Thanks for your kind comments Steven. As he says I have been known to sell quite a lot of pens. And yes there is always the tax man keeping his beady unwelcome eye on the hole thing, but he will be as disapointed as the turner at year end when you manage to factor in all those little things that you normally take for granted. Three times the cost of a kit, hmm, my guess would be that you will be losing money. Talk about the consumables first, there's the bandsaw blades to cut your wood (OK so you buy blanks and pay over the odds, the sums are the same) factor in 5p, that'll let you cut about 160-200 blanks per blade, can you get more, probably but don't forget the waste and the cross cuts so its no so far off the mark, dont factor in the replacement cost as it gets depressing. The paper, five or six grits, if you use abranet at £13.00 a box of fifty, I reckon you can get about twenty five pens from each sheet, so thats 6p per pen, sanding sealer, £11.00 a bottle which will get about 500 pens 2p, friction polish, good quality £17.00 a bottle that does 400 pens 4.25p, sandpaper consumables for trimming the ends, 1p, glue, Zap £14.00 ish a bottle that does 150, 9p each, the blank itself say a quid for decent wood, a box to put it in, a quid,
So far we're up to £127.5, call it £1.30 with a drill bit cost.
You haven't been to the shop to buy this lot yet or paid postage on ebay, nor have you factored in wastage at at least 10% so we're up to £1.30, p and p at 20p, £1.50 plus 10% £1.65.
I haven't factored in the cost of replacement pen mandrels, live centres, turning tools ( I ground two continental spindle gouges to nothing last year, Cost £12 each from Ashley Isles)
Depressed yet?
Marketing costs, what are you going to do, chuck your stuff on a table? That's why it doesn't sell. Build a stand, get some leaflets printed on pen maintenance, run a website.
Oh, we haven't turned up at a fayre yet, small ones are great, cost little but you will sell little. The bigger fayres are expensive but you will sell many more if you are prepared to do the marketing properly. In an average year it costs me £5 to "take a pen to market", or more bluntly, the cost of sale including fuel, stall cost and accommodation.
So a slim line kit at £2.50 plus wastage, because face it you will cock up one or two, the mechanism won't work on another and you'll lose a component on another when the phone rings. plus p and p, It'll cost £3, plus £5 cost of sale, plus £1.65, the cost of that slimline is actually not too short of £10.
My time is deadtime that I chose to use turning so I don't factor that in otherwise I'd be phoning the Samaritans. Then there's the credit card machine that is a must, about 75% of my sales are made this way, that'll cost you £350 pa plus commission a year, Public liability insurance, Pat testing,
Damn, knew I was going wrong somewhere, I'm taking up knitting.
