| What's On Sale This Month |
For Our Newsletter Subscribers Only:Place MICRO11 in the coupon code space at check out and get 15% off our Soft Touch Micromesh Variety Pack.(MICRO34) Don't forget to press
"apply coupon"
at check outAll offers in this Newsletter will expire on
January 31, 2011 or when the next newsletter is published whichever is the latter.Items on sale include:
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Celtic Elegance Pen Kit
1-4 $9.25 ea.
5-24 $8.70 ea.
25+ $8.00 ea.
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20 ft Sanding Roll
Assortment
(ABSET)
4 Roll Set
$7.99 ea
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Our 12 and 48 Pen Portfolio Cases
12 Pen Case $5.50ea.
48 Pen Case $12.10ea.
(If the CASE48 purchased in large quantity, Additional (Actual) shipping may apply. These cases are going fast and when they are gone, they are gone.
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Buy 10+ of our Gelpen kits and Get Free Bushings, Buy 30+ of our Gelpen kits and get Free Bushings and a Free Drill Bit!
(GELPEN)
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Our Cigar Pen Kits
1-9 $3.45 ea.
10-49 $3.35 ea.
50-99 $3.25 ea.
100+ $3.15 ea.
(CIG1-CIG5)
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Pen Insertion Tool
$8.00 each
(PKTINT)
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4GB Flash Drive Pen Kit
$22.49
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Click Here to go to our Specials Page
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Greetings!
 | Dink says "Smile big everyone, it's going to be a really great year".
Got Kibble? |
We hope you had a great Christmas and a super new year. We are sure that everyone was impressed with the wonderful pens and other great hand turned projects you made for them and are looking forward to the spectacular goodies you'll make for them this year.
We and our little pack will be here to support your needs and continue to do our best to provide the best customer service we can possibly muster.
One small piece of bad news, as a semi-annual usual, the US Postal Service is raising its rates slightly. We will be raising our shipping rates to keep pace. We wish we were a bigger company and could afford to eat the difference but unfortunately we live in the real world and are not a multi-million dollar mega company, (YET!)
Tracey's two cents worth:
We are not a parts wholesaler. Tim and I started carrying parts in a effort to save our customers the aggravation of having to get an entire kit to replace just one part. As with most of our business we are geared towards the hobbyist or person who considers themselves a very small business. While we LOVE when people think outside of the box and make their own creations we are not set up to sell the parts in bulk. We have had several inquiries lately for the parts in the hundreds or more and have had some negative comments when we've not been able to provide them at wholesale pricing. We also recognize that if you were to purchase all the parts separately they would come to more than the price of a kit. This is because when we purchase them separately from our supplier they charge us more. There are many times when we will actually break down kits to provide you with a particular part and then sit on the other parts which no-one ever seems to want. We continue to increase our part supply from our supplier but it's an expensive process and takes time. If you are looking for parts in bulk (I would consider more than 50 to be bulk) we may not always be able to accommodate your request.
Thank you for your understanding and I hope this clears things up for those of you that may be wondering about this.
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TECH TALK
| |  I turned my blank down to the bushing but it is too small in diameter and the end of the blank blew out!!!
Believe it or not, even though you have never touched your bushings with a chisel and you've never accidentally removed any metal, your bushings will get smaller with use. When we use sand paper, emory cloth, Abranet, Micro-Mesh etc... to sand our pen barrels, we are also removing metal from the diameter of the bushings. You can cut or sand down into the glue seam and then the tube will be exposed through the glue. Paying extra for hardened carbon steel bushings will not protect you from this problem but just slightly delay the inevitable. Your chisels may not be able to cut them but sandpaper does not care how hard the material is, it will remove it in rather quick order.
When you drill out your barrels and insert your tubes there should be a thin gap between the inside of the barrel and the outside of the tube. The small gap is there to allow your adhesive to do its job and bond the parts properly. If you have to force the tube into the blank then you are not getting an adequate bond.
I have had customers tell me that they use a Letter I drill bit to drill holes for their 7mm tubes because they get a much tighter fit. Then they complain later that the glue they bought is defective. It's not the glue. The joint between the two pieces is so tight that the glue does not have adequate space for an effective bond and the tube will spin loose from the blank. Most of the glue was pushed out when you inserted your tube leaving nearly nothing to bond them together.
When we try to get more life out of a set of bushings than we should, the picture above is usually the end result. Bushings are very inexpensive and should be changed out often. How often is a speculative question, it depends on how aggressive you are on them. I change mine out after six to eight uses if I use them as I sand. To extend the life of your bushings you can turn the blank with a fresh set and then switch them out with an old set to complete the sanding and finishing. This will keep your good set measuring up for a long time.
Don't let an inexpensive set of bushings be the reason for blowing out a very expensive or very special pen blank.
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WHAT'S NEW
| |  We now stock the five pack of sanding rolls for an amazing low price of $12.39. These premium J weight cloth backed easy tear off rolls will save you time and money. Just tear off what you need and the rest stays on the convenient roll. Choose from 150, 240, 320, 400 or 600 grit. We are also carrying a replacement roll of 150 grit for $2.99 per roll. It seems that the 150 always runs out sooner than the rest of the set. Why buy a whole new set when you just need the 150? The 150 replacement roll is similar to Abranet in that it is an open mesh and will last longer than the other grits. We have some new acrylic colors in, please check them out on our acrylic page.
 The new Tear Drop Bottle Stoppers have arrived and are selling quick. These premuim grade stoppers are made in Taiwan and have a pristine polished bright chrome finish on them. We are very proud of these stoppers and know you will love them too at $2.95 each. Buy 50 for only $2.65 each. We also have the classic style bottle stoppers for the same great low price.
The seven piece universal barrel trimming kit is back in stock. They are available for the same great low price of $19.95.
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COMING SOON
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The next inlay blank coming out of Tracey's little laser corner is a "Cure For Cancer Ribbon". Our blank will be a little different than our competitors in two ways. The first difference will be the design. It will be a two tone ribbon with a basic heart shape.  It will have a very classy look and is going to be a big hit for sure. The second difference is that we will be donating five dollars to the National Breast Cancer Foundation for every blank sold. A check for the proceeds will be presented at the annual "Walk For The Cure" here in Monett, Missouri each year. Tracey has several blank designs she is working on so be sure to check back often to see what's next. We have had feedback from some of our customers for ideas, she just needs to figure out how to make them into a design that fits properly and looks great. Please remember, we will not copy blanks from our competitors. If they have a blank you like then you'll need to purchase it from them.
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FEEDBACK
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Last month Tim received several of what I call "sarcastigrams" They literally said "how about telling us something we don't already know" and not in a nice way nor giving him an idea of what this "something" might be.
Needless to say, I had to edit Tim's version of this section of the Newsletter before publishing!
We use phone calls or emails that we get from customers with questions or things that have gone wrong to do the Tech Talk. In many cases it's geared towards new turners.
If you have something more advanced that you'd like some information on just drop us a line with the specifics and we'll be more than happy to see if we can come up with an answer.
We are hoping it was just the stress of the holiday season that perhaps caused some folks the need to vent.
We are happy for your feedback and do appreciate it so that we can make the Newsletter useful to the majority but would ask that you display good taste when sending your feedback. Tim will usually forward the feedback to me so that we can both puts our heads together to come up with useful information.
Please send your mostest bestest greatest ideas to tim.nicholas@woodnwhimsies.com
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