IWF for ShopBot

We certainly had no complaints about IWF for ShopBot. Our booth was frequently crowded with people watching our tools in action. We were probably the only vendor that had 5 CNC tools almost continuously cutting. Granted, attention did tend to wane a bit when, once-an-hour, they slammed the hotdog into the table-saw blade in the SawStop booth next door.

 
The centerpiece of our booth was one of our new PRS-108 format (9ft x 5ft) ShopBots that loads from the wide side. The tool takes advantage of our extruded beam (custom made for ShopBot by Bishop-Wisecarver with integral, precision, hardened rails) to create a wide gantry that conveniently opens the work area when it is moved to the back of the tool. For the show, this ShopBot was fitted with an automatic tool changer (ATC) and vacuum hold-down as well as an indexer for turning and carving. The indexer was located just beyond the regular 4×8 work area at the far end of the tool. These options make for a pretty expensive tool as ShopBots go – but an awesome cabinet-maker’s package in terms of its wide range of capabilities. During the show we demonstrated cutting parts for a kitchen island that included base cabinets, drawers and accessories, shaped, MDF doors, and carved legs – all done on this one machine.

We also showed a ShopBot Buddy CNC. ShopBotters have been making use of the small-footprint Buddy CNCs for an increasingly wide range of production projects, from specialized drilling, machining or shaping to joint-making and trimming operations. We brought a Buddy to the show that was fitted with an indexer for carving. We produced table legs with carved features to illustrate how a CNC indexer affords a much wider range of intricate carving than simple shaping and ornamental turning. Note that you can slide the indexer deck out of this tool and slide in its standard table whenever you want to go back to CNC routing.

IWF marked the official introduction of our “Desktop” ShopBot — the result of our open “Tyro” development project featured in the fall and winter on our website. We took a number of orders for this small tool which starts shipping October 15th. The two Desktops we brought to the show cut and carved (many from the VectorArt3D collection) for the entire 4 days of the show making very smooth samples that seemed to keep “walking off”. On one day of the show, one of these Desktops was used for a WoodLINKS teacher education program.

We’ve spent the year developing the Desktop ShopBot and have involved ShopBotters in the design and prototyping of the tool. As well as having impressive woodworking capabilities, the tool also has engraving-level precision and will machine parts from plastic, aluminum, and other materials. Its ready for a wide range of workbench and prototyping project. The Desktop runs ShopBot software and ships with the PartWorks design programs (developed for ShopBot by Vectric), so it’s fully compatible with other ShopBots and all ShopBot resources.

Our new 5-Axis ShopBot also attracted attention. This tool takes advantage of standard ShopBot modular components, adding a 2-axes head on the end of the Z-arm that creates wrist-like movement capabilities. We brought a small version of the tool to the show, but the 5-axis head can be fit to any size PRSalpha ShopBot with an extended Z. I expect the typical version of the tool will have a 2’ x 2’ x 2’ work envelope and be priced well under $50K – this makes it remarkably low-priced for 5-axis CNC capabilities. Because of the long Z extension, the tool does not have the stiffness for heavy machining work but will be very well suited to general carving, trimming, and prototyping as well as to operations that require drilling or machining from unusual angles. At IWF, we carved wood corbels and model TransAms with the tool. We did the CAM work for these 5-axis projects with RhinoCam, which is a straightforward and affordable software for 5-axis CAD/CAM work from MecSoft. Over the next few months we’ll be posting information on the website about 5-axes. If you need a tool sooner, give ShopBot a call (919 680-4800) and ask to speak to Gordon about 5-axes.

We sold a number of ShopBots at the show and from that perspective it was a worthwhile trip for us. But beyond making sales, we were pleased to have received the “Industry Partner Award” from the WoodLINKS Program for our involvement and contributions to WoodLINKS on both the local and national levels. Along with many other woodworking machinery and woodworking products companies, we have worked hard with WoodLINKS and to spread the word about the importance of CNC and robotic technology in bringing production back to the US. We are particularly enthusiastic about the way WoodLINKS provides training and resources for the faculty and teachers doing the real work of bringing hands-on education to today’s students. We at ShopBot strongly believe in the importance of creating new training options for careers that will involve technology, creativity, and productivity; alternatives to the standard liberal arts course track or service industry orientation of many high school and tech school curricula. We like to communicate that this type of training is not so much about teaching how to run specific CNC or woodworking equipment but is about getting people involved and understanding technology, machines, and the making of stuff – providing the general familiarity that will allow to adaptation to rapidly changing capabilities and creating excitement with the building, producing, and manufacturing of things.

IWF for the Industry

Despite our own good vibes, general participation and attendance at IWF made it clear that the economic rebound (to the extent it exists) has not yet come to woodworking. Official attendance figures are not in, but rumor has it that only about 11,000 woodworkers attended the show over the 4 day period. This is about a third of what it was 4 and 6 years ago and barely half of the woodworkers in attendance just 2 years ago. The absence of a positive trend compared to 2008 made things seem even more depressed than AWFS in Las Vegas last year, where attendees still seemed to share some hope for a rapid rebound in woodworking activity. There was a notable lack of woodworkers wandering the aisles marveling at the latest new machine capabilities … in fact, the show aisles were often deserted. Attendees at the show seemed to have come to get a few of the things they needed and were grimly shopping in an atmosphere of toughing things out.

For us, this meant that there was a focus on CNC and on the use of automation in ways to make small shops more efficient – so I shouldn’t be too negative. And along those lines, Ralph Bignall’s (Consulting Woodworker) lecture session on integrating “Lean” and CNC into small shops was well attended; Ralph gave us permission to reprint the useful summary of his session and main themes, which you can download by clicking here or you can find with other materials on Ralph’s website. But the good news for CNC was an exception at this show.

Somewhat related to the production automation theme:  If you have been following the industry news, you will know that lots of the companies that are big players in the sale of woodworking machinery did not attend the show. Many of them are located in North Carolina and as an alternative they have scheduled a sort of travelling open-house-tour type event where they welcome potential customers into their showrooms and factories. The event is called “NexGen”. It is scheduled to run October 5 -7, 2010 with the current list of participating companies including: Biesse, Holzma, C.R. Onsrud, C&G, Delmac, and Stiles. [NexGen Link]

This sounded like a good event to us and because we produce ShopBots here in North Carolina and are one of the largest producers of CNC routers in the US, we asked to participate in the event. We were turned down. However, we would like to invite everyone who will be in the area for NexGen to also visit our factory here in Durham during their stay. We’re near the RDU Airport and we’ll be providing demonstrations, short training sessions, and production consulting. We believe that many woodworking operations are looking for alternatives to heavy, traditional, capital-intensive equipment. We’d like to show how our tools offer lean, efficient, alternative production (LEAP) methods for woodworking automation that can be flexibly integrated into a range of lean and cellular manufacturing processes.

LEAP equipment may be appropriate for your production challenges. New manufacturing approaches now emphasize the importance of adaptive, agile, human-scaled automation equipment that supports rapid process re-organization rather than locking operators into expensive machinery around which an enterprise must be organized. Instead of becoming chained to another generation of heavy, specialized equipment that locks a company into a particular set of methods, we look forward to showing woodworking managers how companies such as Wood Mode, Master Brand, and Kimble Office furniture integrate LEAP technologies that can be rapidly re-configured and utilized in adaptive ways as production demands change. So we will look forward to welcoming NexGen visitors to ShopBot.

In short, the “Bad & the Ugly” in Atlanta was finding IWF in about the same rut as AWFS last year. The reality is that woodworking is a business heavily dependent on residential housing. At some point, as remodeling and then housing pick back up, woodworking business will improve. But it will be quite a while before the boom/bubble that was in play at IWF 6-8 years ago returns. If you have followed earlier posts in my web column here, you will appreciate that despite this pessimism regarding an early recovery of general cabinetmaking and woodworking, I do believe there will be new niches and opportunities for digital fabrication and woodwork more broadly and with these we will see new types of production and manufacturing moving back into our communities.

Our Jamboree is a lot of things, but most of all it’s an opportunity to meet up with other ShopBotters, to learn about how ShopBotters are adjusting to changing economic realities, and especially, how they are using their Bots. We at ShopBot attempt to make the event as useful as possible with presentations that we hope will be informative and interesting, tales of new happenings at ShopBot (and a Saturday shop tour and CNC demo), featured vendors who have been supportive of ShopBotters, and all the while we try to carve out as much time as possible for talk and interaction between ShopBotters. If you are coming, don’t forget to bring something to “show and tell” — everyone likes to hear from everyone and see the kinds of things they do. Don’t be intimidated about what CNC level you are at or your presentation skills — everyone will enjoy hearing about your projects.

We will be showing off the final prototypes of our new, desktop, Tyro CNC’s. Here’s a glimpse for those who cannot make it to the Jamboree. We’ll be posting more info in the coming weeks on the website Tyro page.

Tyro Final Prototype

We will also show our new beam extrusion which is the product of a collaboration with Bishop-Wisecarver. The beam is functionally equivalent to our current extrusion and has a similar shape, but it has been designed to accommodate hardened BWC rails press-fitted into the extrusion. This new system provides a simple, robust, high-tolerance, and very smooth rail system for our gantry axes.

The new beam will be displayed on a Buddy at the Jamboree site and on a new format ShopBot, an 8′ (Y-axis) by 5′ (X-axis) ATC tool, that we will be using for demos at ShopBot on Saturday.

As always, at the Jamboree there will be talks on a number of issues ShopBotters are interested in, from signmaking and cabinets, to design software and digital construction of buildings.

But a primary theme of this year’s get-together will be the exploration of new approaches and models for businesses using CNC and digital fabrication. Increasingly, the world is becoming aware of the capabilities of digital fabrication — and the way in which digital fab tools can help make just about anything. This should translate into increasing opportunities for small shops with CNC to creatively serve the new needs for custom and personalized products, ultimately leading to networks for distributed manufacturing near where products are used. Some really interesting presentations:

- Jillian Northrop and Jeffrey McGrew of Because We Can will be talking about their uniquely creative digital fabrication business.

- A Durham entrepreneurial leader, Christopher Gergen, will speak about innovations in entrepreneurship (and his book, Life Entrepreneurs).

- We have David ten Have here from New Zealand — Ponoko’s founder and lead developer and a participant in the 100kGarage.com project (see INC Magazine article on David).

- Robert Bridges will describe his Shelter 2.0 project intended to offer quick, affordable, digitally-fabricated housing in disaster areas.

All-in-all it should be a pretty exciting two days. There’s also ShopBot training on Thursday and the North Carolina Maker Faire following on Sunday.

I look forward to seeing you all.

But before I was able to articulate anything of value, Jeffrey McGrew of Because We Can posted an “analysis from the trenches”, that contains both reality-testing as well as a lot of inspiration. I’d encourage ShopBotters who have any kind of interest in digital fabrication services, Making & Fabbing, distributed manufacturing, or values and lifestyle choices in creative careers, to have a look at Jeffrey’s blog. And, just as a side note, Jeffrey and Jillian will be speaking about their operation at this year’s ShopBot Jamboree (April 23-24 in Durham).

Two Interests

I’m focused on the economy and small business for two reasons: First, the majority of our ShopBot customers are small businesses. We’d like to do our best to provide not only the right tools, but also support and resources to help ShopBotters move forward in these times. Second, ShopBot is itself a small business and while part of me says to just concentrate on making good tools and not obsess over an economy that is out of all of our control, I do believe in actively seeking strategies appropriate for the new conditions and whatever opportunities they may bring. I cover these in detail in Part 2, but first some realities.

There is probably one thing that can be said about our situation now — as if you didn’t know it already — we are not likely to see a surging tide of recovery that restores a pre-2008 type business activity anytime soon. And, when the recovery eventually arrives, I imagine that both your and our business landscapes are going to look a lot different than before the 2008 financial crisis and recession. As for the economy of the next year or two, even optimistic experts don’t forecast much growth. And while perhaps, despite yesterday’s news, unemployment may be stabilizing; we’ve got an impressively long way to go to get employment back to the levels that makes people feel good and creates solid demand. Take a look at the employment graph:

US Unemployment (data: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Our Economy

As far as the general economy goes, there may be additional shoes still to fall: additional de-leveraging may follow from the derivatives feast that led up to last year’s economic collapse; in particular, there may be more trouble from previous leveraged deals and private equity buy-outs that will need to be refinanced — a variation on the mortgage-derivative fiasco at the corporate level. And, we aren’t even past the projected collapse of many more mortgages with their resulting bank failures. At the very least, continuing foreclosures and short-sales will likely keep house prices down and limit home equity as a credit source for a good while, even if banks were loaning (I’ve heard stories from a couple of friends actually purchasing houses recently, that the reaction to the previous lack of discipline in writing mortgages has resulted in an overcompensation in the opposite direction … it’s now difficult for an ordinary person just to get through the paper work to buy a house, even when they can afford it).

All this means that the wheels of industry are not churning very fast. Our national production and utilization of factory capacity is impressively down. This depression of activity is the kind of thing that effects almost everyone. It’s useful to look at some of the details across category in it order to keep in mind how far we need to come back in order for demand to start flowing again at all levels of the manufacturing and employment food chain.

Production & Capacity Utilization (data: US Federal Reserve)

It is encouraging that there has been recovery in the stock market because positive signs here contribute some improved morale in the face of the huge losses that many people experienced in their retirement accounts in the months following the crisis. Unfortunately, studies have shown that while the major indices have recovered a large chunk of their 50% loss, the average investor did not have enough money back in the market to be able to take advantage of the rapid upswing during the spring and early summer — the average retirement account has recovered by less than 10%. Even this bull market may not last in a slow recovery given P/E ratios are already high, and earnings from trimming spending and related efficiencies have already been utilized.

From a practical point of view for us small businesses, this all means that consumer spending which had grown to be about 70% of the US economy, is going to be a smaller piece of the action for some time. And, the additional reality for many of our ShopBot customers is that residential construction and the work related to it is likely to lag even longer. It also means that, no matter what your politics or what the government eventually does, government spending is going to represent a bigger chunk of work that’s available — most likely with an emphasis on heavy construction, energy, health care, security, education, and other infrastructure elements.

So What’s to Be Done?

Well, who really knows! But I can share our perspective for our own business as well as our thoughts on what we are doing for existing and future ShopBot customers. These perspectives involve moving beyond the depressing raw numbers of the recession, as telling as they are, to recognize that while the economy is down, neither the economy nor business are static. The nature of peoples’ interests and wants changes; the nature of markets changes; our culture continuously re-organizes itself in new ways. And, there is probably a lot more going on now than is immediately apparent. Everyday is a new economy and one thing that is distinctly different now than in the tough times of the 1930′s is that things move quickly.

I’ve previously discussed some of the psychological factors suggesting that people’s purchasing patterns will be irrevocably changed as a result of last year’s financial collapse. It’s a confidence and perspective thing: when 30-50% of everyone’s nest egg has evaporated almost overnight, everyone now knows there is little that can be financially counted on — it’s an alteration in confidence that is producing a re-orientation of most peoples’ perspective on life. The New York Times last weekend reported on a poll they and CBS News had recently taken on the economy. Not surprisingly, in this poll people reported they were now spending less money and were planning to continue to spend less. What the poll also found though, was that people were actually “doing more” … more activities with the family, more outdoors activity, more entertainment, more hobbies and pursuing of personal interests. I previously suggested that new attitudes about values and lifestyle were likely to start taking hold and this seems to be the case.

[excerpted from previous column]

“There’s talk everywhere about a new appreciation of what we value and about fewer frills, less bullshit, and more substance … A context of environmental concern and energy challenge reinforces a new frugality. Respecting the environment with reduced consumption and transportation; carrying out production closer to where it is needed, using local materials, resources, and labor; and the evolving of new and varied energy sources all fit with greater attention to value, lifestyle choices, and attention to community. The expanding interest in gardening, food growing, urban homesteading, farmers markets and local restaurants – the ‘locavore’ movement — are clear examples of a new appreciation of the quality and advantages of community sources and local production … I’m not suggesting that we are about to see a tidal wave of change or that everyone will stop buying mass produced items from Walmart, but there is certainly a shift in the appreciation of items and the nature of our yearning … There’s a range of items that are customized, modified, or personalized that people care about: items that have an aesthetic, design, usage, or craftsmanship aspect that shows through; items that are sensitive or thoughtful; items that acknowledge the precarious environmental situation; items that are fun to acquire or produce real fulfillment; and, items that one has been involved in producing … Not everyone is a tinkerer, nor is it necessary that everyone gets involved in making their own stuff. But the Maker movement (e.g. see MAKE magazine) and today’s thriving, internet-fostered craft community reflect the growing enthusiasm for an understanding and involvement in the production of things, and shows the scale of people interested in creating rather than just consuming. It’s not withdrawal, anti-technology, or anti-science thinking but is about embracing new understandings and new ways of doing things by being involved in them … “

Such new lifestyle perspectives are likely to play a role in how markets and spending behavior evolve for quite a while.

Summarizing Market Opportunities and the Fit of Digital Fabrication

To summarize, the above considerations suggest that in the evolving economic landscape there will be two particularly significant areas of new production demand and opportunity: the increasing level of public spending with all its secondary offshoots; and demand generated by new personal priorities and values. Now, given these directions of potential activity and demand, what I believe should become the central orientation for us at ShopBot and for ShopBotters in general, is the way in which technology and specifically digital fabrication technologies mesh with the emerging areas of opportunity.

Internet and computer-related technologies have made possible whole new ways of doing business that are especially useful for small businesses and individuals. The advantage of immediate access to information, resources, logistics, distribution, analysis, communications, and customers now allows little guys to be competitive with big guys in many domains. And even more relevant for all of us, new digital fabrication technologies take the computing power off the desktop and move it into the real world of production. This makes it possible for small shops and manufacturers to be competitive in ways not possible 10 years ago. Not that a small shop is going to build automobiles, but the cutting, machining, and reproductive capabilities of digital fabrication tools make new and flexible approaches to small scale production, micro manufacturing, and distributed manufacturing of many items a practical and useful possibility.

Digital fabrication technologies are particularly attractive in that they afford a means to return production and good jobs to communities all over the country. Distributed production is consistent with changes in our economic perspective that favor the local production of items using local labor and materials. With respect to increasing government infrastructure investments, these will occur locally and create opportunities for digital fabrication in public construction, rehab, and energy use agendas among others. In consumer areas, small shops with digital fabrication capabilities can play into the expanding interest in customized products and work made to order. Local making, building, producing, and manufacturing are unlikely to be paths to quick riches. But they do provide satisfying and valuable work that can be fulfilling as well as financially rewarding and sustaining.

The specific problem that confronts both ShopBot and ShopBotters is that it’s not possible to know exactly what form the new opportunities I’ve vaguely described will take — or the exact directions we should move or the projects we should undertake. But the issue has our attention. Here at ShopBot we have seen no growth in our own sales over the last 9 months. This comes after 14 years of double digit sales growth just about every year. In particular, the part of our sales derived from customers involved in residential construction and cabinetmaking has been stagnant (compared to ~25% annual growth in 2004-2007).

At ShopBot we have primarily benefited from a regular flow of relatively expensive tools (in ShopBot terms) sold to medium and large operations. These have tended to be companies that previously would have been purchasing higher-priced CNC machines — in the current economy these companies are now looking for equipment that will accomplish the job at a better price; or, they are companies that use the configurability of small robotic tools (i.e. our Buddies) for operations in cell-based production lines, sometimes for operations other than cutting. In addition, we’ve sold tools to a number of small operations making a range of unusual and specialty items. These purchasers see adapting digital fabrication to their operations as a way to put more detailed machining into their products and to increase production. I confess these new kinds or applications are my favorites because they help us push our own visions of what our tools can and should be doing and show us some of those new directions.

Indeed, our primary strategy at ShopBot is to make sure we are simply open and attending to emerging possibilities. Based on ongoing interactions with our customers like those above, we are beginning to invest in new directions and emerging niches that should be representative of our opportunities in affordable robotics and digital fabrication.

More specifically, we are working on several specialty robotic woodworking machines (hopefully you’ll see a few at IWF) as well as placing more emphasis on niches in plastics and aluminum work. Also, you may have already heard about our Tyro Project that recognizes the high level of interest we have received for a small, portable, less expensive ShopBot for crafts, engraving, hobbies, and education. I’ve had a personal reluctance to get involved with a smaller and less powerful tool myself– after all, you can’t use them for boatbuilding — but “attending” in this case means listening to some of the strong signals we’ve received and acting on them. We have become particularly enthusiastic about the potential of a smaller tool in providing education about digital fabrication: what you can do with it; how it works, how to get involved. (The target Tyro unveiling date is 4/2/2010.)

More broadly, the educational need is one we believe important in communicating the capabilities of CNC. For example, lots of people have heard about 3D printing but think of it as expensive and impractical. Very few people appreciate that one can subtractively 3D-print real stuff today, out of real materials and at large scales with CNC tools. In fact, we are enhancing our own training programs this year (including new West Coast training), as well supporting Camp ShopBots and a big Jamboree in Durham this Spring that will focus on exploring new opportunities for digital fabrication.

While tools, support, and training remain our primary focus, we’ve had increased interest from developers and integrators interested in using ShopBot Control Systems for various types of robotic devices. So you will see an enhancement to our information and offerings for developers of controls, motors, drives and software. These ShopBot Control System components are also getting interest from those retrofitting older CNC machines that still have good mechanicals but need new controls, drives, or motors. We can often offer a very affordable rejuvenation for such tools as well as performance improvements to newer tools that are poorly performing or no longer being supported. The economy has been hard on CNC manufacturers, a number of which have shut down, or switched to only selling imported tools and no longer supporting earlier tools.

As a general strategy, it’s also worth mentioning that a rough economy is a good time to explore new opportunities for synergies with vendors, partners, and even competitors. For example, with respect to the latter, we’ve had a really positive experience over our eCabinet collaboration with Thermwood — an alliance that surprised a lot of people. While neither of our companies is happy with the state of the cabinetmaking market in the economy, our interactions with Thermwood have been interesting and stimulating. eCabinets is working great for several dozen ShopBotters who are using it, and we look for other opportunities to work together — useful new relationships can be formed by simply being open in challenging times. [FYI, Thermwood has just released a new version of the eCabinet System.]

Specifically for ShopBotters

So what about ShopBotters? I don’t mean to make searching for new opportunities sound easy. Like us, your resources are probably limited and you can’t try everything or spread yourself too thin. There’s not much help out there for investing in new markets either. Banks are making less money available for loans and leases, and credit card interest is high. The effect of financial de-leveraging has been severe in drawing off the dollars that would otherwise be available for borrowing by solid, small companies. Government is encouraging banks to loan to small businesses and making resources available on the one hand, but on the other is imposing new regulations with respect to loan criteria. This last is probably a good thing in the long run, but in the short run has the effect of choking the flow of loans for small business projects. So, while I can suggest that you should keep your eyes open for new niches and directions, new ways of doing things and offering products and services, I know all this is easier said than done.

Map of US Fabbers to date.

You may already be aware of a major effort we are making to help put in place the new web resource, www.100kGarages.com, as a system to assist ShopBotters in exploring and identifying new opportunities. It’s a place where people wanting to get digital fabrication work done can make connection with ShopBotters interested in doing the work. At the most superficial level, it’s a meeting place for subcontracting jobs. However, our goal is for 100kGarages to serve a much broader purpose in producing a public awareness of the kind of work that can be done skillfully, efficiently, and locally by workshops with digital fabrication tools. We hope to spread the word in way that helps the public (and government) realize there is an easy way to find people to help them get things made, whether they need a piece of trim for a renovation project, 100 storage boxes at a new school, or 1000 prototypes of a new energy-saving product. The world needs to appreciate that the nature of the technology allows for efficient and cost effective access to high-fidelity parts and components that can be communicated and specified in digital models. Too often it is assumed that CNC is only about mass production in big factories — that couldn’t be further from the truth.

We want 100kGarages to provide resources that make it easy for those coming into the system (we call them “Makers) to specify what is it that they want to get made and to be able to easily connect with the digital fabricators (ShopBotters or “Fabbers”) who will do the work. And, we want to provide support structures for these “Fabbers” to make it possible to easily participate in this type of business. To accomplish these things we are working hard at developing content and resources and we have partnered with internet digital fabrication mavens, Ponoko, to create new resources for both Makers and Fabbers. (You may find the Inc Magazine article on Ponoko of interest.)

100kGarages.com is a work in progress and will continue to be, as we experiment and learn what works and what does not work. We’ve posted a report covering where we’ve gotten so far, what’s going to be happening over the next few months, how we expect 100kGararges to evolve, and about efforts to drive business to the site. But it is important to note that 100kGarages is not so much about ShopBot or ShopBots as it is about creating new networks and ways of doing business with digital technology tools. 100kGarages will flourish to the degree that participants make it work and that it is successful in helping to popularize digital fabrication as a way to get things made. It will be more about the growing success of Fabbers and their projects than about us. 100kGarages was recently featured by Springwise as one of the Top 10 Business Ideas of 2010.

Springwise selects 100kGarages (#8).

Refining the Details

As our report indicates, and as several forum commentators have noted about the concept, most people probably won’t want to get just a single part cut out, and will probably not want to design something themselves; they will want an entire and completed product. The idea of 100kGarages is to address both types of needs. For the Maker who just wants a plywood shape cut out, they should be able to come to 100kGarages and easily find a Fabber nearby ready to receive their dxf file and do a quick cut out. But 100kGarages should also function in a process where the Maker uses an intermediate “Designer” who creates complete projects ready for cutting by a Fabber. The “Designer” may be an individual who offers a catalog of designs or who customizes designs purchased by a Maker. The final design can then be transmitted to a Fabber for production. Our hope is to develop a community of Designers associated with 100kGarages as an extension of the websites resources. By way of example, have a look at the designer area on the Ponoko site. Ponoko started out as a cutting service for people with a design. Now it has a featured community of designers, developers, and galleries that fulfill their production needs through Ponoko cutting services.

You might also think of the “Designer” as a software resource. For example, it could be a parametric design system in which the Maker enters their specific measurements, then out comes a toolpath of a complete project such as coffee table, a sign, or a stair stringer ready for cutting by a Fabber. We hope to develop/encourage extensive parametric offerings as 100kGarage resources. You can probably imagine parametric offerings for a number of market segments such as signage, furniture, construction and renovation (a rudimentary sampling is available in the project section of 100kGarages today. We have considered popularizing the concept of parametric applications with a few creative iPhone/Android apps that get Makers hooked up with 100kGarage Fabbers — feel free to jump in with ideas and effort on this one.

For many ShopBotters, it may be important to appreciate that a Fabber may also be a Designer. This already happens to a degree at the moment because many of the jobs going through 100kGarages require design work from the ShopBotter as well as the actual fabbing of the parts. But ShopBotters will also soon be able to formally present themselves as having a “Designer” entry point into the systems as well as a Fabber role.  More generally, as we move forward with educating the Maker public we hope to be able to help clarify for them how the design and production process works, and provide resources for participation at any level of the 100kGarage system.

To summarize, what we’re working on for ShopBotters are tools, software, support, and business initiatives through 100kGarages. I hope that this description of how 100kGarages is developing also illustrates the kind of flexibility we believe needs to be expressed in adjusting to our new economic landscapes and exploring how to create new opportunities for ourselves. That is, 100kGarages is intentionally open-ended because we just can’t know yet what will work and what won’t. We do see 100kGarages offering opportunities for establishing all sorts of different types of working relationships with customers/makers, deisgners, and fabbers. It won’t be for everyone, and it may be that it only works to help establish a single new activity for your own shop or even just an idea for something you might do on your own. But it’s a model for digging in. As you are investing in new directions and markets, keep in mind that none of us can know what’s really going to work for growing our businesses in current conditions. If 1 or 2 ideas in ten actually pay off, we believe we are doing well. We’re hoping that there will be a few aspects of 100kGarages that resonate with the new economic realities and help boot ShopBotters into new agendas.

Area that I toolpathed to use as sample for testing.

Well I’ve done some of it — and after this experimenting I’m still enthusiastic about the painted bas-relief approach — though in the course of this practice exercise, I learned a lot. I learned about both practical technical issues and I learned about some things that don’t work from an aesthetic perspective. And I learned the same thing I always learn when I take up a new project — things take a lot longer and are usually harder than you expect.

Technical bas-relief issues: The problem beginners usually have with bas-relief carving is that of coming to appreciate how tricky it is to use low relief to convey form and depth. In these types of carvings, one only has a little overall depth to work with to evoke the feeling of shapes and forms. This means that you must somehow use edges, transitions, and gradations within a narrow range to achieve suggestions of greater depth and contour than really exist. I was a little cocky and thought I understood all this, but in reality it is much harder to achieve the effects one wants than you would expect. (And, it’s the kind of thing that experts like James Booth are so good at.)

The one thing we all have going for us in working with shallow carvings is that human perception, to a degree, can be tricked. And, it is such trickery that the experienced practitioners of this art have learns to exploit. Here’s a classic example from perception science of how these kinds of tricks  of the eye ‘work’. It’s a phenomenon know as the Cornsweet Effect or Illusion.

In the pattern on the left, for most of us, the rectangle on the left looks a little darker or lower than the one on the right.

If we looked at a graph of perceived darkness or depth in cross section across the two rectangles, what we perceive is something like this when plotted out.

However, the actual grayness of the rectangles (and the transition between them) is depicted to the left. The two rectangles are the exact same gray. You can convince yourself of this by just laying a pencil or your finger across the transition area and then comparing the two sides. You’ll see they are equal darkness. It is the shading transition or simulated contour that suggest a difference that does not exist — fooling our perception into thinking there is more there than the reality. That is, the slight fade-in/fade-out at the edge evokes the perception of a difference on the two sides that does not exist.

The reason that this and most illusions work, and that we can employ tricks like this in bas reliefs, is that our perception is not an accurate mirror of the environment around us. Rather, it is a construction that we build up in our heads as we look out into the world. Because our processing powers are limited in bandwith, the construction is built up from relatively simple processes — basically mental shortcuts. They help us make relatively good but quick guesses about the nature of something that we are looking at. When the data are limited, the shortcuts can mislead us. In the absence of other types of data, such as perspective or parallax, we use the apparent contour created by shading to form our interpretation of the scene. Thus, you generate or enhance the perception of depth in a bas relief by carefully working the gradations at transitions to heighten the perception of relative depth.

Well …, I thought I knew about this kind of thing, but my initial 3D models were all too flat and they did not exploit building-up and rounding-over edges to create greater depth effects. Here’s an example. Note how you can hardly see the contours in the background … even though I thought I had distinctively manipulated the height of regions. But I was thinking about them in terms of the reality that I knew (i.e. trees far in the background), and did not initially model them distinctively enough to convey much of anything. Better inspection of the preview simulation might have helped, but at the time I didn’t understand what I was really looking for.

So I reworked my practice carving/painting to enhance the background appearance. And then again tried generating a bunch of samples of the carved region to do test painting. One of the techniques I wanted to evaluate (mentioned previously) was the inclusion of v-carved lines within the modeling. I’ve been impressed by the way drawing on a Wacom tablet allows you to control the width of a drawn line by pressure on the stylus. The Aspire software will translates lines of varying widths into v-carved depths and I was interested to also apply this technique to convey a bit of the feel of a a cross between drawn and carved lines in the resulting piece. What is really neat about Aspire’s capabilities is that these v-carved lines can be applied on top of the 3D modeling and their depth will be modulated so that the line width remains correct, even as it moves across undulating areas.

I did some samples with and without the v-carving added to the sample area. I also did some samples where I did the v-carving first so that I could pre-paint the lines before doing the raster cutting of the rest of the model. I was hoping this might allow some tight detailing in the final picture that would be hard to achieve without tedious brush work. The 3 images below show the v-carving (left); the carving as it looks on top of the 3D form (center); and a pre-painted v-carved area, before the 3D contour cutting is done (right; ignore the sawdust).

At the left is a test board with 5 of my samples of various painting and color approaches (details and on individual samples shown below). You can see I did have some fun exploring colors with these samples … and that some are more interesting than others. From an aesthetic point of view, I think there are some pretty interesting effects that come from the painting on relief. I had some initial concerns that the effect may be more like a sign than a painting — but I’m less worried about that now. I am disappointed with my v-carving experiment. Here it looks overly busy and more like random scratching than something integrated into the piece. I’m thinking this reflects a need for the drawn lines to be more disciplined and better related to the modeling. As well, I used a 60deg cutter here; next time I’ll try a 90deg in order to reduce the impression of gouging and give better width effects. The pre-painting of the v-carving also did not work particularly well. A thought on this one is to pre-paint and then mask the painting with rubber cement (to be removed later) so that I don’t have to worry about painting over the detail work.

All-in-all, I’m enthusiastic about the next step which will be to develop several serious full-size painting/carvings and produce them. At this point, I’m planning to treat them as a type of 3D print — with a specified number of painting/carvings cut and similarly painted from each design. I’m giving some thought to applying the background colors with a ShopBot having an airbrush, but I enjoy the painting work and I’m not sure I want to automate it.

[These samples show some color experiments; first panel has no v-carving; last two panels have pre-painted v-carving.]

Chine Log Joint

I previously described the basic idea of stitch-and-glue boat building (and see the new Sam Devlin link below). So now I should confess that beyond my interest in backyard boat building a primary impetus of this particular pram project was as a “proof-of-concept” of one of those “great ideas” — that so far has not caught on.

By way of introduction to the idea behind the project: My thought about the standard approach to stitch-and-glue building was that as much as I like it, it suffers because of the details of the stitch-and-glue joint. This joint replaces the chine-log structure of traditional, hard-chine boat building (see Figure). The chine log creates an un-attractive corner in traditional boats made with planks or plywood sheets that attracts debris and leaks. The stitch-and-glue technique has all the advantages for hull shape and strength that I discussed earlier. But, the stitch-and-glue approach also involves creating an epoxy fillet at the seam. While an improvement over the chine log, this newer joint requires a lot of work and much sanding and finishing. It also leaves the end grain of the plywood sheet exposed on the outside, which means that both the inside and outside of the joint must be encapsulated in fiberglass tape and extensively faired and sanded to be attractive.

Stitch-and-glue Joint

I came up with an alternative approach that I wanted to explore. And, and it ended up being dependent on being able to precisely cut and machine the panels — another reason for needing a CNC tool beyond just getting the shape exactly right for developable surfaces (see design discussion in earler post). The concept is to internalize the epoxy joint inside the adjoining plywood panels by laminating up each of the panels, in place, from two sheets that have an inward facing bevel. This creates in cross-section a shape like a deep birds beak making for lots of surface area for gluing. The joint itself is is fully filled with epoxy by injection after all the panels are in place. This makes for a strong and water-tight plastic joint with an outward facing edge that is solid epoxy. The end grain is completely encapsulated by epoxy that is formed to the wood over a large surface area. This makes the external edge of the joint a lot more durable against abrasion and water penetration than the standard stitch and glue system (though you would probably put additional thin protective sheathing over the entire hull as you do with the other techniques). On the inside of the hull, there is a clean and neat joint requiring only quick smoothing of the epoxy in the inside corner. The internal joint can be additionally stiffened with longitudinal fibers during the build-up if desired.

Structural Internal Seam (SIS)

It may seem that because of needing to do the additional lamination step that the technique involves a lot of additional work, but this effort is mitigated by allowing you to work with very thin and easy to manage plywood. Building with either the external or internal shell first, the sheets are much easier to handle and bend into position and in most cases can even be held for initial gluing with masking tape rather than using the wire-tie “stitches”. Also, because the lamination is done in position, it adds considerable strength and stiffness and allows the boat to be made of thinner plywood than otherwise. Engineering tests of the breaking strength of the joint show it to be equal to both the chine log joint and epoxy fillet joint. In all cases, when joint samples are stressed to breaking, the break occurs outside the joint.

Of course, the whole system depends on the panels being precisely cut (outside and inside panels will be slightly different) and the joint edges exactly machined. But this is pretty easily done with CNC. Additionally, Bill Young has suggested a technique for adding matching tabs and slots along the edges of the sheets and panels forming the joint (later easily sanded off) so that the hull almost snaps together by itself — I haven’t tried this yet …

So now having this info about the building technique, you can now appreciate that the both the kids rocker, shown in previous posting, and the full-size pram are prototype tests of the building technique. In the case of the pram, I’ve cut out a small cross section of the joint so you can see how it looks. More pictures of the larger pram will follow as final building proceeds, but I won’t be cutting any chunks out of it.

I have also been interested in applying variations of this technique to building furniture where the interest is in making curved, light, and stiff pieces. I guess I’ll save that for the next MAKEcation.

A couple of ShopBotter-related boat links that may be of interest:

Sam Devlin (Devlin Boats) is one of the leading professional practitioners of stitch-and-glue building. He’s written several excellent books explaining the his methods and is also a ShopBot owner. (I have never been able to convince him to try the SIS technique.)

Graham Byrnes, who’s boating get-togethers I’ve attended for the last several years, is the ‘Crocadile Dundee’ of sailboat racing, boat-building, and ShopBotting. He is a cult figure in distance, small-sailboat, racing and uses a ShopBot to cut parts for his boats and kits. Click here for WoodenBoat article on Graham. Check out B&B Boats.

(My guess is that most people who try to take a vacation without leaving town discover that it is hard to get away from regular work. For my MAKEcation I continue to struggle to find time away from both the exciting stuff at ShopBot and the urgent things that just seem to need to get done. But as you’ll see in this and my next report, I am getting started on both this art experiment and my boat building project.)

Sample water scene from boat.

What I have been doing is some learning and making tests of the methods I expect to use for the painted reliefs. This has involved getting started with Aspire, and applying it to some simplified sample cases. So here’s a bit of an example. The picture on the left was taken from my decked canoe (described previously) while paddling up the creek last weekend at Graham Byrnes’ most recent small boat mess-about (Graham is a ShopBotter and an amazing boat designer and builder; we hope to have a feature story up on him shortly). This is not a particularly interesting image, but illustrates the sort of “water” and landscape themes I’d like to explore. While out on the water I take a lot of pictures and I make simple sketches — the drawing here is from a similar place on the water. I plan to use the pictures and sketches to plan the relief pieces by elaborating the drawing and exploring color schemes as shown in the colored drawing.

The painted drawing becomes a planning tool for creating interesting shapes to carve that are loosely related to the original scene and it provides the beginning steps in thinking about the staining and painting plan.

Shape components in Aspire.

3D Aspire model colored for clarity.

Here what I’ve done is experimented with translating the drawing into shapes by bringing it into an Aspire work space as a bitmap background image. Then I’ve used the the Aspire tools to develop shapes — turning “working models” into “components” in the software. In this case, I’ve used both the “Create Shape Tool” and the “Two Rail Sweep” tools to develop the 3D model.

I’m also interested in expressing some of the textural characteristics of drawing in the piece. So I’ve converted some of the drawing components into closed vectors in another layer. Then I used these vectors to generate a v-carve tool path that will be “projected” onto the 3D model. I’m not particularly happy with the look and integration of these vectors — a technique that needs some more exploration.

These last two images show views of the simulated carved piece, and then a front view version of the carving with some colors being tested in a digital paint program. In addition to Aspire, I’ve invested in a Wacom digitizing tablet/stylus. The Wacom and the included painting software makes it very easy to do the color experiments and puttering.

Preview of 3D Carving.

Mocked-up 3D preview with color.

Now, on to start doing the real cutting, carving, and painting …

Sketchup model of Bill's Exmore, VA shop.

Here's the street view.

Well, I’m only about a month late getting started on my MAKEcation! I’ve been bogged down by all those small projects at ShopBot that just seemed too important to leave unfinished. Bill Young and I also spent some time on developing resource and marketing plans 100kGarages.com — and I don’t know if that’s work or MAKEcation. It’s certainly fun and exciting to visit the shop in Exmore [View a recent "LinkerLog" cutting project in the shop; Or see MoMA project, below], see all the projects going on, and hear a lot of provocative new ideas (not to mention pumpkin cinnamon rolls at the Yellow Duck Cafe just around the corner). But my MAKEcation actually got underway last week.

Two PRSalphas at work.

It was a pretty mundane start: Beginning with clearing away the debris from around the pram (the small, unfinished boat I will be working on) in my shed, shopping for epoxy (for both the seascape and boat projects), and shopping for a digitizing pad for doing computer drawing. I’ve mentioned that my wife and I share our shop and (old PRT) ShopBot. Our shop organizational standards are quite a bit different — so without putting it in a way that will get me in too much trouble — I’ve been re-organizing the shop a bit too. This includes putting a new work surface down on the ShopBot. As reported earlier, I’m also planning to do a bit of an update to the tool (just to feel good about it) and install a “Retro-Z” axis”. I’ll report on that shortly …

Pram ready for new work after 15 years ...

By way of introduction to my boat project (I actually need to cover two concepts at the core of the project, this will be the first), I should say that basically it is a small plywood boat of the construction method known as “stitch-and-glue”. It’s a method that has been popular with amateur and a few professional boat builders. I became fascinated with the technique about 20 years ago because of a nifty feature. The plywood panels for a hull are pre-cut to shape, and as they are pulled together at the seams — actually “stitched” with copper wire or plastic wire-ties — they take on the shape of the boat. It is the geometry of the curved edges that when brought tight force the shape of the panels into its designed form. It’s almost like magic. Very few added framing structures are required, and they are added after the hull is formed — molds or building frames of the traditional sort are not needed (though usually there is a simple building jig to keep the hull in position for work, as in my picture here).

In fact, I got so fascinated by this whole approach to boat building that with a partner, Joe Dominic, I spent a couple of years developing a boat design program that would allow one to fully explore the kinds of shapes that can be developed for hulls using flexed or bent plywood and this amazing ability to form sturdy shapes by bringing curves together. I wrote a magazine article about the whole process that was published in Messing about in Boats in 1995. Here is a link to a copy of the article which does a better job of explaining the whole geometrical concept for those who are interested than I have done here [Designing Plywood Boats]. The article includes a small version of the outlines of the panels for the pram that I am actually making in the shed. You can cut the small panels out, carefully tape them together, and see exactly how she’ll look.

The article is a little dated and was created in reference to our shareware software program called “BTDZN”, short for “Boat Design” — it was the DOS era, and one needed short file names. The sort of design work that is described is known as “developable surfaces”. One reason I bring it up is that I believe that the method offers a potential for furniture making as well as boat building because it creates a way to work with interesting curved shapes that are also stiff and light. My understanding is that this type of developable surface design with sheet materials for stitch-and-glue can be done in current versions of Rhino, though I haven’t had a chance to actually try it out.

View of rocker-pram.

Kids rocker, built as pram.

To test out my early pram pattern, I scaled it to about 3/8ths and used the resulting hull for a rocker for my kids.

And speaking of kids and boats, many years ago Bill Young contributed to ShopBotters the Part Files for a small toy row boat, cut from 3mm door-skins plywood and assembled with the stitch and glue method [Toy Boat]. This is a mini version of a full size “Weekend Dinghy” designed by Karl Stambaugh and available in full size kit form from Seaside Small Craft.

Finally, you’ll notice we are experimenting here with a new format (of the blog type) for publishing ShopBot’s Web Columns. We’ve always thought that our web columns are more archival and educational than the typical blog and so have not called them blogs (I think we started before blogs was a word), but we are thinking this format will make it a bit easier for both readers and authors and also allow for a little interactive commentary. Your thoughts are appreciated.

Different would be using a ShopBot to actually make stuff myself. You would think ?? But it’s the old story. Many hours working with ShopBots, but little time making anything. My thought is that I’m going to take a 6 week sabbatical, actually what you could call “MAKEcation” (a term coined by MAKE Magazine’s Phil Torrone for a vacation where one builds projects instead of sunbathing).

I’ve got two projects in mind. First, for a number of years I have been interested in developing a ShopBot-related art project. I’ll explain this a bit more below, but I’m thinking I’ll spend my mornings on this concept which I expect will involve some Aspire work and a lot of ShopBotting. My second project is the matter of finishing the little backyard plywood boat from which I was distracted to start work on ShopBot about 16 years ago. The boat, just a little 8′ pram, sits unfinished in our barn/shed. My hope is that there is enough left of it to make for interesting afternoons. Both of these projects have a bit of a story behind them. Part of the relaxation of this MAKEcation is going to be babbling about what I’m up to with each of them as I work along.

My vision for the art project is to create a type of painted, bas-relief marinescape/seascape (you notice the boat theme is pretty pervasive for me). I’ve always loved large, somewhat abstract, seascapes with lots of play of color and light. I imagine expressing something like this in relief, painted/stained onto wood. It may end up looking more like a hokey sign than art — but I’ve been looking forward to exploring what will evolve from these techniques.

As I’ve attended Camp ShopBots over the last few years, I have tried to take along my Bill-Young-built-ShopBot-cut (Karl Stambaugh-designed), decked canoe that can be both sailed and paddled. I usually get some opportunity to explore the local waterways. My decked canoe in action at ShopBotter Graham Byrnes’ ‘messabout’, Oriental NC.

I’ve got a lot of pictures and sketches from on the water on these trips that I’m hoping to use as material for the imagery and starting points in this project. Here are a few examples:

Beaufort harbor, NC Camp

Swamp, Orlando Camp

Beach, CT Camp

Bay, FL Keys Camp

Coast, NC Camp (hurricane year)

Pacific, Maker Faire

I hate to admit it, but the little ship that launched a thousand ShopBots has sat rotting in my barn since we started shipping those first, utility-strut ShopBots. But I’m hoping I’ll be able to resurrect it. I’ll need to find the old plans and do a lot of restoration just to get started. The pram design emerged from boat design software that I developed and sold about 20 years ago (with Joe Dominic). That’s how I met Bill Young. The boat also incorporates a new type of joint (new 16 years ago) for boat building that I’ll also describe. It’s not an idea that has caught on … but if I explain it well enough here — you never can tell. In foreground, the unfinished and deteriorating pram in its building jig. In the background you can see fleet of Bill Young-built small boats (blue decked canoe and white 1-man canoe, I believe Bill still provides Part Files for a similar canoe).

The barn/workshop is a bit of a disaster. Partly lack of attention from me, and also because my wife Sallye who uses our ShopBot that is housed there almost constantly, embraces a different level of organization than I am comfortable with. Bottom line is that I’ll probably need to spend the first week of my MAKEcation getting things set up the way I’d like. That’ll may include a Retro-Z upgrade to our PRTstandard (the original prototype – still hard at work) as a kind of present to myself. My plan is to start September 15 and MAKEcation until the end of October. I’m looking forward to finally doing a little ShopBotting … (more to come)