kmmcrafts

Other day had a customer that ordered a truck clock that I have then proceeded to tell me to make it a 1970 Chevy instead of the 1978 one they ordered, LOL... hate when customers place their order and then tell you to modify it.. Like shouldn't the custom request be done before ordering.. I'm thinking about ordering a brand new 2022 Chevy 4x4 truck but then message them after paying for it and tell them to make it a 1965 truck if it works like that.. Anyway, we worked things out.. and she sent me pictures of the truck she wanted a clock made of.. and here is what I came up with.. I'm not sure what I'm missing but I feel like some detail is missing on this somewhere.. resembles a 1970 truck but just didn't turn out ( to me) great.. just okay.. LOL Cut from Cherry using Pegas MG #3 Anyway, pick it apart.. tell me what I should have done to make it better.. BTW.. this is just dipped in Danish oil.. waiting a few days before spraying a topcoat on.. Okay, so.. I forgot I just did this custom order too.. just seen the pictures ( last 3 photos ) on my computer when opening the file for the 1970 truck.. the other set of pictures is of a 1986 truck order that I just mailed out 3 days ago.. and forgot already that I did that one too.. Old Age? LOL

Looks like poplar that I use most.. I have had some pieces with brown, green, purple look to them.. but I try to stay away from those for the puzzles I make.. the unicorn puzzle might be cool from the rainbow colored pieces I have.. but a dog puzzle to me looks best from just plain blah wood.. LOL

I cannot agree more with the having fun.. when it's no longer fun I'll also quit doing it.. I'm on 14 years of this now and this is the first year that I've been kinda coasting.. taking time off to do "other things I like doing" hence.. building the race car and just enjoying "real cars" instead of making wood car clocks, LOL.. I'm still open for business.. but I haven't advertised, promoted or done much to bring in more business.. still busy enough. After the covid lock downs for those two years was the busiest I've ever been and I was starting to get the kind of feeling of it being "work" since the lock downs forced a lot of folks to buy online I was swamp with work the whole two years.. made some real good money so I'm playing with this racecar build.. I do a little car repair stuff for a few friends and family and always have.. something I also enjoy and when I'm tired of making sawdust.. there is enough friends / family and friends of those friends etc.. I can and sometimes do slide into that business sector from time to time.. I turn a lot of work away on the auto repair side because well.. it's taxing on the body.. love doing it and can be good money but turn most of the work away these days.. much more fun sitting on a stool making sawdust and wood cars, LOL With car prices these days a lot of auto repair work to be had and pretty easy to get work if needed / wanted in both auto repair and body / collision work..

As for the MOV. video files.. I can see them but for some reason my computer downloads the video and then I have to open the download.. I don't like just downloading anything from the web so I rarely watch them...

I am able to see it on my iPhone using the safari browser just fine.. I'd say it's a setting on your ipad..

Beautiful work as always. Good to see you back in the shop making that Hegner hum, and thanks for posting an update. Hope to see you posting more again..

Many folks that are retired now worked for a company that valued them, gave out some sort of pension gave out some health insurance that you didn't have to pay a big chunk of your earnings to have that insurance.. Back when people wanted to work and be proud of what job they had and did.. The employer didn't consider you as a number and did their best to keep you with them and gave you a sense of stability that you'll be working next week, month, year etc.. IF you have to fend for yourself no matter what, you might as well do all of it on your own.. Times have changed a great deal.. maybe even before your times but I can say it was way better to work for someone 30-40 years ago than it is now.. People talk about how the young folks don't want to work and shortage of workers everywhere.. ALL the young folks I know don't want to work for greedy corporations, especially when these young kids have all the opportunities with just doing stupid YouTube videos and can make more money.. a young man about 6-8 years old building things out of legos on YouTube makes about $10,000 a month.. you suppose he's going to happily take a pay cut and go work for a sweatshop making $15 -20 an hour? People are fooling themselves about how this next generation is lazy and don't want to work.. it's more that they know what they can do and many are doing it online.. These kids are taking over Hollywood stars just being themselves on YouTube ,TikTok and other sights.. and they don't have managers and all the middle men taking the majority of their income either.. they get famous and "companies" want to sponsor them so these kids get cool clothing and whatever else free just to show it on their videos.. which brings me to this.. My son likes to ride BMX bicycles and do stunts etc.. he shows his riding etc. on instagram.. just short 30sec. - 1 min. clips of him doing jumps and stunts.. He has had companies offer hats, shoes, and you name it.. for free if he'll wear this stuff doing his stunts.. He's not trying to get popular or to start a entertainment gig at all.. he was doing these videos etc. just showing friends and followers his BMX tricks.. this stuff here is how "easy" it is right now for many of these young kids to just do what they like to do and make money.. yet you get grilled in a interview for a job that you really don't want anyway.. WHY go work when these opportunities are there to just play? especially when a real jobs pay sucks and very little if any recognition for the job from your boss when you can be recognized by a lot of folks for just playing and doing what you like / want.. Employers are going to have to step up their game, kids don't want their crappy $5000 - 10,000 sign on bonuses.. etc.. and then be treated as just another worker..

Definitely cheaper as she won't buy a whole shopping cart full of things we didn't know we needed until she found them on sale..

I don't use FD blades a whole lot any more but I do use the #5 quite often as the entry hole for veining can be a smaller hole than a Pegas blade.. that is the downside to pegas blades. I swap back and forth between brands quite a lot depending on the material and project.. My blades gotta be 5-6 years old so maybe older than what you have.. I've not had any issues with them.. Sometimes they get a run of bad blades.. I've had it happen in both brands over the years.. Hope your new batch solves the issue as it can be quite frustrating to break a lot of blades.. do more blade changing than cutting, LOL

The true cost of doing business is why my prices are the way they are.. I've went round and round with many folks on here about pricing and about legal business fees including as AmazingKevin says ( covering your behind LOL).. and those fees to do just that.. some folks might get lucky and never need the insurance for the business or the homeowners insurance won't drop you because of running a business etc.. Many business's cut corners to offer cheap prices.. good for them if they get away with it.. If you rely on the home owners insurance to cover you when your shop burns that you're running a business out of.. you'll go out of business very fast.. IF you sell with " intent to make a profit ".. whether you're hobby or not the IRS, your insurance company and many others see you as a business..

The more money you make the more money goes to the IRS.. He's doing it all wrong when you leave out most of the expenses that "could" be deducted.. The right way is to see how little you can "show" you make and still have the business survive.. .. While my statement is kind of funny, it is true..

I use rubbing alcohol to remove some of the burn residual from laser cut / engraving on wood and it wipes it right off.. Usually just put a little of it on a paper towel or a Q-tip and it works well.. not sure if it will work with this.. but worth a try I suppose.

Maybe I should back step a bit.. My issue was when everyone was backordered on #5 blades about 3-4? years ago and they showed they had them in stock.. I even emailed to make sure and I got a quick response they had them.. placed my order and they was pretty quick to print a label and provide tracking.. however according to my tracking number they never dropped of / picked-up my package for about 2 weeks.. then it took another 10 days to get to me.. BUT, to be fair it was at the peak of the holidays so mail was likely backed up.. My issue was that two week wait before actually mailing my blades.. I suspect they really didn't have blades and knew that a shipment was coming in so they said they did.. This was back when the #5's had a length issue ( which was why everyone was out of stock because they "Pegas" found bad blade issues and pulled all the inventory ).. I order blades way in advance, like I keep a full gross of blades on hand at all times.. when I get to my last package I order another gross.. so it wasn't that I was running out.. But with that said.. it was 3-4 months before I realized the blades they sent me was a batch of the bad blades, LOL.. They was really good about sending out replacements and they came really quite fast.. BUT, they came from Grobet? rather than Bear Wood too... I usually give companies a couple strikes before I say nope not again, depending on the situation.. I have ordered from them a couple more times.. one just recently as they was the only place I could find the wood dowel in the size and species I was needing.. Order did take some time but other than that I've not really had any major issues.. I don't mind slow mailing so long as it's expected of the company.. as for customer service handing issues I think they did a wonderful job for me because I was worried they'd not replace my blades after the order was 3-4 months old, maybe was longer than that even... so I'm not saying I'll never order from them but I am saying is why would I if I have other places to order that are top notch like Denny.. so long as he sells what I'm looking for, LOL..

Yeah, I also had issues with Bear Woods...

My policy is just a very basic one that is more for liability but they include $10,000 for machines used to make my products, and also includes my inventory.. but only at a raw material cost, not retail value.. A lot of shows ( my understanding ) require you to have some sort of liability insurance. If a customer trips in your booth and breaks their arm the show ( organization ) is liable but it can fall back onto you as the seller too.. The injured person may not sue you but their health insurance can and probably will so they can get their claim payout money back.. It may not even be a thing that was your fault.. it just happened at your booth..

Don't think you can get insurance to cover your cost of damaged items at a retail price level.. only at a raw materials level..

You know me I can knit pick that list of expenses to pieces.. but I'll keep it out of the equation. though the knit pick list is very long it does add up to be a substantial total. You have some bigger expenses not mentioned though.. Just to name a couple of them without writing the whole list I can think of off the top of my head is.. (Even if I knit pick this down you still do fairly well for just having fun..) Business Insurance? Mine's about $400 a year.. but I don't have a business vehicle or maintenance and insurance fees for one either.. How about credit card processing fees? Any shows you do that you travel more than a couple miles? All day shows do you pack lunch, stay in a hotel etc. It was nice of the IRS to give us a whopping $0.04 more for mileage deduction when fuel prices doubled as well as everything else vehicle maintenance etc. related to travel just about doubled too.. I guess they thought that $0.04 should help cover those mileage expenses, LOL

Thanks Don, I don't know if it was the darkness of the lines or my printer.. Unfortunately my new printer I bought was only black and white because I was a cheap skate and didn't want to pay for the color printer, LOL.. My next printer will be a color printer.. I didn't realize how much I really liked the red lines in a pattern until I could no longer make them red, LOL

Hey @don in brooklin on thank you for making these designs. I just came in from cutting a stack of each design. I didn’t notice that my printer didn’t really print the kerf lines in the one design very dark and they was really hard to make out but I think I got them. Both great designs, easy and quick to cut.

I like both of these that you did and will be cutting both of them soon. I like the bowling pin one best but I'll cut both styles.. People seem to really like the themed ornaments. I have all of Sue Meys designs for the what I call worker themed ones (construction worker, nurse, and sports themed ones that she has too) and customers really seem to go after those. There are a lot of things she doesn't have that she could expand on.. I've requested a lot of the designs that she does have but she seems to be too busy the last few times I've requested. I guess I have the imagination but not the best skills on design, LOL.. Sorry to hear you struggle to get much sawing done. For a beginner in pattern making you're sure good at it, LOL.. I can wing it sometimes and get a pattern but nothing close to this good, LOL.. Thank you for taking the time to make these. I can't wait to get started cutting them

I guess that's why I didn't find it.. The main view page had no ornaments with text on them, LOL. He has a couple different styles of military themed ornaments that I did see so I assumed this wasn't his design. However I did think it was his style spelled all over it.. Thanks Don for showing exactly where is was. That is one issue with some of Steves patterns.. you know it's his work but have to go on a hunt to track it down.. many designs are hidden within a group of other designs so you have to download every one to find it.

Ooh, that's a nice one Don. That will work perfectly.. I don't really care I was just looking for some "different " new themes of ornaments to make and was thinking I hadn't seen bowling, or disc golf designs before for scroll sawing.. lots of different themed stuff out there that is laser engraved, from a lawn mower to a pole dancer and everything in between LOL.. One that is circulating pretty good in the laser world right now is a fuel gauge with the fuel light shining.. saying "this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine". LOL That's probably too much text to try to scroll out of a small ornament.. Be a good one for 2022 though. Thank you for having nothing to do and making this, I'll certainly cut it and show it shortly.. trying to build some new ornament inventory

I don't see that particular design but there is a whole bunch of these very similar to this design in the pattern section here on the village.. Steve Good also has a couple nice sets of military ornaments similar but has some decoration to it too.

Switch plates huh, I never thought to look there, LOL. I did search through the actual ornaments and didn't find anything.. I'll check it out.. thanks

I guess I should have, LOL.. I normally am pretty good with tech stuff but in the last 2-3 years they've change the algorithms of how the searches work and they sort of base it off your browsing history etc.. weird how it all works.. and it's getting to be where you have to put in very specific search terms.. They say it's because there is so much stuff online these days..