New Website

[Mystic]

Hi Guys, I have not been in for a while to see how you all are, but my OH and I have been a wee bit busy of late, trying to set up a new business and have a website done. I just thought I would share it with you, and also to let you know what we have been up to.
It's all a bit exciting but also very scary too, so please go along and check it out and let me know what you think
http://jewellerybenches.moonfruit.com

[ps_bond]

"Page cannot be found"...

[Mystic]

try it now Peter, I have added it to my signature hope this works now

[ps_bond]

Ah, jewellers not jewellery! That works - I shall peruse.

[Dennis]

Welcome back here Maggie, Wish you every success, Dennis.

[medusa]

I'll be a hopefully critical friend here.

from what I can see the benches look really good.

BUT:

the website takes far too long to load. If I were actually looking on it for a bench, I'd have got fed up with waiting.

the images, despite taking forever to load do not show the benches in a good light. The benches are crooked in the frame of the photo, there are things in the photos that I don't want to see (a tablecloth? edge of a bed?). I'd want to see details, like the finish, how the corners are jointed, show me how beautiful they are! Put some tool porn on some of the images. Not that kind of porn, but gravers, pliers, soldering stuff. Show me how I could lay out my tools. Let me enlarge the images. and have alt tags on all the images as well.

How big are they? I'm a complete beginner. If all jewellery benches are a set size, then I want to know what the size it is.

Because the site builder won't let me resize the text using command + click, consider using a larger and darker font.

and yes, I know I've come across as a complete cow. I know how hard it is doing this (there is areason pros earn so much!) but it's tough enough selling as it is without being held back by a clunky site.

[Joe]

Good points Medusa...

Number one is - what is the top surface? Text description at least required. I would expect a custom bench to carry a built-in peg or have a top that allowed one to be added.

Number two - that 5 drawer should show the price for 5 drawers, not 2. That's a £510 bench pictured!

As it happens, I'm looking for another bench and I like the idea of a small supplier.... but I wouldn't look any further than this.

Fundamentally, I suspect that the base price is too low but the top price is too high.

[medusa]

I'm not sure what these things normally sell for (my bench is two scaffolding planks I joined together) but £510 for the full monty bench doesn't seem that high to me. what is confusing is that basic bench plus shelf is £20 extra, but delux plus shelf is £60 extra.

Pricing anything you make is a nightmare.

[Mystic]

Thanks for your feedback, and I know the pictures are a bit naff, but I forgot to take the pictures before my OH and I put the bench into place, and it was such a struggle coz my 'studio' is in the spare room upstairs and we have a very difficult shaped staircase.
It might sound crazy to you, but the prices are based on how long it takes Ken to make the benches, when a standard bench is made it doesn't take as long as a bench with drawers.
Materials used are mainly soft woods, but are strong enough for the job in hand, I can actually sit ontop of the bench and it has not moved, and I am no light weight either. The top is made out of 38mm laminated chipboard with a 12 mm MDF overboard, which can be removed and replaced when needed, so the bench top can be used and abused and revitalised.
This is a WORK BENCH and not a piece of furniture. We have been asked about a solid beech top for a bench and if you wanted that, it would cost you double the price. My OH priced up this type of top, and even with the discount he can get, it would cost at least £300.00 for a 1200mm workspace.
Anyway guys, thanks again for the feedback.

Medusa
I looked on Suttons website this morning and their top of the range bench inc VAT comes in at a whopping £900.00,(and I don't think that even includes delivery) and I also noticed that a fair bit of it is made from MDF. Thats why Ken thought he could offer a really good work bench and keep the prices as reasonable as possible but without comprimising the strength due to the bashing about work benches get.

[ps_bond]

My current bench is not dissimilar in construction - 2 layers of 18mm ply with a layer of 12mm MDF over the top, pine carcass. And not enough drawers... Drawers are a pain to do properly; mine are dovetail construction, which might be easier with a router + jig rather than hand-cut. But they are probably the most time consuming (for which read costly!) aspect. Overall, I think the prices are pretty good.

I'm currently using one of the clamp-on pegs (which I loathe!), and I'd agree that slotting the upper layers to accept a standard (?) peg would be better (although I'd quite like a Benchmate, I still can't quite justify it); my preference would be to have shallow drawers for tools & materials, and lots of them. I generally like having a sweeps drawer rather than a skin, although it might be better for me if I had shallow drawers just below the bench top and a skin - but my engraving ball lives in the sweeps drawer, so I'd have to find another way to sort that. Fences either side of the bench would be nice to prevent anything getting knocked off the side, hanging hooks down the side are useful... Mine has a back panel, behind which is mounted a socket strip for powering everything; I keep meaning to add some strips to mount Vero boxes onto it, but haven't yet.

Re-reading that, it seems to highlight a problem - these tools (and they are tools) are as much down to personal preference as anything else; as usual, they need to be modifiable to some extent too.

Have you seen the Ganoksin Benches book, Maggie?