Kickstarter: the last few hours of funding

Well, it has been a ride & a half do far . This past month has been an incredible journey for my shop & online experience . I put up the kickstarter fully expecting that today I would be sitting here agonizing over whether or not enough people would like my work to fund my modest project.

Um, yeah , about that? 

I originally Hoped to need to make  , oh , about 20-30 boards . Now I need to make at Least 129, & I know I've got dozens of backers who want multiple boards. 

That is , as several friends have said, a good problem to have . It is, however still a Problem:

It boils down thusly. When I started this, 20 boards and all was easy enough to do in just a couple of weeks. I've made similar production runs in the past to gear up for a show. When I posted my project I was confident , niow I'm concerned. I published my approximate delivery date , but with 6 or 7 times the number of boards, I'm not going to make that at this rate. 

Add to that a non-shop related event which has diverted some of my attention; my parents are 487 miles from me, and their health of late has been a concern. Please keep all of us in your prayers . 

A recent visit to my folks has given me a leg up on fulfillment. I was describing the project to them , and mentioned that I would have to wait until mid December to gety funding, and that was going to delay my purchase of the drum sander I started this whole thing to get. They generously loaned me enough money that I was able to get the sander earlier this week: 

That beast is the grizzly g0458 drum sander. I'd originally hoped to afford a smaller model , which was a 12" capacity  close ended design. This is a much beefier model, which is able to sand up to a 36" workpiece. I'm not going to need that capacity on this project, but it sure is going to be a nice addition to my tool arsenal. 

Even with getting the sander early, so to speak, I have a couple of issues. One us that I need more wood. I've picked up as much as I can afford out of the household budget, but I'll still be making a large purchase once my funding is released in a couple of weeks. 

In the mean time , I'm of course going to be making as many boards as I am able to, so I can dump them into the holidays shipping queue. The USPS Will get the lions share of the boxes, but fedex ground will likely get a couple as well. 

With that much. 'Extra' funding. I've got a bit more expense to cover: shipping. & materials, as well as the sander. I've picked up a few other tools as well: a branding iron , along with two new saw blades , which I suspect were long overdue. 

Thanks to all who supported me on this project. Time for me to get out in the chilly shop and get some boards done! (yes, a new heater is on the shopping list once the funding comes in.)

Kickstarter Project 1 week in

Hi folks,
 I'm in awe of just how crazy this whole kickstarter project has become. Crazy in a good way, as in 'may you live in interesting times'... they're interesting all right.

My backers have absolutely blown any and all of my hopes and expectations away. I truly thought I would fund in 30 days, and I only was asking for $1000. I figured I'd get a small drum sander, pay for some wood to make the boards for the project, cover my shipping and call it even/good.

note how incredibly steep the progression is. I'm on day 9 of 30 as I type this. *gulp*

I keep telling myself that there is no such thing as too much success. This may change my way of thinking by the end of it.

I should say that I'm very happy, bordering on giddy that the project has done this well. I'm guardedly optimistic that this may well be that niche market that everyone hopes to find.

I've been working on formalizing designs for my boards, including several quilt themed boards, my sketchup skills aren't all that great, but this should give my backers (and my readers here) an idea:

This is one that I had in my mind, and this is almost what I thought of. It was my first sketchup model attempt, and things are a little off... When I showed a version of it to Lori, she tore it to shreds... I'm sticking to my guns, this is 'close' to what I had in mind when I posted the reward tier. I call it the 6 block quilt design.
It has a 9-patch, card trick block, a log cabin, flying geese plus two filler blocks I just threw in there. More on the top right one in a bit.

homage to Frank Lloyd Wright

This sketch is extremely early in the design of what I hope to be a very fancy board.  I'm a fan of the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright. and this is my first attempt to pay Homage to his work. This one has a long ways to go.

Flying Geese

This is roughly what I'm planning for the flying geese boards, both the coaster size on the left and the 12" by 12" one.

 This is my take on the classic quilt block the Log Cabin. The darkest wood would be either Walnut or rosewood, the next lighter in, cherry, the center is paduak and then maple and finally butternut on the lower right.

This block was initially just a filler for the 6 block sketch. I threw it in there when my wife shared her thoughts on a really rough sketch. I zapped the bad parts and reworked things, this was one of the designs I came up with. I haven't decided if I'm going to put it on the kickstarter project yet. but I thought I'd discuss it here.

The overall dimensions here are 12" x 12", and the wood progression as shown here would be Walnut in the lower left a mere 3/8 x 3/8" block, wrapped in paduak at 3/8 wide by 3/4 across. that is in turn wrapped with 3/4 x 1 1/2 in of butternut, then 1 1/2 of cherry, 3" of Maple and finally 6" of Ash.

the first three, will be single board widths on end, then from there on it will be a lamination of several boards, especially the ash section. This sketch shows the tonal progression. I think no matter what, I'll be making at least one of these in the future.

Thanks for checking in!

If you haven't already, please look at my kickstarter campaign: Artisan Boards by Ned:
Follow me on Twitter: @Artisanboards
Look me up on Facebook where I run Artisan BoardsofCNY
I can be reached at artisanboards@gmail.com as well.

Diary of a Kickstarter Project -or how my project has gone ballistic in under 72 hours

I've had a kickstarter project in the back of my mind for awhile now. I would like to get a few new tools, most notably a drum sander. I've made my cutting boards for years using a relatively unsafe procedure, running them through the planer taking very light cuts. This has worked, but it is hard on the planer, and also tears out the trailing edge of the board blank.

Money is always tight, but I decided that I would try my luck and start the campaign. I wrote up a modest campaign, with $1000 for my goal. That would get me my drum sander from Grizzly. It would also allow me to buy wood for the project and cover shipping costs. My labor is not a factor, and my goal was for as close to neutral net as I could manage. I get my tool, the wood is all paid for and rewards shipped to the backers with little or no cash out of pocket once the sawdust settled.

My reward tiers range from $2 as a thank you for your support opener keychain, through a set of end grain coasters, a cheese board, on up to $150 for a 24x30x2.5" 'show' board.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/549936378/artisan-boards-by-ned for the exact details

Well I finally jumped through all of the hoops, I had my project written up, photos, story, rewards, and the back-end financials lined up. I just had to make the video. Ugh. Really folks? I 'Have to' go on camera? Yes I know that kickstarter campaigns with videos are more successful...  Ok, All right I'll do it.
Folks, I'm a 20 year professional portrait photographer. My line in the studio was always that I was on the correct end of the camera. I have to be in Front of the lens?  I bit the bullet, threw the Nikon on my tripod and made this wonderful creation:

Once I had that, I attached it to the text and photos and put the project up. That was Noon on Friday.

I shared it on my twitter account, and my personal and Artisan Boards facebook pages.

by about 1pm I had my first pledge (Thanks Barb!) as I was taking a snapshot of my first backer, the page updated and I had my second...

My friends were sharing the project left and right on twitter and on facebook. My extended family on FamilyWoodworking.com got in the act as well.

By dinner time I was 25% funded. By 11:30 the next morning I was 66%. Things slowed down a tad on Saturday and I wound up at about 91%.

Sunday morning found the project close to fully funded... and by 12:31pm  I was fully funded. Just about exactly 48 hours from launch.

That means no matter what else happens, I can at Least get my new tool, make a lot of sawdust and have happily rewarded backers. I set my fulfillment goal for the end of December. My personal goal is to get them done and shipped for the holiday season.

Sunday evening brought steady updates, and as I write this I'm at 164% funding. Of that, I owe about 10% to kickstarter and amazon for their part in hosting and handling the financials. Still and all, that's better than a sharp stick in the eye!

I was online last night adjusting quantities on a couple of rewards (I had set one too low, and a friend's mom wanted that design, I adjusted the quantity so she and a few others could have one as well.)
and I was looking into one particular species of wood I mentioned in my project. Uh oh... my favorite hardwood dealer doesn't list it on their site.

Oh crap.  They Used to carry it... can I even get it at all? WhatAmIGoingToDO!?!?????

toss, turn... up at 7:30 (I work nights, this is way too early and bright out for me to be awake and worrying.
check their website... wait, what's this, they're having an online Auction this weekend?Auuuugh! what if they're closing?!?!?!

Called the yard, they do have Lyptus available, auction? Oh about every 10 years or so, they have an auction to clear out the stuff that piles up...

PHEW!

OK, I'll be up to get some lyptus and other supplies 'soon'.

Now to go figure out which drum sander to get, what's my budget again?

Oh, and I almost forgot, I have 27 more days left on my funding window... stay tuned, this ride is just leaving the station. Keep your hands and feet inside the car, the lift hill is getting awfully steep and the crest is way the heck UP there!

Alive and well... Bangles & Solar Project, Several Shout-outs

Hi folks,
 Just in case you wondered where I've been. Work and life have reared their ugly heads and eaten a lot of my free time. Sparing the gory details, suffice to say I have been out in the shop, just not taking time to blog about much.

BangleBowl2014

One fun thing I threw my hat in was the 2014 Banglebowl contest started by Zac Higgins and Kyle Toth . Zac and Kyle threw the idea together and Marc Spagnuolo was kind enough to host the contest on the Woodwhisperer site.  They had over 50 people submit photos and/or videos of their bangles, which can be viewed and voted on here: http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/bangle-bowl-voting/ …

My entry is a Paduak bangle, about 2 3/4 " in diameter and 1 1/2 " wide. It is just a smidge over 1/8" thick.

I've been getting involved with the woodworking corner of the twitterverse. Both Zac & Kyle are part of that community. Thanks guys for spearheading this contest, and for sharing your expertise and how to videos!

I had a blast learning to turn this bangle, and I'll be doing many more segmented pieces over the winter.

Solar Project: 

I finally got some work done on my solar wall project today. I ran out of daylight, but thanks to my son Patrick, I got several important tasks accomplished. First we removed the old shop door which I had simply screwed to the face of the shop when I first started the solar project last fall.
No pics of the process, but we removed the door, and the hardware for it. Then we put some tyvek up, and cut the t-111 to fit the wall. The large arch will be 12' across the top 20" high, and then with 3' legs on either side of the original shop doorway, as I mentioned in my earlier post.

Here's the general plan. Today we wound up with the right and left green vertical sections applied to the wall. I have the 2x4's cut to box that in, which I'll apply tomorrow if it doesn't rain. I'm going to focus on getting the outer (green) section up and functional by the weekend. The yellow section is eventually going to be redone. I'll wait to do that on the next warm day so that opening the shop wide open won't be a problem. In a pinch however, I may simply enclose it as another panel, gaining about 8 sf of gain out of it.

Check back later, I'll add photos of what I accomplished today. In the meantime, I'm going to go back out and find my kreg jig. I need to get all of the 2x4's drilled so I can attach them tomorrow.

Online Content Shout-Out

I thought I would give an additional shout-out to several online Content Creators I have learned a lot from of late. Please take a moment to check them out! (in no particular order)

Mike Waldt's YouTube woodturning channel Mike is a talented turner, who puts a lot of good teaching in every one of his videos.

Matt Vanderlist -Matt's Basement Workshop

How can I mention Matt without leading into:

Marc Spagnuolo's theWoodWhisperer.com 

Marc and Steve Ramsey have again teamed up for a Woodworker's Fighting Cancer build. 

Marc's version is here: http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/multi-function-toy-chest/

Steve's version is here: woodworking for Mere Mortals 2014 Toy Box build

Build either version, send Marc a photo of it and you'll a) have a cool toy chest for your kid/grandkid or to donate or give away, PLUS  Marc will donate $5 and corporate sponsors will match that donation. This year's organization is  the Cancer Research Institute. 

I'm not sure if I'll have time to build one, looks like a quick project though!

Matt Cremona is a hobbyist woodworker who has a very cool youtube channel. Check him out, you'll learn a lot!

Frank Howarth is a stay at home dad with an incredible talent for woodworking and making videos. Subscribe to his youtube feed, you will Not be disappointed. Be sure and check out his playlist of stop-action videos here.

I mentioned Matt & Marc, and  no list would be complete without mentioning Shannon Rogers. His http://www.renaissancewoodworker.com is always an inspiration.

One excellent teacher who needs your support right now is Cap'n Eddie Castelin. His videos pack a lot of knowledge in them with a dose of humor and a bit of self promotion. Cap'n Eddie's facing some serious health problems at the moment, so keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
His youtube channel is here, and his website is http://eddiecastelin.com

I'll save more for later...  Those should keep you busy for awhile. 

Winged Bowl

Hello my loyal reader (s?)... I've had a busy couple of weeks at work and out in the shop.  Not a whole lot to talk about regarding work, but lots to discuss with the shop.

Natural Edge Winged Crotch Bowl

I turned my first Winged bowl last week. It is about 6-7" across, cherry. I'm letting it dry awhile and will finish sand it and put some finish on in a couple of months (or so).

Bottom of the bowl

that gap to the left was fun to deal with.

Even more spinny stuff

Hi folks.  I've been turning Something nearly every day lately.

Maple bowl 4" across

My wife Lori and I visited the annual Remsen NY Barnfest craft show and market this weekend. There were easily a dozen woodworking related booths there.  We both came away thinking... that was nice, but there wasn't anything we could afford that we couldn't make ourselves.  To that end, several turners at the show had French Rolling pins. Lori liked them, but asked if I could make her a smaller one for our kitchen. 

I had a nice length of ambrosia maple on the wood rack, roughly 10/4 thick. I cut off a blank, chucked it up between centers and roughed it out using my spindle roughing gouges. I followed that up with the dreaded Skew.  

I've mostly kept my lathe speed in the 'low' range on my little midi, which is 500 rpm. As I progress, I'm slowly getting more comfortable with it, and tonight I bumped it up to 1800 rpm since I was spindle turning. That was 'interesting'... I was very much aware of that relative speed as I turned. By the end of the session however I was much more at ease. 

The end product is 11" long, about 1.25" in diameter. Lori asked for a shorter pin, vs the 15-18" long ones we saw at the show. That wound up being a very good thing. My little midi can only fit about 15" between centers at the moment. I do have the bed extension for it, but until tonight i haven't needed the extra length.  I may consider putting it on though.  That would definitely require an update on my lathe stand, which is something I've been considering of late. 

birth of a bowl

This is far from complete, as I did not stop for photos of the blank in the raw. This is how I left it last night. It is a cherry bowl blank about 4" across, and about 3" tall. At this point, I have

• Selected a chunk of 'wet' wood from my pile outside of the shop 
• rounded out the bowl blank (first on the bandsaw, next on the lathe so that it would spin without wobbling on the lathe. 
• following that, I cut a spigot on one end, sized to fit my 4 jaw chuck

Here you can see that I've started the hollowing process, carving out the bowl in the center. That is after perhaps 3 or 4 sweeps with the bowl gouge.

• I've then smoothed out the curve a bit more, and evened off the end of the blank. 

Here's where things speed up quite a bit. I didn't intend to record every step  (well, nearly every step...) of the process (though I will on my next bowl, which is already on the lathe). 

At this point, I've hollowed out the rest of the bowl, leaving it a bit thicker at the bottom than the sides, which are just a shade over 1/4" thick. I stopped thinning out the walls when the tone of the bowl changed when turning it.

 As it thinned out, I could hear the pitch of the gouge on the wood go up, which told me that the walls were a) thin enough that they would move, and b) probably going to move even more as the bowl dries out completely.  I took the safer path and left it at about that thickness. 

In this case, the spigot was NOT something I wanted to keep, so I put a jam chuck (aka failed bowl attempt) in my 4 jaw chuck, and brought up the tail stock to lock it safely in place. 

I've already removed most of the spigot from the foot of the bowl in this shot,  and in fact, the next cut almost spun the bowl off of the lathe. At that point, I simply put some 80 grit on the ROS and sanded the remainder off of the bottom. 

 The 'semi' finished product... letting it air out before putting finish on it.

it has a few tool marks on it, and the curve could be better, but I feel good for getting it to this point. 

 'nuff said.

Thoughts on Turning, Solar and Kickstarter

I've come to the realization that for the next few weeks, I've got three big projects going on in and about the shop. One feeds my woodworking muse, the second will allow me to woodwork beyond November this year and the third will hopefully allow me to raise funds and get some new tools.

1) Turning

I've finally fallen off the deep end of the spinny slope and am turning as often as I can. I"m still making 'practice' pieces, as evidenced by my last post: First. I've owned my lathe for quite awhile now, it isn't fancy, and it is my First lathe. If I have my 'druthers' it will be handed down to whichever of my sons wants to learn how to turn.  (Boys if you're reading this, don't all speak at once...)

I have a largish pile of wet maple and cherry wood sitting out in the back yard at the moment. I'm going to 'lose' some of it, as I know i can't turn it all in time before it dries out and starts to check. So mote it be, I'm having a ball turning as much of it as I can.  Up until now I've turned perhaps half a dozen pens and precisely One bowl thanks to my friend Don Orr. I Really can't count that one bowl, as he drove, I just held the tools. 

 Here is a photo of the results when I borrowed an electric chainsaw and went to town on several maple logs from our side yard. Our neighbor decided to clearcut his land, and we have lost three lovely maple shade trees. The only Good thing  to come of it is that I have several logs to work on. His clean-up crew were nice enough to cut the logs to rough length for me, and after borrowing Scott & Helen's chainsaw for an afternoon, I wound up with a bunch of shavings and a pile of turning stock

while I 'knew' that turning wet wood was fun from a visit to my friend Bill's shop when he first got his Robust Americna Beauty Lathe. I was fortunate enough to be invited to his robust warming party, and took a few cuts on a truly massive hunk of cherry. 

It was enough to 'hook me'. It took awhile, but I've been turning on my own little midi lathe this week. In addition to my first funnel, I have 4 bowls in various stages of drying out. Eventually I'll re chuck them on the lathe, get them back to round and get them turned to finished thickness.

Cherry

 Same bowl... different view

My first maple bowl roughed out.

Not a bad curve. My buddy Vaughn over on Family Woodworking commented on my funnel that the form was wonky. He pointed out here that most newbie turners make wide flat bowls, as we are thinking more about the tool, less about the form.  I wholeheartedly agreed.

There is the maple bowl on the lathe, as you can see I tried to have a pleasant curve, and the foot/tenon for the chuck is fairly well integrated into the shape. 

2) Solar wall

I hope to get the last couple of boards installed on the north end of the shop this weekend. I'm going to enlist my son Adam's help on this. He's fearless on the ladder and allowed as how he could get that done for me in short order. 

Once that is done, I'm going to be putting tyvek on the entire  south end of the shop as I mentioned a couple of posts back as preparation. Once I have the tyvek up,   I have several sheets of the t-111 handy.  I'll be putting that up on the wall as the 'back' section of the solar wall. I'm going to focus on the lower 10' or so of the face, as that is where I'll be putting up the solar collection.  I've got to see how much the glazing will run me, if I can swing it, I'll order enough for the project this week, and pick it up next paycheck a week from now. 

3) Kickstarter Campaign

I'm in the process of starting a small Kickstarter campaign. I hope to raise enough funds to get a few new tools for my shop. Depending on the success of the campaign I would like to pick up at least a Grizzly 12" Belt Sander,  this will allow me to safely and quickly surface my cutting boards, increasing production in my hobby shop. 

I have a couple of other 'gee that would be nice' tools in mind as well, but at the very least I'm aiming at that sander, possibly adding a Ridgid Oscillating Belt sander and a set of Gripper push blocks. 

If things go truly nuts, I'll be replacing my jointer next, but I'll of course be very happy if I get just the one Belt Sander. I'm fortunate enough to live within an easy drive of one of Grizzly's showrooms, I'd just have to steal Lori's SUV for the day.  More on this as things finalize in the coming weeks. My plan is to do a thirty day window, and then ship the rewards to my backers just in time for the holiday season. 

At the same time, I also expect to be opening up an Etsy shop and stocking that for the holidays as well. Going to be a busy fall.

First...

After my remote mentors got the lesson through on how to sharpen my bowl gouges, of course I had to try and turn a bowl. I chucked a small piece of maple on, and managed to get things into round...

So far so good...


I continued on, however this morning... and it was looking pretty good. I had it fairly smooth inside, I sanded it to 220 and everything.

Then I turned it around on the chuck, padded the chuck with some paper towel and expanded the jaws into the bowl. Had I simply removed the foot, and left it at that, all would have been well.

So I sighed, pulled it off of the chuck & signed it. 

South wall solar project musings

Warts and all, here is the south face of my shop. 

 I've let it weather 'naturally' for far too long, and since my ladder phobia kicked in, I've never put the siding on it that it deserves.

My neighbors to the south of me have recently taken down 4 maple trees, so I'm now going to get a ton more sun on the shop year round. I don't mind it in the fall and winter, but summers are going to be annoying.

I'm ultimately going to make the  best of things, and I'm finally going to make the solar wall on this face.

First off, Dyami, I have lots of Tyvek left, and I'll be adding that across the entire face.
Next, I'm going to face my fears, and put up more of the tan T-111 on the top 4' of the building. I"d like to do the pallet siding, but the T-111 is already on hand. I have a window opening framed out on the upper section.

Looking at that photo, the doorway is 6' wide and 8' tall. I'm planning on making a solar wall that will be from the 10' line all the way across and framing the doorway opening.

I'm not sure about the doorway yet. I've been sketching some ideas, currently I want to make a Dutch Door and a side light. I'm thinking a full 4' wide with the side light on the right side. (pardon the crude photoshop doodle).

My newfangled bench is currently on that wall, but I'm thinking of re-arranging the shop a bit, and moving the lathe up to the front of the shop instead. To paraphrase Alton Brown, "but that's another post" #GoodEats

That will give me 60 sf of solar collection. I could go all the way up to the eaves, however I'd lose the heat from the upper section, as it would be above the drop ceiling.






Another option altogether is to simply make the entire south wall into a solar collector, and move the entrance over to the West wall. I have a doorway framed in already roughly where the red frame is here:

I wouldn't eliminate the door on that wall, simply turn each half of the door into a smaller collector, adding to the overall gain. I would still make a larger collector where the green squiggles are, and just build new doors which would in effect be solar panels in and of themselves. 

What say ye faithful readers? 

edit:

Dyami asked about my solar plans, well I'm going simple with a design based on info found on http://www.builditsolar.com

I've been planning on a wall similar to what this link shows. I'm considering adding an additional seasonal lean-to similar to this.  I have a Bunch of 4" black flex hose, I'm thinking of punching several 4" holes through in the 'doorway' space for this year, with a solar powered duct fan pulling the heated air into the shop. I figure I can put a 4x8 sheet of OSB and/or foil backed insulation on the bottom, (raised off of the ground) build a simple lean to from roughly the right edge of the window over to the right edge of the building. I'll tack some roofing felt on the side of the building for the winter, that, plus the black hose, and some plastic sheeting and I should get some additional 'free' heat. You can see the box items just below the window, that was a small scale attempt from last fall, which brought a Little heat in, but not enough to warrant putting it back together again.

The solar wall on the south face, Plus the tent/lean to heater will hopefully allow me to woodwork deeper into the winter months if not all the way through the winter, unless we have another bout with arctic conditions for weeks on end like we had this past year.