Latest Craft Fair Results

[Tom McDonnell]

Salad bowls, I can't make enough. Not surprising. Highly finished spalted bowls were the first to go and that was a surprise. Larger decorative bowls weren't especially popular. Smaller bowls with nice grain hardly were noticed. Boxes..., I love turning boxes but they've never been good sellers for me. Scoops always do well but I made few this year and could have sold many.
Every craft fair is different though and I always wonder where I should focus. The choice between what I like to make and what sells.

 

[Richard Coers]

Salad bowls, I can't make enough. Not surprising. Highly finished spalted bowls were the first to go and that was a surprise. Larger decorative bowls weren't especially popular. Smaller bowls with nice grain hardly were noticed. Boxes..., I love turning boxes but they've never been good sellers for me. Scoops always do well but I made few this year and could have sold many.
Every craft fair is different though and I always wonder where I should focus. The choice between what I like to make and what sells.

Seems like an easy answer. What is your goal, make money or have fun? If both, don't change anything.

 

[Webb Willmott]

What was the most popular size and going rate for a salad bowl sold at a craft fair?

With zero knowledge on what you had for sale I’ll take a shot in the dark and guess that a large decorative bowl price exceeds the impulse wallet threshold and small boxes and smaller bowls feel expensive based on the cost vs size.

 

[robo hippy]

I specialize in daily use bowls and plates. Plain and simple, no detail work at all. I figure at a show I will sell pretty much equal dollars worth of larger family sized bowls and smaller "individual" use bowls and plates. So higher numbers of smaller pieces. Over $200 is pretty much not worth it for me to make. Most of mine are in the $10 to $40 range. I did see a guy at the only show I do, and he was asking $100 for a 6 inch walnut bowl, and I would have charged $20 to $30 for. He did have some nice big ornamental pieces. I know I sold way more than he did.

robo hippy

 

[EMCM]

I always take a2-3 big bowls to my shows, knowing most likely I will be packing them up. But every few shows someone comes is and goes to a big one picks it up and wants it.
Seems 14-16 inch is the sweet spot.

 

[Tom McDonnell]

Salad bowls were $50-100. Pricing work, I know, is everybody's quandary. I scrounge up most of my wood locally. The wood that I pay for is priced accordingly. I had a lot of items this time that hadn't sold at previous fairs. Wanted to blow them out but my wife over ruled that.
Another interesting thing was the number of young women who asked how to get started woodturning. I referred them to the local club.

 

[Steve Tiedman]

The few replies to this message are giving me a very narrow view confirmation that spending huge dollars on a 24" lathe may not be as popular/necessary of a need as many may think, if the goal is to turn lots of wood and sell lots of stuff. Maybe 12-16 inch machines are, as stated above, the sweet spot. Again, a very narrow view, lots of other data required.

Caveat- I owned a 24" lathe for almost 20 years, now sold. I now own a 16" and a 12" lathe. I do not sell anything, haven't in... 29 years.

 

[john lucas]

I envy you people that can sell bowls. I do a few smaller art shows and craft shows and rarely sell any items over $25. I do sell an occasional bowl or art piece. My hand mirrors quit selling. I used to sell a lot but haven't sold a single one in the last 6 shows. 80% of my total sales are items $25 or less. I still manage to $800 to $1000 but it's all small stuff.

 

[Doug Freeman]

Salad bowls, I can't make enough. Not surprising. Highly finished spalted bowls were the first to go and that was a surprise. Larger decorative bowls weren't especially popular. Smaller bowls with nice grain hardly were noticed. Boxes..., I love turning boxes but they've never been good sellers for me. Scoops always do well but I made few this year and could have sold many.
Every craft fair is different though and I always wonder where I should focus. The choice between what I like to make and what sells.

Thanks for the report, good to know what people will buy. Diameters (not exact x.xx”) of what you consider a “salad bowl”, “larger decorative bowls”, and “smaller bowls with nice grain” would provide a much better perspective.

 

[Tom McDonnell]

My "salad bowls" are probably 10" -14", made of hard woods. I get a lot of softer woods where I live here in the pnw, which I don't consider especially good for utilty/ tableware, so I try to embellish or color them etc, and consider them " decorative". Small bowls are well, small bowls. I think we all have lots of that wood, cores etc. They don't seem to sell especially well so I try to offer ones that have interesting grain.

 

[robo hippy]

I figure that if I want/hope to sell $2000 worth, then I need at least $4000 worth of inventory. Part of the reason I have good sales at this one show is a reputation for having them for so long.

robo hippy

 

[Michael Anderson]

The few replies to this message are giving me a very narrow view confirmation that spending huge dollars on a 24" lathe may not be as popular/necessary of a need as many may think,

The other benefits of a large lathe are power, more room for banjo clearance, default weight, etc… I know you know that, but wanted to get a bit of text in for anyone considering “upgrading”. I have an old Vicmarc VL300, mainly because I like riding the bedways like a horse. That’s a half-joke.

 

[Thomas Wilson]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'm fairly new to turning and selling and it's nice to compare how others do things. I do a small local farmers market in the summer for my kids to earn college money (granted it is pretty small and it's free to have a booth, so I don't expect lots of sales, more of a way to get rid of my ever increasing stash of turned items and help my kids learn to work) and only rarely do bowls sell. When they do sell, they are generally priced less than the 2-2.5x Width x Height guideline. $130 is the most expensive bowl sold for a 16" x 5" fairly bland elm bowl. I sell mostly rolling pins, baby rattles, and Harry Potter wands (I still don't understand the popularity of those but they are my best sellers!).

I have a 24" lathe and while I've never sold any bowls >16", the larger bowls I've turned have been highly requested as gifts for family/friends. If I'm coring a blank, it doesn't take too much longer to core a 22" blank vs a 15-16" blank. I would never want to go back to <24" swing lathe as it is never a problem to have too much swing/power but in the past I have had blanks that barely didn't fit and that becomes a huge hassle.

Tom

 

[Steve Tiedman]

The other benefits of a large lathe are power, more room for banjo clearance, default weight, etc… I know you know that, but wanted to get a bit of text in for anyone considering “upgrading”. I have an old Vicmarc VL300, mainly because I like riding the bedways like a horse. That’s a half-joke.

Well Michael, you've got me there, especially in the realm of nearly all lathes coming outfitted from the factory with a motor package, sometimes proprietary. When I set up my Vicmarc VL300 (Giddyup! shortbed with 1-meter extension), I bought it without a motor so I could outfit it however I pleased. As for weight, just about any lathe can be weighed down within its frame/stand with lumber and sandbags, if that extra weight is needed.

As to capacity, here is a video of Mr. Raffan utilizing literally every safe fraction of an inch on a 12" swing Vicmarc VL150. Just before he attaches it to the screw chuck, watch him set the blank on the bed ways. Can't be a half inch between wood and bed, but his sequence of cuts leads to no issues of the wood being in the way of the banjo. But he made the blank fairly round on the bandsaw first, so machine mass/weight is also not an issue watching it spin at a fairly good clip.

View: https://youtu.be/Zv361Esd3_w?si=usx0qhipUpr3fdYv


I'm not anti-giant lathe at all. Buy it if you're able and want it. But anyone looking for a new lathe should really examine their interests and needs before setting down X-thousands of dollars for 24" of swing when 50-75% of that X-thousands of dollars with a smaller lathe may serve them just fine nearly 100% of the time. A lot of new turners may live with a mindset that they "need" a lathe that can accept a nearly 2' wide lump of wood. (And an engine hoist to lift it.) But if one does not have access to wood that big, nor has an interest in a coring system, and concludes that bowls 15" or bigger are a lot of work and make a really big mess, and likely do lack a local audience, then a lathe of 20", or even 16" swing (or smaller) may serve their needs just fine.