell a series until the series is complete. But since this is such a big series and chess boards take a considerable amount more time to make than a cribbage board, I will offer them as they come off the EnumeroCribbageBoards.com Factory Floor. These 64 matches represented so many of the modern Grand Masters of Chess and since I'm not a chess expert, I humbly rely on the opinions of others. The about.com article states: "these are considered by many experts to be among the best chess games ever played".

3 of 64 Boards:

1. 1834 - London: McDonnell A. - De La Bourdonnais L.
2. 1851 - London: Anderssen A. - Kieseritzky L.
3. 1852 - Berlin: Anderssen A. - Dufresne J.

The Mercury 13 Astronauts - 13 Boards

2007-09-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

Series Title: The Mercury 13 Astronauts

Background: This series celebrates 13 Woman who passed the same rigorous physical and psychological testing as the seven men who became the Mercury 7. None of them ever got the chance to fly in space.

These thirteen women passed the same physical examinations that the Lovelace Foundation developed for NASA’s astronaut selection process (although the original number of male candidates was much larger, fewer men passed the tests).

There are several books written about these courageous women. Also, there is a website dedicated to the surviving Mercury 13 complete with bios for each of the women, pictures and lists of their amazing accomplishments (most were highly skilled pilots).

13 Boards:

Myrtle "K" Cagle
Jerrie Cobb (Jerri Truhill)
Jan Dietrich
Marion Dietrich
Wally Funk
Janey Hart
Jean Hixson
Gena Nora Stumbough (Gena Nora Jessen)
Irene Leverton
Bernice "B" Steadman
Sarah Gorelick Ratley
Jerri Truhill
Rhea Hurrle Woltman

7 Time Tour de France Winner - 7 Boards

2007-09-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

Series Title: 7 Time Tour de France Winner - 7 Boards

Background: All proceeds from selling these boards are going directly to the Lance Armstrong Foundation when the series is SOLD-OUT. The price for each board will be $10.02 . Each board is named after one of Lance's 7 Tour Victories. Lance Armstrong and the Lance Armstrong Foundation promote Cancer Survivorship and give hope and support to individuals (and their families) fighting cancer.

7 Boards:

1999 Tour de France Winner
2000 Tour de France Winner
2001 Tour de France Winner
2002 Tour de France Winner
2003 Tour de France Winner
2004 Tour de France Winner
2005 Tour de France Winner

Named Lunar Modules - 9 Boards

2007-09-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

Series Title: Named Lunar Modules

Background: The Apollo Lunar Module was the lander portion of the Apollo spacecraft built for the US Apollo program to achieve the transit from moon orbit to the surface and back. The module was also known as the LM from the manufacturer designation (yet pronounced "LEM" from NASA's early name for it, Lunar Excursion Module).

The 6.65 m³ module was designed to carry a crew of two. The total module was 6.4 m high and 4.3 m across, resting on four legs. It consisted of two stages — the descent stage module and the ascent stage. The total mass of the module was 15,264 kg with the majority of that (10,334 kg) in the descent stage.

9 Boards:

LM-3 Spider Apollo 9 March 3, 1969
LM-4 Snoopy Apollo 10 May 18, 1969
LM-5 Eagle Apollo 11 July 16, 1969
LM-6 Intrepid Apollo 12 November 14, 1969
LM-7 Aquarius Apollo 13 April 11, 1970
LM-8 Antares Apollo 14 January 31, 1971
LM-10 Falcon Apollo 15 July 26, 1971
LM-11 Orion Apollo 16 April 16, 1972
LM-12 Challenger Apollo 17 December 7, 1972

California Ghost Towns Series II - 5 Boards

2007-09-26T11:22:00.000-07:00

Series Title: California Ghost Towns Series II

Background: The first California Ghost Towns series was mostly California Ghost towns in the southern or Desert part of California. This series highlights ghost towns in Northern California.

5 Boards:

1. NAVARRO BY THE SEA

The town began in the latter half of the 19th century and was abandoned due to floods. Navarr by the sea was once a shipping port utilized by the near-by logging industry. This site was flooded out in a series of floods throughout the years leading to it's demise. The largest was in 1954 I think. At the turn of the century there was a couple dozen buildings, a pier, and beachfront. Today only the hotel remains.

2. ROUGH AND READY

The only mining town to "secede" from the Union and the Territory of California then to vote itself back in.

3. POKER FLAT

The town of Poker Flat had its beginnings in the early 1850's. It is reported that only twelve families were living in the camp of Poker Flat in 1856, but 400 miners lived within two miles. Henry Cohn, who had a store here from 1857 to 1863, described Poker Flat as a "Miserable ...". The town, like most early California mining towns wnet down in 1859 and again in 1876

4. DEADWOOD (the other Deadwood)

Deadwood was founded in 1852 when gold was found in the area.It had 500 people living there
in its heyday.Deadwood was also for a time the home of gun maker Sam Colt. Deadwood was in decline by 1855, although mining with moderate returns was carried on in the vicinity for many years.

5. LAST CHANCE

It was a booming town in the late 1800's boasting an OddFellows Hall, a Masonic Lodge and numerous saloons as well as private residences. All that remains today are the cellars and wells and one cabin as evidence that there once existed a thriving community. The Eldorado Mine is on the outskirts of the town and was a major commercial operation from 1890 until 1982. There are purported to be over 40,000 feet of tunnels radiating from the beginnings of the the diggings.

The town is a now stopping place for the Tevis Cup Endurance Ride.

How Not to Make Money Re-Selling Wood

2007-09-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

I get weekly email updates from one of my favorite wood dealers, www.woodworkerssource.com in Arizona. In early August, I receive a notice that they're shelling purpleheart shorts (smaller pieces of wood about a foot long and maybe six inches wide), for $1.00 a piece. Wow! Purpleheart is normally $4.50 a board foot + shipping. So, I promptly ordered 100 pieces, figuring I'd maybe get half or a third of that. Turns out they had 100 pieces and sold me a 100 pieces. Now here's the part where they may lost money on the deal. They base their shipping prices on the cost of the order. For my meager $100 purchase, the entire order shipped from Arizona to Northern California for a whopping $12.00. Unfortuately, the total order weighed almost 200 lbs. It came in (4) 48 pound boxes via UPS. Our UPS driver doesn't quite understand why he has do deliver wood to our house.

Chessboards Coming Soon to EnumeroCribbageBoards.com

2007-09-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

At the suggestion of my wife, I will soon be adding chessboards the line-up as well. They require quite a bit more wood than my typical crib board, but I think I got the hang of lining up the squares for the "checkerboard" pattern. Unlike my typical crib board, the chess boards are solid wood throughout. A chess board is a little fussier to work with, especially when dealing with 64 little square pieces of hardwood. Like my typical crib board, they will have an inlay type border and an outer border(probably the Purpleheart/Bloodwood combo), and will have either a Mahogany or Purpleheart bottom. Each board will include a set of chess pieces and possibly a little knick-knack box to hold the chess pieces. The typical chess board will be made of 4-5 species of wood. Right now the 3 boards I'm making have reclaimed walnut/white oak for the checkboard itself, mahogany or purpleheart for the bottom and a purpleheart/bloodwood border. I came up with kind of fun (and big series) name: 64 Famous Chess Games, which I found on ask.com (Wikipedia is my usual source). Each board will include the chess moves of that famous game either on a laminated card or actually written on the bottom of the chess board (or both).

Re-design on the Web Site is Complete

2007-09-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

It's all done. It's cleaner, snappier and just a little bit easier to naviate. Still some minor tweaking to do, but overall I'm pretty pleased with the results. It should make adding new pages MUCH faster, since it's a very simple, standardized format. Also, all the verbiage that used to be on each page with crib boards (describing the boards, the history behind the boards, the materials, etc.) will be in the Blog.

Complete Re-Design of the Web Site is Nearing Completion

2007-09-12T15:55:00.001-07:00

The complete redesign of the web site is nearing completion. I'm making 2 big changes. The first change is reducing the size of the photos, in some cases by a factor of 10. This should make everything run a little snappier. The second, is the overall look of the website. I wanted something cleaner, easier to maintain and little bit more subtle. When I first put the web site up in the Fall of 2006, I didn't have a good feel of how I wanted it to look. Now I do, and that's what I'm executing.

Celebrating My 100th Series Board

2007-08-27T16:17:00.000-07:00

A quick internal count here at the EnumeroCribbageBoards.com factory floor, reveals that I've sold 92 "Series" boards to date. Series boards are those boards that belong to a series and have a unique name. To celebrate the 100th board, I would like the screw cap to be something special, possibly a screw-cap made from ebony, inset with an Austrian style crystal peg. The board would include Austrian style crystal pegs as well, instead of my normal brass pegs.

Upcoming Board Series (38 Boards)

2007-08-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

There are several series coming out soon, about 38 boards, give or take. I'd planned to release the "7 Time Winner of the Tour de France" Series (7 Boards) and 8000 Meter Peak-Series II (2 Boards) in July, but the refacing of the Kitchen Cabinets took predence. All proceeds from the "7 Time Winner of the Tour de France" Series will be donated to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. There are still 2 unfinished boards in the "Saturn Moons" Series (35 Boards Total).

Upcoming series include:

California Ghost Towns - Series 2 (5 Boards).
The Mercury 13 Series (13 Boards). The "Mercury 13" honors 13 women who, at the dawn of the U.S.-manned space program, passed the same rigorous physical and psychological testing as the seven men who would go on to become America’s first astronauts, the Mercury 7. None of them ever got the opportunity to fly in space.
Lunar Module (LEM) Series (9 Boards)

EliminatingTear Out When Drilling Hundreds of Holes

2007-08-27T14:41:00.000-07:00

When I started making cribbage boards, I noticed an annoying and common problem inherent in woodworking. I would get "tear-out" or tiny extra bits of wood being pulled out along with the wood from the hole I was drilling. This would result in unsightly little gaps next to a drilled hole. I tried various approaches to reduce or eliminate this problem. But as often happens in woodworking (and in life) , the solution to problem of "tear-out" was right in front of me. Literally.

In order to eliminate "tear out" when drilling hundreds of 1/8" holes in a piece of wood with a metal template on top of the piece of wood, you have to eliminate the gap between the metal template and the piece of wood. This gap causes tear out because there is extra space for the drill bit to pull wood fibres out. If there is no gap, then the drill bit goes in and comes out "clean".

At first I tried blue painters tape, which worked OK. I like the tape since it doesn't get in the way, but it doesn't get the template as flush as I'd like against the board. Then I tried various clamping schemes, none of which worked because they clamps made it clumbsy to drill. Next, I tried home-made hold-down clamps made from Ipe. These worked well, but still got in the way a little bit.

Then one day, I happened to notice a small box of #6 size wood screws laying in a corner. I layed the template on the board, I took the screw and screwed it though a hole in the template and into the wood. Right away I was impressed by how tightly it held the template against the board. I added a few more and found that 6 or 7 of the screws on 2-street drill template held the template tight and eliminated tear out completely. For the larger 3/16" hole templates, I use a standard #8 screw. After I finish drilling the holes, I "unscrew" the template and drill the holes where the screws had been.

The real test of this approach is on "California Ghost Towns Series - 2", where I'm using really crooked twisted wood (Catalina Cherry) and the holes are coming out clean.

I've resisted the temptation to Blog...

2007-08-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

I've resisted the temptation to Blog until now, but in order to continue to promote my cribbage boards, I thought I'd give it a whirl. My biggest success selling boards to date has not been on the web site, but was at a small Craft Show over the 4th of July weekend. I sold 2-dozen boards in one afternoon. Needless to say, my wife and I had a very nice dinner and I made a sizeable (to me) contribution to the SaveSereneLakes.org Foundation.