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| Dink says, "It's good to have friends, especially in the winter and early spring". |
It's March and the spring craft shows are coming fast and furious. This is another time of year when we begin to run out of several popular items. We are already out of some items but expect them in later this month.
The projected date is March 25th. We had over expected sales numbers after Christmas and thought we ordered with plenty of time before stock ran out, but not so. It can be very difficult to know what is going to be the next hot item. Please check our site regularly for your turning needs. If we are out of what you need, we sincerely apologize and as we get more experienced we hope to avoid "out of stock" situations as much as possible.
If you do not find what you need on our website, please give us a call and we will check to see if we have it in stock. There are many items that we carry which are not listed on our site. Tracey only likes to post items we have ample stock of on the site to avoid someone being disappointed if they order something and then we don't have it. If it isn't something that sells quite a bit then we will only keep a few on hand at a time.
We have had a few folks offer to help us out in expanding our inventory in the recent past in both larger turning stock, pen blanks and other gizmo's and doohickeys. Please understand before you approach us with an offer to carry your special blanks or products that we cannot pay retail and then turn around and sell them at retail price. If the product does not pay for itself in what it occupies in shelf space, website space ,employee handling time and of course Uncle Sam's hefty chunk, then we cannot afford to sell it and keep our dogs in kibble! We try to keep our costs as low as possible so we can offer goods to our customers at a reasonable price. Forty and Fifty dollars for a pen blank is not reasonable in my book, no matter how great the blank looks. Chances are the turner will not recoup their expenses. There is a huge difference between a profit and a profit margin. Businesses work on profit margins. In other words, what is left over after all the bills are settled up and the employees and taxes are paid is the margin. This is what you get to either take home or choose to reinvest to expand inventory in a business.
Whoever said that when you run a retail website, you just sit back and let the checks roll in has never really been there to run a successful retail business. Tracey and I can personally affirm after an eighteen to twenty hour day that it just does not work that way.
Tracey's Two Cents Worth:
How our business is set up.
Just wanted to clarify that we do not have what would be considered a brick and mortar setup. This means we don't have an official retail location manned with someone at the phone 100% of our business hours.
While we always welcome folks who might want to see something before they buy and people who prefer to call us with their orders we are set up as an internet business. We made this decision because many of the things Tim and I do require that we are out in the workshop trimming brass, cutting wood etc.
We will update our phone message if we are going to be away for the day picking up supplies and I will generally post an away mail if I'm going to be out of town.
If you get our answering machine feel confident in leaving a message. Tim is awesome about returning calls in a very timely manner. We have had a few folks who have given us an ear full because they will call and just happen to miss us, we may come back in the office and then run back out to the workshop and they may just happen to call again. In their mind, we "never" answer our phone and it's always those folks who will jump on the forums and start making those absolute statements. I've seen it happen to lots of businesses. In fact, if they had just left a quick message they would have probably received a call back within 15 minutes unless we were gone for the day.
Emails are usually answered within 24 hours unless they come in over the weekend. We are closed on Saturdays so Sundays are very busy so it may be Monday before we can get back to you. There are times when during the busy season when I cannot respond to emails for 48 hours but I do try to get you a quick response.
I hope this clears things up for some of you that may have been wondering how we operate and help explain that we do value each and every customer.
Web:
There are a few simple tools you will need to get started. You will need a set of bushings for your project kit, a dead center, and a live center. With your bushing set inserted into the ends of the blank, install this assembly between the dead center and the live center and turn as if your blank was on a mandrel. The disadvantage of turning this way is that you will not be able to install both blanks on the lathe to turn at the same time. This overextended length is the primary cause for whip and egg shaped blanks anyway.