Wood-N-Whimsies Newsletter
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WHAT'S ON SALE THIS MONTH
For Our Newsletter Subscribers Only, Take 20% Off Of The 24 Pen Portfolio Case. Use The Coupon Code "CASE24" At Checkout
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POLY49 Watermelon is on sale this month as low as $2.10 each
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Inlay that are on sale this month are as follows:
Banjo-$18.00
82nd Airborne-$18.00
Buck Bust-$15.00
Bumble-$19.00
Heart-$9.00
Shamrock-$13.50
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Trident Pen Kits are as low as $3.80 each
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Spend $100.00 before shipping and receive a free 1/4 ounce sample of Reniassance wax. Limit of one sample per order
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Replacement brass mandrel keeper nut is on sale for $2.49 each
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The replacement shaft for your adjustable mandrel is on sale for $4.99 each
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The Abranet single grit 15' roll is only $9.50 per roll
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$1.00 off the advertising button. This is an introductory price
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308 Clips for your 7mm pens are as low as $1.35 each
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The Castin Craft brand dyes are on sale for $3.95 per bottle 

Click "HERE" to go to our specials page

These sale prices are good through 28 February 2014 
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February 2014
 
     Tracey and I have been running Wood-N-Whimsies
Dink Says, "I get first dibs on the cat climbing and scratching thing. Angie Kitty can find someplace else to hang out"
for 13 years now and in that time we have never had a significant price increase to really speak of. As in any free enterprise economic system, price is driven chiefly by our competitors prices and the cost of goods sold. Over the years our suppliers continually raised their prices a few dollars and cents here and there and we have just paid out the higher price to our suppliers and have absorbed the difference to keep price with competition. That's how free enterprise works. You can't charge more for a like product which is sold by a larger competitor just because you have to work harder, or pay more per unit for it. That's just too bad, suck it up and live with it or find a new venue.
     Several of our suppliers have had some really big price increases this year and we can no longer afford to keep our prices as low as they were and stay in business too. We have had to make the difficult choice of, yes unfortunately, raising our prices to stay ahead of the costs of running this business. Our employees will not work for pats on the head like our dogs. They have bills to pay just like the rest of us.
      We will strive as we always have to keep our prices as low as we possibly can. We love our customers and feel that we treat all of you the same way we would expect to be treated if we were on the other end of the transaction. Hopefully you feel that our customer service and friendly, lend a hand when you need it attitude, is what you hope for in a small mom and pop business such as ours.
      As the US debt rises and our government continues to print more money to cover the shortfalls, our US dollar gets weaker and weaker causing the cost of goods to go up. That's just basic high school economics pure and simple. The politicians running our government must have slept through the high school economics class. Our money just does not buy as much from overseas companies as it once did.
TECH TALK
This is a picture of a home made jig that was sent in by one of our customers.
 
     I have been asked on several occasions as to the best way to square the ends of a blank. The answer is, the way you feel most comfortable with.
     There is no set in stone way to perform this task. Some folks have a steady enough hand to actually just hold the blank against a sanding wheel or disc with a pair of pliers and they get a perfect trim every time. Some folks make their own jigs and some do it with a pen mill (barrel trimmer).
PSI Universal Pen Blank Squaring Jig.
     I myself normally use a Universal Pen Blank Squaring Jig, pictured at the left, which we carry here at Wood-N-Whimsies. If I am in a bit of a rush I will break out the pen mill and give the tubes a quick trim but only if the material I am prepping is fairly durable. I have messed up a lot of blanks with a pen mill when the blank was too delicate to handle the aggressive cutting flutes on the cutter head.
     Some folks see the two types of trimmers pictured above as unusable unless you are turning a pen which requires 7mm tubes. This is absolutely not the case at all and, you do not have to change out the shafts of either rig to trim other sizes.
     To adapt your tubes to the shaft you should use what is called a trim sleeve. Most companies who sell the various kits will sell trim sleeves made from metal to adapt your tubes to the shafts on these rigs. I have made a video which I have featured in a previous news letter to show you how you can make your own trim sleeves very quickly and easily.
     Here is the link to the YouTube video if you would like to see it.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZtnsP4N0d8
You will see that it is very simple and only takes a few minutes to make a trim sleeve that will work very well for quite a long time.
     The pen mill is the most widely used method and as I mentioned earlier, the method which causes the most problems, especially for newer turners venturing out to more delicate blanks. The four flutes on the mill are very aggressive and will remove material very quickly, at least if it's nice and sharp. The fewer the flutes the more aggressive the tool. There are some that are made with carbide edges on the flutes. These are the most damaging to delicate pieces since they only have two flutes and should never be used unless you are boring into some fairly tough and strong wood. Never use Pen Mills on Inlay Blanks. They are far too delicate to take that kind of aggressive pounding.
     Another misnomer about pen mills is that folks tend to think that the shaft is supposed to clean out the inside of the blank. Some businesses will advertise that as a fact with the mill since the person buying for these large companies just does not know any better but it is not really true. The shafts sole purpose is to keep the trim head at a 90 degree angle to the tube in the blank and that's it, nothing else.
     If you have glue and debris inside your tube before trimming, you would be advised to clean it out first. The trim head will often catch this glue/debris and spin the tubes bond to the blank loose and you're back to square one.
     I have messed up, broken, spun loose, destroyed and disintegrated well more than my fair share of blanks over the years and each time I have learned from the experience. I get irritated with myself when it is a fairly high dollar piece that I destroyed but---live and learn I guess.
     I have been asked to do a video on how I drill deer antler blanks. I will work on that this month and have a video for you in the next newsletter. The process is a little too tricky to tell you in words, the video will do the trick.
WHAT'S NEW!
 
   We have created some wearable advertising. Curtis has been wearing one of these buttons for a couple of weeks and he gets asked about making pens everywhere he goes. You too can get a little advertising for your pen making business/hobby and increase your sales. We make the standard button as seen in the picture and for a fee we can make custom buttons with your picture on it. We made a few with pictures of grand kids on them. Really you are only limited by your own imagination as to what can be put on them. Call me about bulk order pricing.
These Blanks Are A Whopping
4" X 4" X 12", Great For
Some Very Nice Peppermills. No extra charge for the Cut Off Corners.
     I have a very limited supply (21 available) of four inch by twelve inch black walnut turning blanks. These blanks were once porch posts that came off of an old house that was torn down over twenty-five years ago here in the Ozark Mountains and the house was over 100 years old when it was demolished. That makes these blanks over 125 years old and they are super nice. I salvaged one to make myself a pepper mill from.
     Due to the limited supply we will probably not put these blanks on our website. a lot of wood turners go gaga over this kind of wood and I would rather not disappoint anyone and refund them for something that is sold out after they got their hopes up. Also I would rather give our Newsletter readers first shot at these. I will put whatever quantity is left on the website for sale in March.
     Please give me a call at 800-820-1099 or email me at tim.nicholas@woodnwhimsies.com to get one or two of these beautiful blanks. The cost is $19.95 per blank plus the actual USPS shipping rate. I promise you will love them. Remember, when they're gone, they're gone.
     We now carry the Non-Stick Bushings for CA pen finishing.
These bushings are designed by Hold Fast ™ to prevent glue from bonding your blank to your bushings while applying a CA finish! (Bushings come 4 to a pack). You will want to turn your pen first with your regular bushings then replace them with these non-stick bushings before applying your CA finish. CA will not stick to these bushings and everything comes apart easily.
     Tracey has made some of the inlay blanks now for the bolt action kits. This has been a huge request from dozens and dozens of our inlay customers. Well Tracey has been busy and has converted all of the military designs to fit the Bolt Action Kit. The price will be the same for each as the Monet inlays. If you need one of the other blanks made for the bolt action just let us know and Tracey will put it on the work order list. She has done the the Longhorn Blanks and the new Buck Head Inlay has already been converted.
    Tracey has a few new Inlay Blanks. A Buck Bust,  82nd Airborne Uniform Patch and a Banjo. All of these blanks have been on the customer request list for a long time. I hope she hit the mark with them because they look great.









     We have several new spindle blanks (pictured below) available on the Turning Blocks/Spindles page. The new larger blanks include Thorny Locust, Mara, Spalted Sycamore and Yellowheart. These blanks are just absolutely gorgeous and pictures just do not do them justice.
    
    













Curtis' new blank this month is called Watermelon. As always, he has a winner. The colors in this blank are mesmerizing the way they blend. See the photo below.

       We have eight new Pearl-Ex colors to choose from. The new colors are at the top of the color chart numbered 1630 through 1637. We finally have a red that is really red, it is called Magenta. I know, magenta is not supposed to be red but that's what this is. The scarlet which you would expect to be red is really more like a pastel orange. Just want to let you know, there is nothing wrong with your computer monitor.

COMING SOON

     I have a contact that is in the process of cutting down some persimmon trees and he will mill the lumber for me to three inches thick. These are very old growth trees which have become a nuisance to one of his neighbors and he has offered to remove them.
     The wood will be green when I get it so it will have to be cut up into blanks and Anchor Sealed. I will put them up in the barn and let them dry for a couple of years and we should get some really nice pieces out of it.
     If you would rather turn green wood, please let me know and I will let some of them go early. Be aware that persimmon is very hard and very dense. This is what the wooden drivers are made from in your golf bag.
     We have several new colors of Spectraply now available but the samples for the website have not been completed. Most of the new colors are solid colors and we have one new multi-color which is Jon-Deer. You guessed it, it's green and yellow. The new spectraply will be ready for sale very soon.
    The next Resin Miser Mold for the Bolt Action Kit will be ready this week. We ran the first prototype and the plugs were to big to fit into the tubes so we now have the information we need to remake the mold to make the mold, (does that make sense?) R&D can be frustrating sometimes.
     The finished product should be ready for sale this coming week. Check the Resin Casting Page later this week for it.
      Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. We were short on subject matter in the month of January. There was no newsletter issued last month in case you were wondering why you did not receive one.
 
Sincerely,
 

Tim Nicholas
Wood-N-Whimsies
800-820-1099