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Sharyn: Well that is sort of crazy. But most of it will be supervising. No self performance or putting on a tool belt anymore. Maybe a little spraying foam around windows and sealing cracks, sweeping up and then doing all the admin. work, phone work, ordering, scheduling and meeting the subs and inspectors on the job site and co-ordinating things. So more like admin. office type work and being on the road a few days a week.
But this will pay much better than the Ebay-Etsy gig, but Susan and I, and our helpers will still keep that up.mike at MDC Galleries
Hey guys.. Might not have much time going forward, but wanted to update.
One of my former businesses was home remodeling but 2008 took the winds out of our sails big time.
But my old partenr called me back up and long story short, we bought 4 building lots in a small town in North Ga. and will be starting the first of 4 new homes we are going to build as spec. homes for first time home buyers.
This project along with trying to keep the Ebay and Etsy stores going will take up most of my time going forward. Unsure if I will be able to read all of the SL posts and do much replying but will if I can.
The SL community has grown so much through the years and so has the amount of the posts, inquiries and it will be hard to keep up.
Jay I don’t know how you do it buddy. I am 70 years old, but couldn’t pass up this opportunity to give it a try again. Entreprenuership is a cruel, but creative mistress at times.
You know the drill because as you said long ago, with a good, strong membership base on SL it can be more self susstaining as more members participate. I can see that happening through the years.
But now I am going to also be focused elsewhere and will see what time I have. But I woke up this morning to being 69 posts behind on SL and spent the last ten hours working up a sequence of events and costing spread sheet for the new construction company that I probably won’t be able to keep up, especially once I start co-ordinating all the subs. Again, you lknow the drill.
I will particpate when I can.
Go SL and all that it stands for…
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine art
and Capitol Atlantic Properties, LLC.10/30/2018 at 7:27 pm in reply to: what is this shot glass looking thing with the painted dog? #50972Not much time but a quick look using different terms did produce some odd looking small shot glass like items.
Try aperitif, liquor, cordial glasses. I actually saw a set but with the bubble coming out from the bottom and they used the term roly poly liquor glasses.
It’s small size would indicate to me that it is an after dinner cordial glass for the sweet dessert cordials. Maybe even sherry glass but those usually have a small stem on them.
But bounce around in Google images or I was looking in Worthpoint, maybe even Kovels.com but those are mostly antique items.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Super job and the buyer scheduled his own delivery via U-Ship.
I had a wide format HP ink jet printer sell and it was big and heavy and the buyer used U-Ship and arranged himself. A big help to have the buyer handle the whole thing.
Good job.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Yep, can tell why she really does kill you at scrabble, but bet she can’t tell you what the total amount of points all the tiles add up to and the projected probability of which letters have the greatest chance of being used in the most variety of words. So you each have your skill sets. 🙂
So, is this how you got your first operating capital to spend on inventory? Cheez, most people save up, take out a loan, but no, you guys go and win it on a game show?
BTW.. we have never heard of or watched “Lingo”. 🙂
Thanks for the video, fun to watch. Broke up the morning.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
I use plastic periodically but I bought a roll at Home Depot that is 8 mils thick. The 8 mil is twice as thick as a garabage bag which clocks in around 4 mils or less. The plastic is in the painting deprtament. Painters use it to cover the whole floor of a room and then move ladders around and it holds up fine.
IHD only has milky clear or black. I use the block because it is opaque. It comes 12 ft. wide and 100 ft. in length. I bought one roll and it has lasted a long time. I also found the same size and thickness at a U-Haul moving place and it was light blue.
I also use it to do a total wrap over some boxes when I discover that the weight and oversize of an item would be better off than going Priority so I wrap and tape the box and ship by other methods [if you catch my drift].
8 mil is very durable, like a poly bag you mentioned, and if you tape it up good, no loose edges to snag on postal equipment and use extra tape. And if you ever do want to ship a blue or black plastic taped box by way of USPS Priority, all I do is place several of the USPS Priority decals on all corners of the box and Viola’ you convert any size box into a USPS Priority box as long as it’s small emough to keep it under the DIM Weight prices.
More food for thought,
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Just Google how to make my own vacuum storage bags and there are several hacks online that show you how to make your own. I am sure you can find something to compress-suck all the air out and make that whole thing smaller.
Sure, Here ‘ya go.
In order from top to bottom:
$24.99 in 2016 / $75 in 2012 / $98.00 in 2013 / and $39.99 in 2014.Hope that helps to some degree.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Yep.. Have several heat guns in the art sturdio and you are spot on, without a heat control reostat [temp. control knob], it will melt down most plastics, even hair dryers will do that, or make the plastic start to bubble slightly.
In some cases, heat will make shiny surface plastics “blush” or “Fog”. The heat forces the plastic to out gas residuals within it’s molecular structure, especially polygermers and resins in PVC types of plastic, then that outgasing either burns or fogs the plastic surface. Now on ceramics, pottery and such, you are good to go.
mike at MDCGFA
Hey RTWV if you do buy something with that tag on them, then this is where the lighter fluid comes in. Soak that paper label with lighter fluid, couple of drops is all that is needed. Let is soak into the paper. The porosity of the paper label allows the fuild to penetrate through the paper and start to attack the adhesive. Keep putting a drop or two on the label to keep it “wet”. Then start lifting the label at the corner. The secret is to pull the label up “slowly”. Even place a drop of fluid at the crease under the label as you pull it up. The label should peel right up cleanly with no residue left behind. Note.. SLOWLY Lift.
In my day we printed on a ton of plastics and many of the pieces were acrylic plexiglass. Plex is pre-masked on both sides with a paer protective layer at 100% surface coverage. We used gallons of Benzine to flood over the surface of the paper and then the side peeled up easily and nicely. We even had to do 4′ x 8′ full sheets of it for large signs. AND YES, our employees did wear respirators and we had fans blowing across the area. That much fluid poured out at once on a surface does off gas fumes. A small can of Lighter Fluid used drop by drop or small puddles offers no harm / risk to the uses no more than filling an old Zippo lighter.
Give it a try sometimes. We have several cans of lighter fluid sitting at our clean up – photography station right now. It is sold in most pharmacy’s and grocery stores up where the tobacco products are or the check out kiosks.
We use Ronson, one of the older companies but there are several brands. ALSO to note, lighter fluid does not attack, melt or blemish most plastic surfaces, but it would be advisable to check a small area first, but I can’t remember ever seeing any effect on any plastics I have tested.
Mike at MDCGFA
Yeah, sure stretch wrap doesn’t adhere. That’s why is is good for wrapping the products themselves, i.e. the sugessted method for Goodwill to use to bundle items.
For boxes, sure, you are correct. No adhesion to the paper of the boxes. Just thinking outloud.
But for boxes when we shipped thousand of boxes to WalMart, Home depot, General electric, Stanley Hardware, etc., etc. we found reinforced 3″ wide paper tape that has a water based adhesive the best. It is the kind Amazon uses also, that black tape with the embedded fibers in it.
We had dozens of tape machines in the shipping dept on the kit packing tables loaded with 12″ dia. rolls of the stuff. The machines worked by using a punch pad just like a touch phone. You would just punch 6 and a 6″ piece of tape would be dispensed and automatically cut to length and the adhesive wet. Great tape and fast.
mike at MDCGFA
Lighter Fluid [Benzine] is a great adhesive remover. Unlike Toulene, Lacquer Thinner, Acetone [nail polish remove], which all will attack the adhesive, Lighter Fluid will not attack and dissolve most inks that are printed on the packaging. Benzine also has a very high flash point, so apply it with a Q-Tip, rub and dissolve, then blow on it and it instantly flashes off and is dry.
Many times, if we pull a tag off of the outside or inside of a ceramic piece and adhesive gets left behind, we then will squirt a puddle of lighter fluid into the bottom or in the cavity of the piece, use a Q-tip to swirl it around and start loosening and dissolving the adhesive, then wipe it up.
The Goo-Gone and Goof Off products are all oily and not as highly refined and leave oily, smeary residue behind in themselves. If you use these products first, OK, but then squirt a little lighter fluid on a paper towel or swab and then wipe off the surface and you will get an oil, residue free, squaeky clean surface.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Amen MyCottage: We buy 5″ wide stretch wrap 12 rolls at a time. Way cheaper than 2″ wide tape, and if the Stores would start using it, they would actually save money. For the same $2.75 roll instead of 55 yards [165 linear feet], they will get 1,000 feet of stretch wrap.
Several wraps going in all directions will actually totally encapsulate the product and you can’t tear that type of plastic. The more you pull on it the stronger it gets.
We use it all the time after we bubble wrap our delicate items. The stretch wrap is part of our 6 layer special cocoon packing process. I think everybody should have a few rolls of stretch wrap in their packing materials.
The 24″ wide rolls are great for wrapping furniture, around table legs, and “cocooning” larger items with odd appendages.
Also another good thing about stretch wrap is that it spans wide “negative” voids and spaces and adds a layer of protection across wide voids.
I haven’t tried actually stretch wrapping the complete outside shipping box, but wonder if it would be cheaper than taping a box closed, even though it would take more material. Think that may be an experiment I may try. Cheaper, faster, stronger..Sounds good to me.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
10/22/2018 at 12:24 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 382: Treasure Hunting with a Fishnet #50543RTWV: I sympathize with you completely. Organized as we are, has happened to us a couple of times. The last one was for a MAC Truck Bulldog hood ornament and no substitute was acceptable, so told the buyer, if I did find it, we would send it to him at no cost. We refunded 100% and 3 months later, we came across it. We sent free like we said we would. But he had already giving us a negative, first we have ever had since 2002 and is still sitting in our ratings.
We did the same as you, cross referenced multiple ways and nothing. All I can think is I just transposed a number somehow, but I looked in all the possible combinations or mixed up numbers, but nope. So who knows.
Let’s just both hope this type of thing is extremely few and far between.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
10/22/2018 at 12:11 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 382: Treasure Hunting with a Fishnet #50539To a very slight degree. Yes, more likes and favorites coming in, but that is not sales dollars. Some slight sales. But I am looking at it in the light of your view point on a new start up on Ebay. The old, [years ago] low down on SL is that you should have a store at about the 250 items to start seeing some sales. Now that number seems to be about 500 +/-. At the present time we only have 239 items out of 1,134 on Ebay, cross posted on Etsy. But several sales did happen last week on Etsy.
So reflecting on those start-up numbers we are just in the infancy period of the Etsy store. And we are still doing it manually one at a time while we are waiting for the WonderLister team to get it all together. Which by the way they have started being more active on and are beta testing some of our items right now on Etsy. If they can come to the table with a viable solution, then that will be a different story. Troy, Veronica, Susan and I have been talking about how SixBit and WL should be interfacing to make it automatic and I seriously have SixBit in the back of my mind, BUT if WL can get it together quickly and correctly, then maybe I’ll “float” in place for awhile.
If WL surprises me with an interface, and it works well, then the complete transfer of all 1,134 items would happen within hours, not months. Then I will be able to do a more apples to apples comparison of the Ebay vs. Etsy situation.
But for now there are just too few items to get a real feel for.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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