JTTHECLOCKMAN

Well Kevin being you took my reply apart I guess I am suppose to respond. You are correct about location and selling on line. That was not my intent there. Without going into all this stuff that gets brought up time and time again about how to sell and where to sell and what sells. Lets say everybody is different. Everyone approaches this differently. If I made the same things you make and sold on etsy right next to you but have a lower price than you I bet I put you out of business. People do look for bargains. They could not tell the difference between what I did and you did if we made the same things. Now maybe it comes down to description and how colorful and detailed one gets in explaining what they made. I say this with a big MAYBE because we never will know. Yes marketing yourself and your products is key to any sales weather on line or brick and mortar. That is a given. You get back what you put into something. But developing a following and repeat customers goes a long way too.This is again on line or at shows. Lasers yes there is room for both and as I said they have been around a long time. But people still do compare works but may not know what they are looking at. I stopped years ago trying to explain. I use to have a laser cut clock on my table to show folks the difference. You are wrong about time though. A laser can cut quite fast if program to do so. But what a scrollsaw will be able to do is stack cut which will out pace a laser. I have seen some of these in operation and they are sleek. As for the 30 years ago, if you were doing what you are now 30 years ago you would not have time to be on here. But you have to remember craft shows were the source, today multisales outlet has trump that. You did not sell on line back then. Do not know anything about your Dad so won't comment there but can tell you I did the show circuit. At least 12 shows a year and every show was a winner. But you had waiting lists to get into a show back then too. I have told my story here before. I also did the consignment thing for a few years with 6 stores in 3 top flight malls and did great. When the company changed hands things fell apart and I left that. I started woodworking back in the 70's. My point in all this and to get to the OP's question, yes there is a change in the guard but it is not enough to not try to make a go of it. It is not lasers that are creating the change but the way we do business today. If you make some changes you too can keep up. For me my time has past. I been there done that but I have been around long enough to see the change as I mentioned. It was always nice to be able to talk to people and to talk up your work to live people. Now it takes descriptive words on a computer to make the sales. It to me is ashame that is where we have gone but it is the way of the world we live in. Believe me I am not the only one seeing this. I have a ton of crafter friends in many different mediums and the same words are being used. Good luck is all I can say to all this.

Depends on how much you want to believe. I never believe people when talking about sales and I try not to include them unless pushed. Many things do go into sales of any items and of course location is always #1 and #2. I have been doing this for over 30 years and I have seen the peeks and valleys and yes scrolling is down and never will be the same thing it once was and anyone here can twist their words any way they want but not going to be the same. One's person of doing well is not the same for everyone. Some people and I should say most people do this as well as turn pens which I have done for 10 years now do it for the hobby or joy and there are tons of threads on this. Selling online in various vendor sites such as Etsy is a crapshoot to say the least. If you can get a following then maybe you can make some money. If you do not have much competition will also help and that goes for shows as well. I will comment about the laser thing. It has always been an obstacle to us scrollers. It is a reason to try to do things that can not be copied by lasers but that is getting harder and harder. I posted a thread a few days ago about wanting to start a few new projects and one was the Military plaques. Well long and behold I found a couple sites that sell these exact plaques and are laser cut. Cutting records is another project I want to do this year and there are a ton of sites that do this by laser. Can not compete with this and that is another reason scrollers are fading away. Yes you may still do it but how many have given it up that you do not know about. Things like flat ornaments are probably the easiest things to do with lasers. It is an even bigger fight these days to continue with shows because of so many people buying on line. Joining the ranks of ebay, etsy and Amazon can and will lead to an overflow of product to choose from and thus price wars. What are the answers, well that is for each of us to battle with on our own. Whatever it is you have to be the best salesperson you can possible be. You have to have quality products and that includes finishing. And you need the gift of gab. Good luck as you continue on and do not get discouraged until you have tried various methods and avenues. It is a battle and not an easy one. Making our projects is the easiest part of the journey.

router, if real large I have a 2-1/2hp shaper. have all sorts of routers that can round over in little time. Have a router table or two I can use. Have no idea what you are asking. Maybe a photo or a much better explanation as to what you are doing. How much rounding how large is the project. Show us a picture. Then you can get better answers.

Had to erase my post.

Thanks Tom. As I said it will be on my to do list this year. I plan on changing many of my sale projects for what could be my last year doing craft shows. They have lost value and swapping money with the organizers is not my cup of tea. May get out of this all together so maybe a huge fire sale or garage sale in the near future. Will be doing some serious thinking in the next 2 years. Been doing this for over 30 years. Seen that and done that but this is the all time worst of all times. Craft shows are a thing of the past.

Just was sitting here thinking (can be dangerous at times) But the thought of Kevins plight on etsy. Don't we own the military?? There is no one person or corporation that owns any branch of the military so how can they have copyrights. I believe my money goes to support the military so I own one of those bullets I believe the insignias are public domain. Probably another lawyer thing that is so grey it has rain clouds in it.

That is a good idea also. Can get those in many different sizes. Thanks.

Thanks for the heads up Kevin. I have been selling military items at craft shows for over 20 years now and have not run into any problems. As of now I do not sell on line but if I do and run into a problem I will deal with that at that time. I buy military medals and pins and turn into clocks as well as I will be making pens from them. I know a person who made and probably still does bottle stoppers from military pins and sells all over the net and I have never heard he had any problems but I have not seen him in a couple years now. I hear Etsy gets cranky on many things. I sell things unless told to stop. Much of this copyright stuff is a bunch of bull and so much of it is in a grey area. I will be aware of what you mentioned and thanks. I will continue to make them when I do get started. I got this thought from a show I did last Sat. I had a customer buy a Coast Guard clock from me and was looking for a plaque without the clock. I did not have it but thought of these. Will see. Taking the copyright thing to another level, the only time I ever encountered the copyright police at a show was about 20 years ago. Reps from Disney, Harley Davidson, and some sort of college groups stormed a show and made a few crafters take down their wares. One guy scrolled Harley plaques with motorcycles. Very nice work too. Another lady made Disney blankets and pillows from cloth that she bought from a craft store. Again very nice work. My question always is how many times does those rights need to be paid for when you take items and recycle them into other items. I know this is a long and drawn out discussion and there are no true answers and you need a Harvard law degree to decipher but it does get annoying at times. Thanks for the story. I just was over at Steve Goodes pattern site and he has many military patterns with all the branches of military emblems and sayings. I believe someone was jealous Kevin and had someone represent the military. Not sure how they can do that but I am guessing Etsy just caves to anyone's complaints. As I said I will deal with any complaints at the time and they better have a good reason. Thanks again.

WHATEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well Brian say what you want but to me it is plain and clear I did not make this project shown here. Now I did make a mistake in saying Pintrust instead in Pinterest. I will see if i can edit that. But that is where I found the photo. I was looking for an example because a picture is worth 1000 words as they say. If I had the answers I would not have asked the questions I did. My point here is I do not want to take credit for something I did not make and if that is a photo of someone's work that visits than they should get the credit. I will try to be more clear next time. Again apologies to whoever project this is.

People as many have done, not read my entire post. This is not my project. NOT a picture of my work. I found this on Pinterest so that I can show an example of what I am after. Try to decipher if that is Lawson work from his comments and if so very nice. As I said not sure if I would get in trouble showing someone elses work or not but figured it was on a free site it would be OK. But the gist of this is that these are one of the projects I am going to add next year. Sold some military clocks this past weekend so it got me to thinking. I also did some searching and will have to order a couple American flag decals that might just work for what I want. I might be able to have some sized for me too if the quality is there I will contact the vendor. Again sorry for the confusion.

Like to start a new project for next year or I should say there will be several new projects, but this one in particular will be military plaques. Something on the lines of Dirk Boehlmans patterns from his book. I have seen many of these and maybe a few people do them. But I want to be able to put the American flag behind them. My question is for those that have done that how do you make copies of the flag and where did you get the copy of the flag and is there a way to make it glossy other than copying on photo paper which can be costly. If not glossy maybe a stain finish to it. Not sure how I will finish the plaques yet. I would post a photo of someones but do not want to over step. Maybe I will look for one on pinterest to post. Thanks in advance and if you have examples that you did please post them as give some pointers. I found a photo which brought up more questions and I am looking for opinions. I have seen these also with just painted backgrounds, is that a better look??? I seen these like this where the center has the flag and behind the lettering is colored background, is that a better look or is the flag behind all a better look. Sort of like a poll here to help me decide. Sometimes decisions like this are tough for me. Again thanks.

Not knowing your woodworking abilities or the tools you have at your access it is very hard to suggest things. But a simple suggestion other than doing a google search, I suggest you treat it as a lamp shade. You need to make corners and I would suggest a solid dark colored wood such as walnut. Cut slots in it so that the panels slip in them. Or you could miter the ends 45 degrees and glue together that way. Then you need to use some metal so that it hangs over the bulb depending on the lamp. I warn and warn you with all good intentions fires from material such as wood is no joke. You may want to look into some sort of LED lighting system and make it into a box and install a string of low voltage low wattage lights. Good luck All I can and all I would say. Too hazardous for me. This is the reason I do not sell toys or anything electrical.

Ray if you are talking about the old Delta P20 saws they were belt driven and you had pulleys to adjust the speeds along with the potentiometer. Much like the lathes today such as the Jet lathes. This made the speeds very very infinite.

slower than 400 seems a waste. I would caution of trying to use a speed controller in conjunction with this saw. Not made for that and will burn the electronics. I am talking about a sewing machine foot pedal or even those router speed controllers. If it had pulleys you could change the ratio of the pulley.

Not looking for it to get in fret work. Looking to put a satin feel to top layer. You do not feel the fret work. I wish I could convey the look easier but if you look at the solid wood you will see a warm glow to it and the feel is smooth. I love it. My customers do too. When you use Danish oil it has poly in it so it will leave the fret work with a slight gloss anyway. Especially if you use a blade that cuts smooth and I like to use FD #5 silver penguin reverse for most all my cuts.

I love Danish oil and use Watco all the time on most of my projects. I use the dip method. I have a plastic container that they use for storing things. It depends on the amount of projects that need to get dipped will depend on the size container I use. I have a few different designated for just this. I dip and let sit for about 5 to 10 minutes making sure the piece is submerged or at least turned over occasionally. Take it out and let it drip on the lid of the container. Will eventually dump excess back into the can. After about 1/2 hour I wipe it down with a soft cotton cloth and set off to dry. I try to do this outside on nice days so that the fumes are not bad and drying is quick. After a few hours sitting outside I bring into my basement where I have either a rack set up or a line where I can hang things. I again wipe them down and just let them dry for 4 to 5 days. I make sure things are OK and there is no bleeding of the oils out of the pores. If so just wipe again. After that I take each piece and apply Watco satin polish and the next day buff to a nice soft sheen. To me the key is sanding to 220 grit to give the piece a nice feel. I strictly use red oak so this works for me very very well. To me no need to dip more than once.

Danish oil is a mix of poly, blo, and mineral spirits and driers. Wait 72 hours and no problems. By the way nice job with the sign

If the saw is on a stand then just put a 2X4 under the back legs. Maybe you need a couple. I found that when a saw is tilted like that all the saw dust lands in your lap. Never found a need to tilt the saw. A magnifier light is a plus these days though. I have a very bad back but when sawing I just saw a bit and then get up and walk around and just sit straight up and I can saw for long periods of time. You can always raise the saw but you need to make sure everything is bolted down well. That is what takes the vibration out of those type saws. Good stable foundation.

Sell the magazines and be happy with the money you get and buy more patterns. Too much legal mumble jumble. You bought the magazines and are free to do what you want. That is what I would do and have a bunch to sell myself and do not care who has anything to say about them.

Have to thank all for adding their own highs and lows and boy there are some that just ring true with us all. I do hope there are always more highs than lows and whatever lows happen we learn from them. Continue adding to the list. It makes for a great read. Happy Scrolling.

I just reread your request. Will tell you this it will will will will warp so you are better off using baltic plywood. 1/4" is not thick enough for that unless you are going to encase in a frame to keep it from warping. You will not be able to put biscuits in a 1/4" piece. All these things are factors and if you do not have the tools to mill your own lumber than you are at the mercy of outsourcing and good luck with that. They can not control wood movement as well as you can. I see you mention backer board. Again if the backer is not plywood it too will warp. 2 different woods acting against each other makes for problems when getting into wide widths such as the 8" needed. You may want to step up the outer piece to 3/8" at least. Will help in the warping.

There are a ton of lumber yards in your area. Hardwood dealers too. Look in the yellow pages or do a google search for your area.

What a different world. I may never enter it. I still work off a flip phone and do all work on a home computer. May just have to have a fire sale and get out of this business all together and just make real highend pens. $5000 pens are not out of my realm. Zero my market to highend clients. They are out there for sure. Thinking out loud.

I can see why you did well. Lots of beautiful work there. You need to brag more often. You deserve the recognition. Thanks for showing.