The first TB Bolt Action on UK Soil???

[ataylor]

We should keep politics out of this topic, the object is a pen and nothing more.

 

[clumsysod]

The thing about pen making is that you make what you know you can sell ...

Sorry Jim I have to disagree with you there, I think the thing about pen making is to enjoy the hobby.
In Neils case I know, and there are others here perhaps including yourself who have turned the hobby into a money making exercise, maybe even your main income. Good luck to you who have.
Let's not forget this all started certainly for myself because I had the urge to do something with a lathe and a log.
I don't sell my pens but I love making them I enjoy the feel of the finished item, the look on someones face when you give them a gift of a pen made from that old fence panel they were throwing out.
The sentiment they put behind a gift made from grandads old walking stick.
I donate mine to Help for Heroes, my chosen charity I love to sit and watch it get auctioned at a function the round of applause I get for thinking of such a thing to auction, I love that feeling of being useful.
Maybe we all have different reasons but it comes back to: This is our hobby and we enjoy it That should be the thing about pen making.

 

[Neil]

In Neils case I know, and there are others here perhaps including yourself who have turned the hobby into a money making exercise, maybe even your main income. Good luck to you who have.

A money making exercise, hmmmm. True, I attend a lot of craft fairs but this started out as a hobby (still is) and the wife pointed out that since I could only use one pen at a time and I had about twenty what was the point in making any more. In fact it was all her fault anyway, she used to run a jewellry business and kindly bought me a pen at a craft fair and I made the mistake after a few beers of saying that I could make it better, and with an angry retort about how ungrateful I was I had to shuffle off and book myself onto a woodturning course, and the rest is....

However, I chose to do this to generate a bit of extra income so that I can send my children to a school of my choice not the governments. I cannot see that anyone could actually make it their sole or main income, the effort required to generate the volume would be phenomenal.

 

[Walter]

I cannot see that anyone could actually make it their sole or main income, the effort required to generate the volume would be phenomenal.

I agree Neil. For me if I had to produce enough pens to make a living it would cease to be in any way enjoyable and become a chore. Like you I do it to supplement my income.

I think that applies to most forms of woodturning. Most of the professionals I know of make their money from teaching rather than selling their work. Even production turners like Richard Findley supplement their income with teaching, demonstrations and writing.

 

[Jim]

George i sell to keep my hobby going, i don't sell to make a living, i also give away many pens as gifts to people who do me favours, i also make pens for my Grand children's schools for their charity days etc ... I don't make pens to sit on my bench ...

 

[Old Corky]

I thought I was joining a group of adults who wanted to discuss pen making and selling. I didn’t realize being insulting to the newest member was your cup of tea. Regarding firearms, Great Brittan has been a civilized country and peaceful for many hundreds of years and had no need for firearms where as Texas is only seven or eight generations from our ancestors (A bunch of farmers and ranchers) having to fight for their lives often and either killing or being killed. And traditions like having a firearm in the house die slowly

So, let’s please drop the childish personal attacks and discuss making and selling pens.

I have not learned this forum’s ins and outs yet and this is probably the wrong place, but I am nicknamed Corky, 85 years old, making pens a couple of years, live in Pine Island 45 miles west of Houston and am retired from the City of Houston.

Old Corky

 

[bellringer]

i think this post has gone off subject let get back on subject

 

[Jim]

Hi Old Corky,

There are no ins and outs to the forums, and it is not the intention to make anyone feel unwelcome, far from it ... We want people like yourself to share your experience with us, please except my apologies for the way that you feel at the moment and give the forums a chance to help make amends ...

Thanks,

Jim

 

[naxie]

Hi Corky,

I don't think anything said was meant as a personal attack and I'm sorry if you saw it as so. Guns are certainly seen as a different thing over here, we generally see the more negative in them than the positive. Different cultures have different ways of looking at things and that's what makes the world a varied and wonderful place

Welcome to the forum, wow, 85 years young, see I'm less than half your age and with a passion for turning, we already have a lot in common. That's the beauty of the forum, we're all the same really, where ever we are in the world.

 

[Neil]

I thought I was joining a group of adults who wanted to discuss pen making and selling. I didn’t realize being insulting to the newest member was your cup of tea. Regarding firearms, Great Brittan has been a civilized country and peaceful for many hundreds of years and had no need for firearms where as Texas is only seven or eight generations from our ancestors (A bunch of farmers and ranchers) having to fight for their lives often and either killing or being killed. And traditions like having a firearm in the house die slowly

So, let’s please drop the childish personal attacks and discuss making and selling pens.

I have not learned this forum’s ins and outs yet and this is probably the wrong place, but I am nicknamed Corky, 85 years old, making pens a couple of years, live in Pine Island 45 miles west of Houston and am retired from the City of Houston.

Old Corky

Corky,

Welcome to the forum and I'll step up and apologise if I've offended you, hope I haven't but if I have it wasn't meant. I hope you continue to contribute. Let's not forget that nobodys perfect, as the host nation for one of the longest running civil unrest disputes that killed thousands (Northern Ireland) nobody's perfect although it does make your gun debate even more perplexing for us. I strongly dispute your comment of us being a civilised society! My ancestors had to flee from the north of the country suffering religious persecution only a couple of hundred years ago, many of them ended up in Utah, Canada and Australia (One had his picture on the Aussie $2 bill until 1986). As a civilised society they didn't represent it very well making fabric for the slave trade, and brutally murdering each other at almost every opportunity in the name of religion, and guns were prevalent around here then.

Anyway, not a subject for debate on a pen turning forum, but we're just a bit eccentric over here, tend to write or speak first and then think, except politicians, they miss out the thinking bit, first or last.

Hope you enjoy this forum, we'd be grateful of your experience.

 

[stevenw1963]

Welcome Corky - don't think anyone went out of their way to offend you yourself nor your turning skills.

 

[clumsysod]

Welcome Corky.
I am not going to apologize for anything I have said, none of it was meant with any malice toward you in person but an observation in general.
I am just a very experienced old soldier who has been lucky enough to live through my campaigns.
I have lost to many good friends and seen to many lives taken and wrecked by the use of firearms and conflicts I cant help sounding off at any opportunity.
Stick around for while you'll get used to me, the others have.

 

[wm460]

and I made the mistake after a few beers of saying that I could make it better, and with an angry retort about how ungrateful I was I had to shuffle off and book myself onto a woodturning course, and the rest is....

Corky,


(One had his picture on the Aussie $2 bill until 1986).

John Macarthur or William Farrer?

 

[Old Corky]

Thanks Brothers, to all of you who have answered, welcomed and have made me feel at home. And remember all of my family’s ancestors except for one from Prussia (and he sailed from England to get here) came from England, Scotland and Ireland, so we may be cousins.

Regarding the Britt’s vision of Texans running free in the streets, killing people with handguns, I looked up the latest published statistics on Texas Concealed Handgun License holders which is for the year 2011. Out of 63,679 criminal convictions in Texas that year, only 120 were CHL holders and only 5 were firearm related and only one of those was a murder conviction

 

[Walter]

Welcome to the forum Corky. I hope you will stick with us.

As for firearms, well they cause some differences of opinion. I enjoy a bit of clay pigeon shooting with a shotgun now and again but I wouldn't want to have to carry a gun to defend myself. The idea of shooting other people doesn't appeal to me, not even the ones I don't like very much.

Anyway people were killing each other long before guns were invented and if all the guns on the planet were destroyed tomorrow they would still find ways of doing so.

I also like the bolt action kits because they are simple to make and sell for a nice profit. (To peace loving responsible gun club members)

 

[Neil]

Well, thought you might like to hear this story. Craft fair today and a couple are arguing, one saying that the Bolt Action is totally inappropriate, the bloke saying that he thought his step father would really appreciate it to write with on a Sunday. Let them argue, didn't want to interupt a family discussion. Turns out the step father in question was a lay preacher and the writings his step son was referring to was his sermon. Now there's a thought, a sermon written with a blot action. I stepped in and suggested a lower value sierra with a very nice piece of Judas Wood on it, explaining to them that every pen should carry a story with it and this pen, made from the wood of the species of tree that Judas Iscariot used to hang himself after he betrayed Christ was an appropriate pen to give to a lay preacher, it showed thought and would give added value to the pen. So they bought a Sierra in purpleheart instead!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Jim]

So they bought a Sierra in purpleheart instead!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol, this wasn't the end i was expecting ...

 

[Neil]

John Macarthur or William Farrer?

Mark,

William Farrer was my great (x a few) Uncle. Born in the Lake District UK 1845. His Father Thomas Farrer is my great great great great Grandfather, my surname is Farrer.

 

[wm460]

And remember all of my family’s ancestors except for one from Prussia (and he sailed from England to get here) came from England, Scotland and Ireland, so we may be cousins.

Where about from Prussia were your ancestors from, we could be related?

Regarding the Britt’s vision of Texans running free in the streets, killing people with handguns,

The left wing media in Aust brainwashs the general population with this.

I looked up the latest published statistics on Texas Concealed Handgun License holders which is for the year 2011. Out of 63,679 criminal convictions in Texas that year, only 120 were CHL holders and only 5 were firearm related and only one of those was a murder conviction

What is the pop of Texas?

 

[Old Corky]

Sorry Brother WM460, my "part timers" (Memory) must have kicked in when I wrote that, Great Great Grandfather Wilhelm Daut was from the village of Obermoellrich in the Gotha area of Saxony, Germany. The children’s mother (name unknown. She wasn't listed on the ship's record) was from Hamburg, Prussia. They sailed on the ship Colombia from Liverpool, England and arrived in New York city on the 19th of July in 1852.

Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles and the population was est. 26.06 million in 2012.

By the way, have you seen the Double Bullet Pen? Uses real .308 cartridges. To much for me too.:nonono:



Corky