QUick easy and profitable! (Pics)

[Ned Bulken]

My mother is the president of her quilt guild down in VA. I made her a rack to hold her quilters' rules, she has about a half dozen of them, and she was thrilled. One day she took them all in for a workshop, including the rack. Well 10 of her fellow members remarked on the rack, and wanted one. My mom took orders, and I cranked them out recently at $15/shot! All were made of scrap Oak, Cherry, Mahogany and Butternut, with maple accents here and there. After Shipping, I will net about $125. Not bad for about 4 hrs work in the shop. I even sent down three extra, and might get another $45 out of the deal.



Qsawn White Oak


Cherry


Mahogany w/ maple feet


All are approximately 4" wide by 6" long, 8/4 scrap lumber with kerfs cut in them. legs attatched to the bottom and two coats of Maloof wipe on mixture. Simple kerfs widened just a hair to accomidate the rules, which are 1/8" thick.

[David Wilson]

Ned
Sometims the simpelest things are the easiest to sell.
Nice job.

[Kurt Aebi]

Ned,

What a wonderful idea. My mother in law is a quilter and she teaches a class at a local quilt shop and I think I'll whip one of these out and give it to her to take to the class and have her ask the quilt shop owner if she wants any to sell in the store.

A couple of years ago, my father in law and I made a couple of lap hoops for hand stitching it consisted of one 14" or so needlepoint/quilting hoop, a round 1/2" piece of plywood and 3 hardwood stilts/supports that were rabbetted out for the back of the hoop to sit on and the hoop was glued & stapled to the support - I got $50.00 for each one and sold about 20 or so. I'll search the computer for a picture and post it later.

[Ned Bulken]

Kurt,
hope they do nibble. This is a great idea for some quick extra money. I already have an order for another holder from a gal from KY. Obviously not a huge challenge to make, I found them very satisfying. I could make them quickly, and they use up what would otherwise be scrap lumber.
an added note, my wood for these mostly came from Stickley Co.'s scrap bins. Our volunteer fire hall does a chicken bbq every summer, and a couple of the firemen work at Stickley in the factory. They fill their pickups with random scrap cutoffs of all sorts and burn that for the bbq. 8/4 QS white oak, 8/4 Mahogany chunks, cherry, etc... all to into the cooker. The chicken is marvelous of course, and they always sell out. When they were done this year I made several trips to the pile, picking out all the mahogany I could find, plus most of the larger QS oak. They're all small, about 6" long mostly, but for smaller boxes or projects like these, they're great.
I bet your MIL would enjoy having one just for herself too

[thomas prevost]

Ned, you really aren't burning that great wood we deliver to Stickley for firewood? Just kidding, but I am often fascinated with the wood in the scrap bins that they, Harden Furniture, and AMC(bowling lanes) throw away. The most interesting is all highly figured wood is scraped or used for carcus as it cannot be matched for surface use. Might make a call and see if you can purchase scraps (many are 6-8" 2-6ft. length). I know AMC has a scrap day every 3-4 months where you buy by the pickup load for $30,45,55 depending upon your truck.

[Ned Bulken]

Ned, you really aren't burning that great wood we deliver to Stickley for firewood? Just kidding, but I am often fascinated with the wood in the scrap bins that they, Harden Furniture, and AMC(bowling lanes) throw away. The most interesting is all highly figured wood is scraped or used for carcus as it cannot be matched for surface use. Might make a call and see if you can purchase scraps (many are 6-8" 2-6ft. length). I know AMC has a scrap day every 3-4 months where you buy by the pickup load for $30,45,55 depending upon your truck.

Tom, it bugs me too, to a point. however these are truly short cut-offs, where they true up the ends of boards. They're at most 8" long. I'll be very interested in those scrap day sales, though. Where the heck is AMF located? I live halfway between stickley and Harden, so those are known quantities.
The LOML just told me that one of the firemen is going to ask about scrap day at stickley for me. They're a target for 'shrink' so from what I gather they have a security guard on their wood dumpsters! Not for the employees, but the scrap pickers. I don't know I haven't been out there recently.

[thomas prevost]

AMC is located in Lowville, right on Rt12 Next to the Kraft plant. They Advertise as firewood in the local weekly want ads paper. A quick trip up Rt12 through Lyons falls, Port Lydon and Lowville will get you to a number of "farm" mills that you can buy green wood very cheap. Now that the paper mills have closed, many are making saw boards out of the wood lots for extra income. Camden and Sandy Ponds have a lot of home mills also. Caution some very good some very bad sawyers.

[Ed Falis]

Ned,

Sounds like you just invented the better mousetrap. Great going!

- Ed