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Thread: Ring stands

  1. #1
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    Default Ring stands

    My niece asked me to design and carve some ring stands for her, the only instruction I got was she likes mountains and they were for finger rings.
    I knocked these 3 up in a couple of hours and apparently she is very happy. They are only about 4cm high and I used some off cuts. I might see what interest there is with them and try sell a few. I know it's not really a male thing but would be interested in your thoughts on them.
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  3. #2
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    Hi Rob, ring trees? nice - I'd never thought of that.
    I'm currently sitting amongst a few female generations of my family & floated the Idea with them- the youngest in her 20's wears about 10+ rings all he time! & has a number of ring trees to store them & her mates are all the same. So YES I think you could be onto something -perhaps consider making them with the capacity to hold a few more rings though ? Although there are commercial alternatives, none would have the appeal of carved wood, don't take too long making them though because I would guess that there would be a upper limit to how much someone would pay for an item such as this.

  4. #3
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    Thanks for the tips Mike, my niece is a bit of a trend follower that's what made me think there might be something here. She gave me a link to a site that were selling clay ring stands (trees) & they wanted $40.00 each and they were just cone shaped painted clay, pretty boring looking so I thought these I can use odd bits of wood and they're easy to do, maybe $25.00 each. Who knows?

  5. #4
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    Tree rings for ring trees. Makes sense to me.
    I like the concept of being hand-made, too.
    Not some off-shore machine output.

    If they're fairly cost effective for the carving time invested, you might as well
    carve a few and see if they sell. Only one way to find out.

  6. #5
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    Isn't it always the problem though, once you start to calculate a living wage , woodcarving seems so unviable as a way to make a living.
    Then if you intend to sell through shops you get less than half the retail price after the retailers' cut & sales tax.
    I survived (on a pittance !) for years trying to make it pay but teaching rather than making is the one genuine opportunity to make anything like decent money from the craft & even then I'm not sure. Don't give up the day job as they say !

  7. #6
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    The best way to make a little money at wood carving is to throw a lot of money into it.

  8. #7
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    Thanks guys but anything I sell is just for pocket money, money to buy more wood, tools etc, I know I could never make a living out of it.
    I have sold a fair number of those palm tree pod table displays I make, you may remember them RV.

  9. #8
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    Yeah, Rob, I do. I'm in love with those things.
    Too bad the shipping cost is obscene.

    I had quite a variety of kitchen sticks for sale in two places in the village.
    After 12 months, the sales had never been any screaming Hello. Not even
    in the weeks leading up to Christmas 2013. So, I pulled everything out,
    I can always go back. I was determned to make a 12 month experiment
    out of the whole stick-carving exercise. What I hadn't counted on was my
    eventual decision to quit. Disenchanted. Too many other carving things that I wanted to do.
    I finished about 70 spoons and maybe 2 dozen forks. Wine bottle box
    full of blanks if I ever get motivated again.

    So, on to the next Marketing experiment.
    Every Friday, I set up a table in the Farmer's Market here.
    In the past, the grapes sell maybe 30-50+ vines each summer.
    I sell started grape vines (2/$5), kitchen sticks ($12) and hand made
    (split/smoothed/edged) western red cedar salmon BBQ planks (+recipes, $5).
    The planks are 3/8" thick and variably 4" x 8" up to 5" x 12", depending on
    what I can get out of a shake block.
    I have a couple of kitchen sticks to pretend I'm carving/finishing.
    Make a few shavings, mostly visit with people.

    Sold some of everything on Aug 01.

    Economics: the grape vines are the best of the best of my pruning garbage.
    There's never more than $0.25 worth of birch in a kitchen stick.
    There's never more than $0.40 in a BBQ plank.

  10. #9
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    RV I like your ideas, a market stall with other products all at good prices will help sell your kitchen sticks, I like the sound of the BBQ planks and adding a recipe is great. Maybe you put one or two of your platters/ bowls there at a higher price see how they go.

  11. #10
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    As basswood is quite featureless, I've been trying to sell off the stash from the consignment of carving tools & wood
    that I bought a couple of years ago. I ripped it up into 5 x 5 x 30cm pieces and sold ($2)the first one to a tourist from France!
    Basswood/Tilia grows up and down the east side of N. America. Apparently, the northern wood is of vastly
    superior quality and that's what I'm selling.

    The deal with the cedar planks is that you soak them overnight in water.
    Salmon piece +/- sauce goes on that, into a preheated BBQ. A bit of charring,
    a bit of smokiness into the fish. I said that the recipes were $5, the wood was free.

    I have not carved and finished a kitchen stick for months. Still can't bear the thought.

  12. #11
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    Hi RV. What is a kitchen stick ?

  13. #12
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    I wondered if there was not some simple carving that I could do and sell.
    At about the same time, I had the opportuning to buy a nearly unlimited supply
    of 6/4 straight grained, knot=free birch for $3/stick (about 6" x 72"). Some of it a bit
    warped or cupped but ripped into 14" x 7/8" blanks = the right price.

    https://www.woodworkforums.com/170489...-tool-project/

    If this turns into a link, wonderful.
    Otherwise, you know what the tread title is here in this forum.

  14. #13
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    Ah right , now I see. They certainly do seem like a good idea.
    You have idea as carver , you tool up for "mass production" & before you know it - the artist I you wants to move on to something totally different & you're left feeling uninspired & haunted by your bucket of part finished blanks . I sympathise completely!
    I'm just the same, only the first few are fun after that it is drudgery. When will we learn ? !!!!

  15. #14
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    Hindsight tells me that I did it correctly, right from the start.

    Review the whole thing after 12 months.
    Static displays in 2 shops. I believed that I'd better
    carve enough stock to be prepared for optimistic sales.
    My goal was 100 sticks but I lost interest after maybe 70.
    The forks were a novelty, almost as easy to carve, to try to
    sustain my flagging interest (3 dozen?)
    I'll guess that I had no more than $15.00 invested in the wood.

    The current iteration is to lug them along to the Farmer's Market each Friday afternoon.
    I sit there (studiously) carving at one of them = making it look good.
    I sell western red cedar salmon BBQ planks and my usual started
    new grape vines.

    The most often asked question?
    "What do you use these for?"

  16. #15
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    Rob: back to the design of ring trees. I've got an idea for us to explore.

    "Bling" is a common term here for all sorts of jewellry, rings, necklaces, bracelets and so forth = make "bling" trees. Necklaces are forever getting tangled up (so say my D1 & D2).
    Having a dedicated place to hang them up might work well.

    You start with Acacia, I'll have a look at the local Hawthorne (Craetegus sp). Select a woody stem, say 30cm long. Strip the leaves, blunt the thorns and maybe even peel the bark. Wood or stone base, maybe with a short, carved ring tree as well..
    The opportunities to make them in all sorts of shapes and sizes depends only on what we can find.

    Using a 3/8" tungsten carbide masonry drill bit at low speed with water, I can drill a 2cm
    mounting hole in slate or brick in about 10 minutes or less.

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