BadBob

Did it work for you?

Why not use Blue Locktight?

Are these patterns pale grey? If they are gray, and the background is not pure white, Inkscape may not detect the lines. When this happens to me, I load the image into Gimp and edit it to produce a 2-bit image. Black and white only, not grayscale. Copy this back into Inkscape and trace it.

I spend a lot of time studying numbers and figuring out what works and what doesn't work. I try to review each listing as it renews. Rewrite the description if needed, and it usually does at least need a bit of tweaking. If the item has not been promoted on social media, I do that if time is available. I pack and ship orders before 9a, if at all possible. My regular mail runs between noon and 4p but once in a while, I get a different mail carrier, and I have learned that it is best to get it out earlier. I save and reuse packing materials. My volume is not so great that I need to stock new boxes, but it's getting there. Reusing packaging makes it take more time to pack, but I don't need to buy anything. Daily I review my Etsy analytics to keep an eye on what is going on. I track 30 days stats in a spreadsheet. I can see patterns in the rows and columns that I can't see just looking at Etsy's analytics. I also track the views of my top 20 listings. Tracking views helps me to see if social media postings are having an impact. I do all of the above on a typical day. Notice shop time isn't mentioned. I have sold more in my shop than 82% of the Etsy shops. I have yet to make a profit. However, The shop is covering all of its costs and then some. I've had my shop for about five years but only started working on it a year ago. I'm still new at this, but I have an advantage over many sellers. I have extensive computer skills and experience—about 40 years' worth. Being successful is a lot of work and you market changes all the time.

Their inventory system is terrible. I have learned that you have to go look yourself. Lowes is better but still has issues.

I keep mine in a jar of mineral spirits. It works. I never have a clogged nozzle. I don't know why people have so much of a problem with 3m 77 overspray. I use a flattened-out box with an old catalog or magazine on top and flip the pages as they get sticky some get on the box but not much. I've been using the same box for several years. Lately, I have been experimenting with Elmer's X-Treme Glue Stick. So far it works well for smaller things you just need to be careful to get it on the edges. It's not as sticky as 3m 77 by a long shot. but if I'm careful it doesn't come unstuck while I am cutting. It dissolves with alcohol. If I am concerned about getting glue on my fingers or need to place tiny patterns precisely I use hemostats to handle the pattern.

Yes, you have to love making things and doing all the business stuff.

I do it all myself. I use USPS exclusively for my shipping, and I haven't been to the post office in a year. If you have enough time, you can go to the USPS website and schedule a pickup. Or, as I have done, leave a note on the mailbox, asking them to pickups the package by the front door. The not method may depend on your mailman. I have been using reclaimed packing materials for packages I get in the mail. This can work for a while but at some point (I hope) my sales will be high enough the this will be unworkable. I keep priority mailboxes for the few times I have orders that go priority mail. You can order them online. If you hire a professional, how do you know they know what they are doing? You don't know. Without some way to test the results, you can never know. You might spend thousands of dollars on SEO help and not have any better results than you would have had if you didn't hire them. If you do something with SEO and the sales go up, do you know for sure that is what caused it? Perhaps it would have gone up anyway. It can take weeks or months to see the effects of changes. 90% of everything is garbage. You can find tons of advice on how to run your shop but very little of it is backed up by the numbers. Most of them do not give you any. It's all very complicated and confusing. but on the upside, you can sit in your house in your pajamas and sell to people on the other side of the world. That is cool. Profit is what you have left after you pay all your expenses and yourself.

I use clamps. I started with tape and found it to be too fiddly for me. I switched to a shop-made clamp similar to the Steve Good clamp. It works but getting the clamping pressure even was a pain. The problem I have with this method is that adjusting one side affects the other. I bought some patterns, and in the instructions, they were using bar clamps. I have some small trigger clamps and gave them a try, they worked sort of, but they would not hold tight. The vibration caused them to work loose. Then I switched to my little Jorgensen bar clamps. The Jorgensen clamps worked great. They could clamp tighter than I needed, and they are independently adjustable so I can easily tweak the clamp pressure as I cut. I haven't tried spring clamps yet, but I'm going to give them a shot the next time I cut a birdhouse.

The Klingspor sanding mop is a great tool. I learned real quick the t I needed to run it at slow speed. I use it so much that it is almost always on the drill press.

I have multiple palm sanders because I found that changing paper on the sanders wore the paper out fast. Mostly, the hook and loop papers would get to the point where they would not stay on the sander.

Please don't take my word for it. Do your research and vet your sources. Wood has toxins in it. Some are very bad for humans, and some are not so bad, but they all have toxins. Mineral oil has issues too. I did a bit of research into mineral oil, not random people on the internet but actual research papers. Mineral oils are absorbed through your skin and can cause health issues. Unfortunately, most, if not all, of the information is behind a money wall where you have to pay to read the research. Mineral oil is a liquid byproduct of refining crude oil to make gasoline and other petroleum products. As far as I know, it is illegal to sell finishes in the US that are toxic when cured and has been for many years. Dry is not cured. Some oil-based finishes can take weeks or months to cure. Polyurethane is essentially a plastic coating. Is there a difference between a wood toy coated with polyurethane and a toy made from som mysterious injection molded plastic. My definition of nontoxic is that it means that if you touch it or ingest it, you will not need to be rushed to the emergency room. However, some years later, you may be diagnosed with some debilitating disease caused by contact with this substance. Toxins are all around us. I have beans in my garden that, if eaten raw, will make you ill and may kill you. Unfortunately, if you are selling, many of your customers believe in myths, not facts. I am slowly tracking down all mentions of toxins in my shop listing and removing them. I tell them what the finish is, and they decide. If they ask about it, I will give them my opinion.

I put a label on the invoice of each package I send out and also have this warning in my listing description.

That is the best argument I have seen for using free shipping. I turned it on in Etsy, but it wound up costing me money. What happened was that customers would add a small item to get over the $35 they needed for free shipping, and the actual cost of shipping would jump from $4 to $10, and the shipping would come out of my pocket. After this happened three times, I turned it off. I don't blame the customer; I would have done it too. Now I am slowly moving to a pricing method that includes the shipping in the price. This pricing method makes it cost more for the customer that purchases multiple items, but it is easy to refund the excess shipping, and these are few and far between.

Pure mineral oil doesn't work for me. Dipping is far to messy. The oil puddles in the tight places and I have found only two ways to get the oil out. I can blow it out with compressed air (messy), or put in my oven on warm. In the oven, the oil thins and gets absorbed better or drips off. The smoke point of mineral oil is low, and it burns. So be careful if you try this. In my experience, paint cures faster than mineral oil soaks in. Shellac if fast but has its issues. Butcher block finish works better, but you are paying a lot of money for mineral oil with a bit of wax in it. Better to make your own. That is what I do. I mix mineral oil with beeswax and just a bit of carnauba wax. I'm still experimenting. I don't dip anything except the ends of axles for my toys.

I've seen warnings in other groups about shipping delays due to COVID-19. So far, I have not experienced any with my shipments. I ship 99% USPS First Class with an occasional Priority Mail. This year I had one package the too more than three days. I suspect as we get closer to Christmas that this will get worse. I don't use any insurance on my packages, except the few international orders I get. I read the fine print in the insurance agreement and did the math. Complying with the insurance requirements is more expensive than replacing or refunding if something goes wrong. So far, I have not had to refund or replace anything.

If you have a Facebook Business Page you can add the Shop Now Button and link it to your shop. You can also post your items in the Facebook Market Place. In the last year two of my best sellers originated from the Facebook Market Place as custom orders.

I started a chess set years ago and never got it finished. My kids kept running off with the pieces.

USPS 1st Class Mail package service has tracking. In August, I shipped 12 packages USPS 1st class and one priority mail.

I stopped using tack cloths because they would leave a sticky residue that I could feel with my fingers. The cloth wood sometimes hang on the wood and leave a bit of lint behind.

I like this idea. I started with the two pieces of wood and threaded rod thing because I had it already. That didn't work so well because I found it hard to get and keep even pressure. Next, I went to using small bar clamps. Bar clamps are what is pictured in the instructions I received with some birdhouse patterns. The bar clamps worked much better. However, I still needed to keep tightening them as I cut, but I could adjust them individually. Using spring clamps should eliminate adjusting as I cut completely. I have a bunch of Bessy spring clamps I got very cheap a few years ago.

I've never seen shipping as any big deal. I only ship by USPS, and 99% of that is first class. I let my customers choose what level of shipping they want. No one has ever chosen any priority mail. The one percent is for the few customers that buy multiple items that weigh more than 16 ounces. These need to ship at the next level, priority mail. Occasionally I have an international order. I put all my packages in the mailbox for pickup. I can foresee the day when this might not work. Then I'll arrange for pickup or get a larger mailbox. Figuring out how to package your items for shipping is a whole different subject.

Is that plywood you are cutting?

hidden checks. In a batch of toy trucks, I made recently three of them did not make it through the build because of defects that did not show up until after they were cut. Then there is just me being clumsy. I once dropped a toy covered with wet paint. The toy was covered with dirt and damaged to boot. The worst I can remember was when cutting some dragon puzzles from a poplar 2x6 that normally will yield 8 to ten puzzles I only got four usable dragons. I don't repair any of them. If something goes wrong the go in the kindling bucket.

I'm always keeping an eye out for a deal on a used saw. I have an old Hawk with the two-speed motor that I bought cheap. I refurbished it and added all the upgrades I could get. It cuts great, but the blade changes are a pain. It cuts very well, but because of the blade change issue, I would like to replace it with something else if I find a bargain in a used saw. If not, I will probably buy a Pegas or something similar to my EX21. Scroll saws are scarce in my local area. My shop has got to the point where I don't feel like it is a good idea not to have a backup.