I need some help please!!!!!

[Jacoby]

Hello this is Jake... I have a couple carvewright machines and I am trying to start my business and I see A few fire place mantle designs and the deer and elk seens and cannot find them anywhere but carvewright.com and really cant afford these at $50.00 a pop after all I spent on the machines.. I addopted 2 kids and so now I have 5 all together and they are doing this business adventure with me so we can build a bigger house for us all.. please help with any ideas or how to make the mantle designs... thanks so much!!!! these machines are so cool!!!! We love them!!:D

[lawrence]

Welcome Jake!

Is your business selling mantles or is that just one idea that you have?

I recommend you start small- not all the designs that are appropriate for mantles are $50- some are free and I would start looking here
http://forum.carvewright.com/forumdisplay.php?67-Pattern-Sharing

I will say this though, many of the designs that are for sale are really nice- they cost that much for a reason! (making good designs takes time and can take a lot of skill)

I encourage you to start off with some simple designs- maybe shelves or appliques to put into your machines. Working with the CW is a learned skill- you want to make sure you walk a bit before you run (and possibly spoil your machine or expensive wood in the process)

We'll help you as we can- I'm absolutely sure that with patience and effort anyone can learn to use (and profit from!) their Carvewright.

You've already accomplished the first step- finding your way here-- we'll try to point you in the right direction

V/r
Lawrence

(ps- the right direction to start is by reading/watching these tutorials! - they REALLY helped me along)
http://www.carvewright.com/support-page/getting-started/tutorials/tips-tricks/

[bjbethke]

Hello this is Jake... I have a couple carvewright machines and I am trying to start my business and I see A few fire place mantle designs and the deer and elk seens and cannot find them anywhere but carvewright.com and really cant afford these at $50.00 a pop after all I spent on the machines.. I addopted 2 kids and so now I have 5 all together and they are doing this business adventure with me so we can build a bigger house for us all.. please help with any ideas or how to make the mantle designs... thanks so much!!!! these machines are so cool!!!! We love them!!:D

Welcome to this forum, If you have a CarveWright unit I post lots of patterns on this forum. If you need help I can make some for you. All you need to say what you need, or send me a PM with an E-mail with you want. I do not like to post my e-mail on this open forum, I get enough e-mails the way these programs function.

[JuicyCarp]

Jake,

Eventually i would like to do custom cabinets, but for right now I have been doing nothing but small signs. With valentines day coming they are especially popular, and they are keeping me more than busy. The thing about mantels is, your not going to sell one every day! With signs you can definately do that, ad with two machines you should do well. I am mostly selling to pay for the machine, and then maybe start buying other tools until i get to the point where I have a respectable shop, but signs are doing well. I use select pine from the big box stores that I pay $23 per board, I charge $10 for every letter of the last name, which is average $70, and I get 3 signs from each board. thats 180.00 profit from each board (of course thats not including finishing materials, machine maintenance, etc). I work full time so I usually carve on the weekends, with 1 machine I carved 7 signs this past weekend, and thats with no advertising, I just posted a picture of my first sign and the orders came in! If I had started with cabinets, I would pobably still be working on my first set, and then it would sit in my garage until someone decided they wanted them, start small! I wish you all the luck in the world!

Kevin

58979

[Jacoby]

thanks so much for the reply... and yes I agree start small... I have been doing the samething as you for a couple years and also some little bit bigger signs.. that has been a test and a half trying to keep them lines up and looking right but I love it... thanks again....