Selling and Sharing Time of Year

Well, trying to get the inventory up a bit for the big Christmas rush on pens. Hopefully I'll sell them, what I don't sell may go as some gifts to family and friends.

Here is yesterdays bit of work. I'm getting ready to head down to the shop and get some more done.

Nice pens Jon the colours are really vibrant

Nice work Jon . I don't have the intestinal fortitude to do plastics yet, you make it look easy!

Well Jon, it's a shame you couldn't get something with some color to it. Nice looking set of pens.

Jim, in my opinion, the acrylics are easier than wood. Maybe a bit tricker to cut, but much easier to get a nice finish on them.

Jon those are some great looking pens. Like the colors.

Jim acrylic's are easier to turn and finish than wood. A good sharp skew and I can actually turn a acrylic pen faster than a wood one. Finish by wet sanding to 800 or 1000 grit and beall buffed to make it look like glass.

Nice assortment of styles and colors! I would imagine they would all sell rather quickly! Nice work!

How long does it take you to make 7 pens? It would take me 7 hours. What kind of assembly line technique do you use? I need to figure out a better way than one by one. Great looking pens.

Hey Rich,
About 15 minutes a pen. It's like almost anything else, once you learn it...it just gets faster. Plastics (big guess on my part here) may take a little longer to finish. I use a commerical pen press, but a vise works just as well. Some Lathe presses are being sold now. Keep praticing and you get the hang of it! Sorry for the Hijack Jon!!

I assume you are asking about total time not just turning, sanding and finish time. I would say it normally take me longer to just get blanks ready to turn than to just turn them. (or it seems that way)

When I go to do several pens (of the same species) I do an assembly line kinda thing: I go ahead and mark/measure and cut blanks. I then take all the brass tubes and sand them down. I do this with a 2" sanding sleeve on my drill press. I then drill all the blanks at the drill press. Then glue (CA) the brass tubes in the blanks. Then I trim the barrels at the Drill press.

Let's same I'm doing Euro's, I will often have different platings and different blanks. I then go back and make sure each blank matches the right kit that I had predetermined before I got started.

That total time for about 7 of those would be around 45 minutes to an hour.

Then it takes me about 15-20 minutes each to from turning to finish.

Then what I do is put the barrels back in with the kit. After they are all done.... and my hands have been washed, I take them to the pen press and put them together.... let's say 5 minutes each.

So when I average that all out 7 pens would take about: 3.5 -4 hours.

Now having all that said and some folks think I'm slow. I don't work so hard as if I have a task master on my behind drilling to get more production from me. I keep the T.V. on and listen to History Channel or something... sometime talk radio or just music. So I am enjoying my time in the shop. I also take a bit of time to relax if my knee or backs starts to bother me since I'm standing in one place for a period of time.

Now what I will also do... If I have a few pen kits of the same time and I'm not in a hurry for them. I'll do all the 'blank' making. (No turning involved) and put them aside and I'll do one here and there through the week when I only have time to turn just one or two pens. I find that works best and suddenly I've got a bunch of pens done for an event or holiday. I don't sell week to week so I don't need to keep a large inventory at hand all the time.