Tellico Turnings Shop

This last week I got to spend some quality time with the folks in Tennessee and more specifically time alone with my father (which I haven’t gotten to do in years) at his new store.  It was pretty great!

Dad has finally opened his shop at the Turkey Creek Market in Tennessee (Booth R&S 20!) and will hopefully be a bazillionare in short order..

He had contacted me a while back about doing this and I was fairly excited about it with him but I had a different vision of what I thought the store should look like.   I had a some what more sterile and professional business notion in mind and I’m really glad that they didn’t go that route.

Instead the store is a warm and inviting one that presents the goods in an orderly but not overly professional manner that is probably far more appealing to people than anything I could have come up with.. (Leave the designing to the designers I guess.. Its good to know what I’m not good at..heh)

The pens and calls table

He has just the right amount of space with the right number of items out presented in an organized and uncluttered way that I think really does a good job of showing off the various pieces.

The market is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday each week from roughly 9am to 6pm each day except Sunday which I believe was 10 to 5.   Plus all the vendors around you are actually quite nice, friendly and even helpful. More over, the environment for the vendors is one that actually promotes helping one another as opposed to infighting or backstabbing which is really nice.

It’s unfortunate that his first weekend wasn’t a stellar one.  He made rent which is all that really matters but it would be nice if he had sold more his first weekend out if for no other reason than to inspire and excite..

Peppermills and Stuff

Probably completely unrealistic for him to do better than he did considering it was;

a) his first weekend there and no one knew where he was,
b) between pay days so no one had money,
c) between major holidays so no one had a “reason” to buy things,
d) there was a major dinosaur exhibit in town which kept the crowd down, and
e) a large format gun show which also that kept the crowd down.. etc..

All that working against him and he still made enough sales to pay for itself..  So I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.. I just really wanted him to sell out! hah

For me it was a disappointment but he’s an old hat at doing markets and having a booth selling stuff and so he knows that it can be feast or famine.. he didn’t seem put out by it at all..

The crowd Friday was admittedly dismal which apparently is very common there.. Saturday and Sunday however had a lot of folks coming through and just about all of them picked up stuff and took cards which is a great sign for his future there..

Wine table & Lamps

My only concern at this point is that his stuff is actually too nice for the venue and that people might think of the market more as a “flea market” than an actual hand crafted goods marketplace..   Only time will tell here and we probably don’t need to do any second guessing at this early stage based on a single weekend..

More over I think it will take a couple weeks to figure out what works and what doesn’t work and then adjust accordingly.  More than likely he’s going to have to start adding a lot of less expensive stock that will sit next to the really nice stuff just to draw folks in..

After all, selling 10x $5 items is just as good as selling a single $50 item..   Certainly a lot less fun to make but you gotta make stuff that sells..

Dad in the background

After only a few days I had to return home and get back to work.. Apparently my boss wants me to actually “earn” my living.. psh.. slave driver I tell ya..

I made the 1000 mile drive straight from East TN to Central Texas in under 16 hours and had a seriously sore backside to prove it..  I also had a SUV full of wood and project ideas, as well as plans to make some signage for the shop.

All in all it was a great trip and one I’ll likely make again in the future.

I really like Tennessee and one of these days will likely move there more permanently..  For now I’m stuck in Texas though… Y’all.

The trip was really great and it was fun to hang out with the folks but it really made me realize that my home is where ever my wife is.. sappy, but true.

Off to home depot I went and I got the Ryobi 9″ bandsaw.  I was happy as a clam — or as happy as clams can be when they are forced to use Ryobi, but thats for another post..

I had set it up in my garage workshop and had everything humming along nicely.  It cut the little wood blanks I use for pen turning and the polyester resin I use as well — the world was a better place.. Or atleast my crafting was easier.

Well not two days after I started using it the motor burned out.  I was very disappointed, but not shocked after all it was Ryobi.

I figured I would just take it back but couldn’t find the receipt anywhere… *sigh* my dumbass must have thrown it away with the boxes..  Oh man.. I was unhappy..

But, I took it all back to home depot, sans-boxes and receiptless and they took it back and gave me a new one on the spot no questions asked!

That’s it.  End of story.  Home Depot kicks ass – they make things simple and good, even when they could have easily turned me away.  That kind of customer service is exactly what keeps me going back..

Something I used to do years ago, and have started to do again was making pens. Wood turning is a lot of fun and you can create some very pretty pens if you take the time. Here is an example of one I made – click for full image;

It’s a fun hobby and I enjoy it – it allows me to be creative on a completely different level than anything a computer could ever give me (Unless I managed to turn one out of wood).

A week or two ago my father sent me a PDF about making pens from a polyester resin. Basically instead of using a “blank” of wood as seen in the pickture above, I would use a blank of this hardened resin. Well add to that the fact that I would actually be making the blank from scratch and my interest was piqued..

Whats amazing is how easy it is. You just have to buy the resin and collorants, mix them up.. let it set.. zing! You’re done. Oh I’m sorry did you expect it to be hard? It wasn’t.
Here’s basically what I did:

1. Buy a 1 gallon jug of polyester resin and the catalyst hardener.
2. Buy some collorants to mix into the resin before it sets .
3. Find a roughly blank sized mold, in this case I used a ziplock container
4. Fill it with water to find out how many oz. it is. (it was 14) Pour out the water.
5. Fill the mold with the resin and put in 7 drops of the catalyst for ever ounce of resin.
6. Stir.
7. Stir some more.
8. More stirring please..
9. … More cowbell! er.. stirring! for about two minutes actually.
10. Now grab some of the collorant powder and mix it in. I used 4 big scoops, I should have used 6.
11. Once the collorant is stirred in and you see the pretty swirls.. walk away man..
12. Go have a coke and a smile.

Thats pretty much it. It took probably 15 minutes for the liquid resin to go into a gel state.. about 1 minute for it to go from a gel to a rubbery solid and maybe an hour for it to completely set. It got extremely hot too – gotta love that chemical reaction.

I then cut a couple blanks and tried my hand at making a pen out of it. Here is what I got – click for full sized image;

It’s not perfect. I clearly didnt add enough collorant because you can see through to the brass tube where the resin gets thin.. so mental note: add a touch more next time. But really I’m very happy with the results.

This stuff is easy to work with and it’s much less expensive than wood. I have a feeling I will be making a lot of resin pens.