The Seat and the back of the chair are grouped together in this blog post because they are both processed from the same material. Instead of using solid wood we are using a 1” thick Baltic Birch Plywood as the core material. This makes processing multiple chairs very simple using sheet stock on a 4’x8’ ShopBot.
The seat of the chair is set at 2” thick, both for appearance and for strength, so we need to laminate two sheets of 1” inch Baltic Birch Plywood together to make the 2” sheets.
Nesting 2D:
The Seat and the Back are the simplest to nest simply because they are cut directly from sheet stock and because they are both completely 2D cuts. To start with we extracted curves from the edges of the parts and from the areas that are accepting the legs and arms. These curves are what we will use to create the toolpaths.
The seats of the chairs fit nicely together simply by rotating them and placing them next to each other. (Note: Do not “mirror” the seats because if you are going to accommodate arms you will need to make sure and mill the slots for the arms in the tops of the seats, if you mirror the parts you will then be milling these arm slots on the bottoms or the parts.) The backs do not fit together as perfectly as the seats but still nest well enough to get a good yield from a sheet. The back also cannot be “mirrored” and must be placed face down because you will need to cut a step into the inner circle to support the center decorative piece.
Now that both sheets are nested, the next step will be how we choose to hold down the parts while they are being cut. Both the seats and back are two small and awkwardly shaped to be held down by vacuum pressure alone and we do not want to screw down our parts because of the holes it would leave. Our solution is to use tabbing and to hold down the remaining parts with screws. Since the seats are so closely nested together we will need to add the tabs to the inner circles and screw down the circle pieces to the table. (The inner circle cut outs are useful in creating a hold down system, but mostly they remove excess weight in the chair that would be a real inconvenience in the final product.) In the backs we can add tabs to the outer perimeter since we can screw down the excess pieces that are left around the parts.
Process of Nesting:
Nest seat with top facing up
Make a closed line where you want to pocket out the slot for the arm connections.
Add tabs to the inner circle for table hold down (when you are screwing down parts make sure that the vacuum system is also running to hold the spoilboard down, or that something is keeping the spoilboard secure and level during cutting.)
Nest the backs facing down, so the part that your back would rest on is against the table.
Make a closed line around the perimeter of the piece making sure to include a slut where the upper part of the arm meets the chair.
Create a line that will generate a toolpath for a step in the inner circle.
Add tabs to the outer edges of the piece since you cannot add them to the inner circle because of the step that will be cut.
We will use a Compression Bit for all of the toolpaths on these parts because it will not tear out the top or bottom layers of the plywood during cutting. We are using two different sizes of Compression Bits, one for 2” sheets and one for 1” sheets.
Steps to cutting the seats:
Make pocketing cuts for the arms in the Seats.
Make the profile cuts around the inside circles including the tabs.
Make the profile cuts around the outside of the parts.
Steps to cutting the backs:
Make the inside step profile cut (this cut only goes 7/8” through the material)
Make the interior circle profile cut.
Make the profile cuts around the outside of the parts including the tabs.
Before we make the Motise holes for the legs we need to attach the seat to the back.
Use a table saw to cut the complementary angles along the bottom of the Chair Back and the rear of the Chair Seat.
Glue the two pieces together and let it set. (Make sure it is really set because we will be milling the Mortise holes into the glue joint.)
Now we need to set up a jig on the backside of the CNC table to cut the Mortise holes in the bottom of the assembled parts.
Fasten the chairs upside-down on the back of the table using blocks and other extra scrap that will stop the part from moving side to side and from lifting.
Create the pocketing toolpaths based on the model that was developed.
Cut the pockets out making sure to leave a little excess space for the legs to fit in smoothly
We used epoxy to join the acrylic legs to the wood seat so leaving a healthy gap in the Mortise was desirable since the epoxy would fill in any extra space.
If you’ve been following our previous articles you’ll know that we have been sharing all of our secrets for creating a successful product line, marketing it to a particular group of people, packaging it so people will be falling over themselves to buy it and finally, getting the product on the internet and out to brick and mortar stores. Now that you’ve gotten your one, or maybe two products, and you’ve sold a few of them, you may start to wonder what else you can do to increase sales. When you reach this crossroad there are a few options you have to increase sales. You either need to reach more people in your market, create new products that will excite your existing customers, or you need to create a completely different line of products and start ALL OVER. When we are faced with these crossroads the correct choices are clear: Reach more people, and create products for existing customers. In this article we will explore how to take something you’re already producing and make changes such as additional features, or perhaps something as simple as a size change. We will also discuss how you can use Social Networking like Facebook and YouTube to reach more customers and get people excited about your products.
For the purposes of this article we will continue with our example of the Wooden Cutting boards that we have talked about previously. By now you should know where your material is coming from, and how to fixture the material to your CNC machine. As we all know, just because you buy quality material, and you have an outstanding fixturing system, things happen that make it so you have product loss as you’re manufacturing. For example: After a few production runs of our Medium Sized Cutting Board, we had a sizable pile in the corner of defective boards. It could be something as simple as a chipped out handle, or maybe the board slipped on the fixture during cutting and caused a cut where we didn’t want one. One day my youngest son (Scott’s Brother) came into the shop and asked what we were going to do with all the scrap boards sitting in the corner. We replied that we were either going to throw them away or use them for firewood. He replied “Why don’t you just make smaller cutting boards with the material in the center that is still good?”. What a brilliant idea! This goes right back to what we’ve said before, take material that was previously considered waste, and make it into something useful! So our Small Size Cutting Board was Born! It is just that simple to have a pile of “wasted” money turn into another vane of gold.
Let’s also consider that since we have our three sizes of cutting boards that all the people who would buy these from us have, and now we’ve reached the point that we need our existing Cutting Board customers come back and buy more products from us. We can now take the exact same board we have already been producing and add some V-carving from the Mega Clip Art Collection (available from ShopBot) or some 3D carving from Vector Art 3D or any of the other clip art distributors that can be found on the Internet. Now we have something new and different that will appeal to those who already love our Classic Cutting Board. We’ve created a collectible line of products. We can add more carvings and more designs each quarter or each year so that our customers can come back to the website and hopefully decide they need the new styles in their kitchen. Lets take that one step further. We’re now going to use the shapes and profiles found in the Mega Clip Art Collection to make Cutting Boards in different shapes. We can make Boards in the shape of animals, vehicles and many more. Here’s another idea: Lets V-carve shapes in the corners of the Cutting Board so that dough can be pressed into them to make relief shapes before baking, or lets make a board with a groove cut in it for carving meat so the juices will flow to one side of the board. The possibilities are endless!
This next topic is one that most people above a certain age think is useless and a waste of time. Social Networking. Social Networking is a constantly moving target that is centered around websites that people frequent in their spare time to either communicate with their friends, colleagues, potential customers, or a place for them to see something new and different. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are three examples of Social Networking sites designed to attract people to share what is going on in their lives and communicate using short messages and pictures. YouTube and Flikr are designed for people to upload videos (YouTube) or pictures (Flikr) to share information, share a laugh or what have you. Businesses are starting to utilize these sites for Instructional Videos, or posting pictures of new products for all to see. Even ShopBot has a twitter account! Facebook has what is called “AdPages” for local businesses to post their hours of operation, or for Online Businesses to promote their products. Businesses of both kinds can post their Special Offers as well as pictures of products. They also use these sites to allow the customer to express a concern or complaint in public space, so your potential customers can see how you deal with issues publicly. We were skeptical of the usefulness of these sites too. At the IWF 2010 in Atlanta this year we attended a seminar on Social Networking, and were shown statistics on how many people in the United States use Mobile Devices such as Droid Phones and iPhones. Since these devices have applications (Apps) specially made to interact with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others, people spend a fair amount of their free time on these sites. So we started to look around us while in Atlanta to verify these claims. While riding the MARTA we saw that literally 95% of the people around us were constantly on their mobile devices, whether they were playing games, or texting, or who knows what, they were using the device. Chances are, they were also using social networking.
So, how can you use those sites to work for you? The truth is, something that may work this week may not work next month. Technology moves at the speed of people, and business does too. You will need to decide which Social Networking site you wish to use first, and create a personal account. You can use this personal account to learn and become familiar with the interface, which will make you more effective when the time comes to create the business page. Once you learn how to use the site, it is advisable to create an account strictly for business purposes. We will cover basic use of one of these Social Networking sites known as Twitter. In Twitter you have a following and followers. Your following are the users that you search for and decide you want to see more information from. Your followers are the users who have found you and want to hear more from you. You can search in twitter using keywords which will show matches in other’s tweets (which is what a post is called) and content users have posted like captions or links. Your tweets should be pertinent to those who would want to purchase your products. If we’re selling Cutting Boards, you may wish to post recipes for cookies, or showcase other sites who sell cookie cutters, or rolling pins. Every now and then when you’re tweeting you need to drop in a url to your own website, so people will know that when they need a cutting board you’ll be there for them. Having pictures posted will give them something to look at, and make sure to include a direct link to the product page for that product in the caption so its a one click route for your customer. Also, you can create lists of other users who you follow that could be interesting to your customer, which will keep them coming back to see what you and you’re following are talking about next.
At the IWF we learned that there is a shift in customer searches as people find that they would rather find a video on YouTube to watch rather than search on Google and sift through millions of web sites. So, you can create an instructional video on how to use the V-carved cookie molds available on your website, so not only can people get excited about what they can make with your product, but they will know where to send the money! Customers also love to see where the things they buy come from, so give them a virtual tour of your shop. Show them how your ShopBot cuts the 3D files. Don’t worry about giving them “too much” information on your product, If they wanted to make their own cutting board they would have already. Remember that you’re the crafter. In their eyes you make things happen that are impossible to the common person, and they’re right. You have talents and ideas that you’re sharing with the world. Social Networking sites allow you to address your customers in a more personal environment which will make them feel more comfortable with you and so they will be more likely to purchase products from you, rather than the crafter who only has a text filled website.
Like we said before, Social Networking is an ever evolving tactic to increase sales. The best idea is to observe what others are doing, even in other industries, and see if it will work for you. Or if you have a new idea, try it out! You never know if something will work until you try it. There are no set rules, and if you make a mistake, its no problem, because the internet is all about the flavor of the week. No one will remember small spelling mistakes, or bad grammar, it only makes you appear more organic.
The final topic we would like to cover is Customer Service. In our experience good Customer Service is paramount when it comes to having happy customers that will tell their friends about you and return themselves. Giving good customer service is not a difficult thing to do. Answer Emails in a timely fashion, be polite and helpful on the telephone, and try and make your point of sale system as user friendly as possible. When you encounter an issue (note I said “when” not “if”) do your best to help the customer get to the end result that they want. What I mean is, if they ordered a product from you, and are unhappy with the quality, or felt like they were mislead by your advertising, see if it is possible to send them a new product, or try and help them understand where the miscommunication occurred. You may encounter a customer that is so enraged or displeased that nothing you do will make them happy. At this point it is very difficult to keep your calm, but you must do so. You will get more negative repercussions from being rude to a customer than you will get from merely letting the customer fuss and fume for a short time. As long as you do everything in your power (with in reason of course) to see to it that the issue is solved, then you can’t go wrong. Customers will recognize that and return to your business in the future.
Over the last few months we have given you our perspective on a strategy for creating a successful business. We have explained in as much detail as we can how to come up with ideas that interest you and generate products to suit those ideas, how to source materials and utilize materials that otherwise were waste. We talked about how to set up a useful website, and how you can approach store owners with your products. We’ve talked about customer interaction, both online and on the phone. The next steps are up to you. Take these suggestions and make something with them! Use the tools you have and make yourself successful, because no one will do it for you. No one ever claimed that running your own business was easy, and not always fun. In the end once you can look back at your sales sheets and see an upward trend, you will feel accomplished and confident that you have created a Successful Business.
In the last articles we have gone from thinking about possible products all the way to fixturing your CNC equipment and then packaging and shipping. But how are your potential customers supposed to know that you sell the exact product they’ve been searching for? You’ve got to now get the word out. In this installment we will explore the possible routes you can take in internet advertising, and physical marketing. We urge you to think about the products you buy for your home or your business and recognize the ones you would rather just order online, or the ones that you feel more comfortable driving to a store to pick out in person. Then try to figure out where your product falls in those two categories. Some products aren’t suitable for online stores, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a nice looking website showcasing your work, which will ultimately bring your customers right through the door of your or someone else’s store to buy them.
More and more people are shopping online these days. Some find it easier to search the internet and research products from the comfort of their own home, rather than fighting traffic, and pushing through crowded stores to get the items they want or need. Others enjoy the ability to visit stores and shops just to see what all is out there. This isn’t to say that a single person does all of their shopping online, or all of their shopping in stores. In reality most people do a combination of both, so it is important to be represented in both places!
With that said, let’s start with the web…. Web Hosting and editing:
If you don’t already have a website, don’t worry, here are a few suggestions to get you started. The first step is finding a web hosting company that you feel comfortable with. The best idea is to talk to others you know and find out who they are using. We have talked before about using others’ experience to put you ahead of the game, and it is no different when it comes to choosing a web hosting provider. We have used DreamHost for years and are very happy with them. They offer services that make it easy for us to quickly implement new ideas to our website, and they have an active service team that responds quickly, and is helpful whenever we run into issues. Once you’ve picked a webhost, you need content for your new website. Some of the hosts will have a web based website creator which will allow you to fill in your content, but doesn’t let you have full control over the look and feel of the site, while others will require you to create your site externally and upload it to the server. If you are not very html savvy, you may wish to start with a more simple creation method, but we urge you to learn more about using the internet and utilizing tools such as WYSIWYGs (What You See Is What You Get) which is a computer program that will allow you to create webpages much like Microsoft Word lets you create text documents, and then generates the html code for you. We use a program called Dreamweaver, but there are literally thousands of different WYSIWYGs out there, and they all offer something unique and different. There are also sites on the internet devoted to selling premade templates for websites. They will start you off with a look and feel, and allyou have to do is load the content into your WYSIWYG and enter the information that is related to your business. Don’t feel rushed, take your time and understand how the different parts of your website come together and make it an effective tool for you.
Search Engine Optimization:
After getting your website up and running, you need to make sure your site is Search Engine Optimized (SEO) so people can find you using Search Engines and Crawlers. Google, Bing, MSN and Yahoo are just a few of the more popular Search Engines that people use, but there are many more throughout the internet. Each of these “crawl” your page in slightly different ways, but the general rules for SEO are the same. When you optimize your webpages, all you’re trying to do is make it easier for the programs to find out what your pages are about. You can use tools like “Meta Tags” to target words people search for, and the Search Engine will read those words and display your site when a potential customer searches for that. For example, let’s say we’re wanting to advertise our cutting board website, and we want to specifically target those who are interested in 3D carvings. We could use a Meta Tag that included the words “Cutting Board” and “3D Carving”. With a little searching, you can find days worth of reading about exactly how to SEO your website. This process never ends. Small things, like changing your website regularly can go a long way to bumping you up in the search results.
Paid Internet Advertising:
If you have an advertising budget, you can create accounts with Google AdWords or Microsoft AdCenter for example. These sites will display banner ads that you design for a fee. Part of this is learning how to target keywords that are specific to your products and services. You will also need to learn how to design effective ads. Advertising online is very competitive, and the services you use will rank your keywords, and your ads, and you will be placed in the search pages accordingly. You have the option of spending however much money you like, on a daily or monthly basis and this will determine your possible “impressions” which is how often your ad shows on any given keyword. Depending how much you spend depends on how high up on the search ladder you appear. Be careful, as you can spend quite a lot on advertising in a short time. These advertising services will also give you the option of joining their “Content Network” which is a collection of sites associated with them that have they’re own ad banners. You can recognize these banners if they are in the Google Network because they say “brought
to you by Google” at the bottom. This is a good example of an ad listed in Google’s Content Network, instead of their Search Network which only displays when you search a topic. These ads can be large and graphical, video, or just plain text, its all dependant on how much you want to spend. We can’t stress enough, that if you go wild on internet advertising you could find yourself with a large chunk of your profits flying out of the door, but like
everything in life, if you use it in moderation it can help significantly. Do a little reading, and find success stories and try to figure out the happy medium for your application. You may find that using AdWords or AdCenter will help you initially gain recognition, and after a while your SEO endeavors may make it so you no longer need to spend money with external advertising firms.
Along with the paid ads showing you will get the ability to do quite extensive analysis of the visits to your web site through AdWords and AdCenter. All of this data will allow you to get a profile of the visitors to your site, and enable you to fine tune your keywords and ads to better meet your customers shopping habits. Google offers a service called Analytics, which is separate from AdWords, and it gives you the ability to get information about your visitors such as, state, search engine used, time of day they viewed the page, and much more. All these tools will help you decide where to spend your money in internet advertising. Don’t think you can just set up an AdWords
or AdCenter account and never worry with it again. Just like technology, this is an ever changing environment, and without moderation, you can find yourself at the bottom of the “advertising food chain”. Again, go slow with this
and take the entire process one step at a time as you gain more knowledge and experience.
You can always spend big money and let someone else take control of your site and advertisements and have them just do it for you, but you are a builder, a creator of products, so shouldn’t you build your own knowledge base and web site? That is up to you. Customer Interaction:
Now that you have the website up and running, remember to put the URL (Universal Resource Locator or “web address”) on your business cards and every thing you print, like invoices, flyers, etc. Let’s say I picked up one of your business cards and looked at it later, I would try to visit your website to remind me of what you make. If you make an item that is not on your web site, I may have forgotten you made the one I liked and continue to look for it
elsewhere. But if you had a picture on your website, I could contact you about getting one. Even if you work mostly on custom products for customers, you should have a gallery on your website showcasing what you have done for other people. This will accomplish 2 things. It will get your potential customers excited about the work you can produce, and it may give them some inspiration on what it is they want you to make. You can also more easily illustrate ideas when you’re on the phone with a customer if you can direct them to a gallery of pictures that is located on your website. If you’re interested in taking on jobs that are not easy to show on a website, be sure to include a small paragraph explaining what kinds of work you’re willing to take on.
Find a way to talk about your products to everyone. Someone will tell someone who will tell someone and somewhere in all of this, you will get connected with a buyer. We have found that “Word of Mouth” is an incredibly powerful tool. Social Networking plays directly into this. We will talk in a later article about Social Networking, because like you’ve seen with online advertising, it too is a huge subject for discussion.
Have you handed out free samples? If not, what are you waiting for? The power of having your products out in the field of buyers is often overlooked. If buyers cannot see your product, how can they get excited about it and purchase it? Don’t think of giving free samples as giving money away, because that is just not the case. Let’s think about it. If you sell a product for $14.95 and you give one away, how many people will that one person show? Maybe 1… maybe 100! That’s the gamble you play, but more often than not, if it looks nice and the person is excited about it, more people will hear about it. Even if it is displayed somewhere in their house, you can be assured that their friends and family will see it and tell others.
In this installment we talked about web advertising vs. “brick and mortar” stores. Have you talked to and shown your product to local stores who might put one or two of your items in their store? Remember these store owners and managers are not the big bad wolf! They need product to sell and are always looking for that something special that will drive their sales figures up. Your product just might be that item that they are looking for. Take samples and walk in and chat with them. Offer to leave the samples. Provide product for them to test their ability to sell by leaving them on consignment. The choice is yours; you can either have your product on the store shelves with customers looking at them or keep them on your shelf where only you see them. Store owners are sometimes leery of starting a new product line with
a supplier they have no experience with, so be patient with them, they’re only looking out for their own business as well. Also, try to be a one stop shop for them. If your product requires a rack to display, generate a possible rack for them as well. Try to be aware of the space requirements they have, and the color scheme in the rest of the store. Not only will this make the store owner more apt to use your products in their store, it will make your products more appealing to the customers themselves!
Next month we will focus on expanding your product line without starting over with part 1, where you started to think about and find a direction for what you were going to build. This step will become the cornerstone to keeping your products fresh and exciting. You will always have new items to keep your existing customers coming back to see what is new from you. We will also explore briefly Social Networking and how it can help you in the worldwide marketplace.
Some time back I posted a project we completed on the ShopBot Forum that showed 4 Walnut Legs machined with 4 concave sides (Read forum thread). This machining was done by manual manipulation of a cutting file similar to what the Virtual Tool “Extruder” does. The difference is that when the Extruder extrapolates a file, it takes the points from the polyline and rasters the perpendicular axis (X or Y) back and forth at a fixed Z height, based on the Z height at that point on the polyline. In this case, a test cut using an extruder file, showed unacceptable chipout on the edges. I needed to write a file that rastered in the X direction and moved the Z in a concave motion similar to a 3D cutting file. Here is how I did it:
My blanks have been glued up in a jig and trimmed to ensure consistency. I drew a recess .030 larger than the blank in VCPro and cut it into the Spoilboard. This allowed both some sorely needed Z clearance and indexed the parts at a known location. Additional pieces of scrap were used to complete the holding portion of the jig.
With my exact location known(rectangle from 5,6 to 35,12) I drew the radius for the concave face. The radius was 150”. To do this I placed a circle with a 150” radius with its center at 20 (center of the blank ) in X and at 148.5” in the Y. This gave me approximately 1.5” negative in the arc portion I was going to use for the toolpathing. I then placed 2 lines vertically at X=5 and X=35 and trimmed away the majority of the circle to them. Then deleted the 2 lines. I now selected the arc and moved it so that the top of the arc was at Y=0. This is the exact profile that I need.
In order to have a small leadin, I placed a ½” line at each end of the arc and raised the outer end to a height of .010. All 3 sections are joined and I have a completed cut vector with a small lead, ready to toolpath. I selected the vector, entered node editing mode and noted its start point. In my case it was on the left. Exit node edit mode, select vector and made an ON vector toolpath with a Vcarve bit, to a depth of -.1235. This depth or the bit selection is not important, but you need to select something that will be easy to spot in lines of code. Once this toolpath was calculated, I node edited the start point to the other end of the vector and calculated a similar toolpath in the opposite direction. Here is a screenshot of the node editing and toolpath versions of the vector. Note the short leadins and start points in the node editing mode, and the cut direction in the 2 toolpaths.
The toolpaths were saved separately as “Plus X Pass” for the left to right, and “Minus X Pass” for the right to left. It is important that you only use the SB INCH post processor, as it will generate a number of short line segments for the arc. Any of the ARC INCH posts will generate a gcode arc for this movement and this will not be read by the Z. Here is a video showing how and what I did inside these 2 files to turn an arc that had it length in the X, and an arc’ed Y value into a file that rasters in the X, steps over in the Y and produces a concave Z action in the Z, similar to what a 3D toolpath would do. There is also a short section on the master file that runs these 2 passes back and forth.
Before I place the code for the master file for you to copy and paste, you must acknowledge that these files were made for my machine, and even tho have worked, may not work on your machine. Also note that modifying a parts file without proper knowledge could cause unintended machine actions and do bodily harm. Please use these files at your own risk.
Here is a picture of the legs, in the booth, after sanding sealer was applied. Note how the color appears to change at each corner due to light refraction differences between side and end grain. Finish is clear.
Master File:
‘File created in VCarve or Aspire
‘File Created for Islamorada Woodworks
‘UNITS = INCHES
SA ‘set to absolute mode
‘++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
&step = .05
J3,6,0,.125
MS,6,2
TR,13000
BEGIN:
&count= 0
PLAY D:\SbParts\Bell School Traditional.wav
SO,1,1
This How-to/Explanation of building the classic chair seen above came about from a couple incidents. We were asked to fabricate a set of chairs for a local client. It was a short run of about 12 chairs that had to be produced relatively inexpensively. We took the chairs from recreating the design from a prototype, to finishing the final products. In the process we developed a system that could be executed like a full blown production run using our ShopBot CNC’s. Fundamentally we took a traditional chair that had been manufactured for many years in the same way and re-engineered it to be digitally fabricated. We also integrated modern materials like plywood to develop the core of the chair. That experiment become the foundation for a workshop that takes place in our studio integrating 10 years of digital experience (which you are all invited to join us for).
Although we believe there are many ShopBotters out there who use (or might be interested in) Rhino, which is a simple, intuitive and inexpensive software, this blog offers the same approach for someone who is not familiar with Rhino and could simply import models into Part Works.
That being said we believe that this tutorial/how-to will be useful, insightful and hopefully inspiring to others out there who are interested in building furniture, or who have been doing so for years.
The following is an outline, broken into the next upcoming blog posts of the process of building the classic chair design.
Design/Modeling
Ilan Dei Studio uses mostly Rhino Modeling Software so in outlining the fabrication process we have created two video tutorials using rhino to explain the design of the chair. These videos give a brief description of how we modeled the chair at first taking into consideration the fabrication and production aspect of it.
(Follow Ilan Dei Studio for more tips and videos in the future)
Last month we explored how to figure out what products would work best for starting your own small business. We talked about identifying your interests, and trying to come up with an item with broad appeal and a low price point. We discussed briefly the idea of using scraps, or lesser in demand material to keep costs down. In this installment we’re going to talk about sourcing materials for your projects, as well as fixturing to a ShopBot, or any kind of CNC. We will share with you some of our experience using cutting boards as an example. We’ll also talk about the possibility of the need for other tools in your shop that go beyond the basic capabilities of your CNC equipment. Finally we will talk shortly on shipping, and strategies for creating a product that is easily shippable.
One of the easiest ways to find sources for material is to look, read, and ask questions on the ShopBot Forum. There are many posts easily found with the search feature, where people have asked how to find various materials. Distributors vary widely across the United States, but here in Central Virginia, we are fortunate to have companies such as Atlantic Plywood, Central Wholesale, Mayer, etc. that provide material such as plywood, Baltic Birch, solid wood lumber and several brands of solid surface material. If your product requires plywood, then don’t overlook Lowe’s or Home Depot for a few sheets to get your idea off the ground, and the first prototype or two manufactured. Be sure to visit Cabinet Shops in your area and inquire about solid surface drops, and sink cut-outs. Many times these bits of material are a hindrance to those shops and their owners are happy to see them leave for free! If you have a lumber yard equipped with a kiln close to you, be sure to ask if you would be allowed to purchase test stacks or over-runs from their drying operation which you may get at a substantially reduced price. Odd length lumber is always cheaper than standard lengths, and you may find that you end up with less waste if you design your product to be cut from odd lengths. Using Google, or other search engines, can make it very easy to find local distributers for any kind of material you’re looking for. Let’s say we wanted to find a supplier for 3mm Baltic Birch in the San Diego California area. All I did was type in “Baltic Birch Distributor San Diego CA” and wouldn’t you know it, the first result took me directly to the ShopBot Forum! Down from that there is a plethora of places just dying to get on the phone and give me a great price and truck the material right to my shop door. This works for anywhere in the US.
So now there is material in your shop and you want to cut! You need to consider how you’re going to hold this material on your CNC. Fixtures don’t have to be complicated or permanent to be effective. We use vacuum whenever it is practical due to its reliability and speed when it comes time to reload the machine. Pictured below is an example of a vacuum mask that we install on our ShopBot to hold glue-ups in order to produce cutting boards. This mask allows us to hold solid surface as well as wooden blanks.
Some items, however, seem to work very well with mechanical hold downs. Also shown below is a simple method in which we hold a cutting board that gets a 3D carving cut into it. This fixture does not use vacuum, but rather T-Slots and mechanical hold downs.
Fixtures don’t need to be complex but should be well thought out to ensure that you can quickly position and secure new material with the confidence that it will hold tight throughout machining. Also, in designing your fixtures, they should be easy to install on your machine and easily swapped. Pictured below is a two zone vacuum table that has 24”x32” zones and ¼” location pins in each corner to allow multiple dedicated vacuum masks to be switched out quickly and accurately.
In addition to the dedicated fixtures, you can use MDF or Trupan to create more generalized vacuum fixtures that will also fit nicely and work with the ¼” location pins. Just as your Spoil Board may already be used, this type of fixture can be resurfaced and reused for a variety of purposes. If you plan on fixturing this way, you might want to consider using the 2D offset capability of the ShopBot and many other CNC machines. This will allow you to save, or set, a location instead of being tied to one spot as an origin point.
Give thought to what additional tools and equipment will be needed to complete your product. With our cutting boards a nice rounded over edge is quicker to achieve with a hand router or router table equipped with a bearing guided round over cutter. While it is entirely possible to program your machine to prompt you for a tool change, or for those with automatic tool changers, to change to a round-over bit and have the machine do one more profile pass, we find that having the machine do the more time consuming tasks keeps us from standing around, and keeps work flow moving. One thing none of us can escape is hand sanding. Many people try to take short cuts by thinking a machine can do a better job of sanding your product than a good old fashioned palm sander, but it is not so. Palm sanding allows you to run your hand across the material as you are sanding it, and doesn’t skip over slightly thinner areas. Another common process that could require extra equipment is drilling. If you have a part that needs a horizontal bore, then it is probably more worthwhile for you to invest, or build, a horizontal boring machine instead of trying to set up the CNC to hold the part on its end. We are not saying that you cannot make horizontal holes with a CNC router because machinists do this all day. We are saying that in our case, drilling horizontal holes with a separate machine is more efficient for us.
Now that the product is assembled you need to be able to finish it in such a way that it doesn’t break the bank, and you get consistent quality results. The finish that we use on all our cutting boards is simply pharmaceutical grade mineral oil. The quickest and best method that we have found to apply the Mineral Oil is by submerging the boards. So, in this case, the addition of a tank the size of our largest cutting board was a necessity. This can be obtained as easy as a trip to your local Sam’s Club or Wal-Mart and purchasing a plastic storage container. Even the lid is useful for not getting Oil all over everything else and creating a safety hazard, and for keeping contaminants out of your finish. A homemade drying rack will allow the cutting boards to drip into a pan which will collect the excess and allow you reuse it at a later time. Any time you can reduce costs that will go a long way to making you “recession proof” and ensuring that you have the money available to expand when needed. We believe that you are better served by saving a dollar than making a dollar. If you do not agree, think about it this way: In order to make one dollar go into your pocket, you have to not only make that dollar, but you have to make the expenses that are paid before you get that earned dollar. Simply saving one dollar does not require any additional effort other than what it takes to think through a situation and make it more efficient.
If your project requires hardware, or additional specialty items, remember to take your time in research and use your favorite search engine exhaustedly to locate not only the hardware you would like to use, but a place that sells it at a reasonable price. Everyone needs to understand that if you go to Lowe’s to buy a hinge at $15 each for the prototype, that’s OK, because if the product becomes successful, you’ll be buying that same hinge elsewhere for $4 or less a piece by purchasing them in quantity. Your prototypes are there to show you the initial procedure needed to create a product, after you decide you like what you have made, it’s time to make the process more efficient and productive. You should ALWAYS be on the lookout for an easier, better method. This search never ceases. New methods, and new products are being conceived every day, and it is helpful to stay in touch with others in your field through forums and workshops, to ensure your method is the proper one for your business. Being flexible with your methods will keep you from becoming stagnant, or locked into one way of thinking. Once your product is made, finished and your methods finalized, you’ll start needing to ship outside of your local area. Attractive packaging raises the perceived value of your product. Small items placed in clear plastic zipper bags with integrated hangers work well for a hook or peg display system, while specialty cardboard boxes may be more appropriate for larger items. There are many distributors all over the country who specialize in Boxes and Bags. They can create a custom look for you that will help to sell your product. In the case of cutting boards with 3D carvings, a box with a window to showcase the carving is preferred so the customer can have a good look at the carving before the purchase is made. Plus, let’s face it, people who buy wooden or hand crafted products love to run their hands on them. Something about the warm feel of wood or the slick texture of a polished solid surface cutting board gets customers excited. Remember the “wow factor”? If you can hook them with a snappy looking product, then reel them in with attractive marketing and packaging, then you will certainly ensure a sale with a beautiful quality product.
We certainly hope that our insights will be helpful to anyone who is aspiring to become a successful business owner in this day and age. Handmade quality is slowly becoming something of the history books. With the saturation of cheaply made products being imported from everywhere but here, Americans are becoming used to a disposable lifestyle, which is neither good for our wallets nor our planet. By becoming a responsible business owner, you can, in your own way, contribute to the rebirth of production excellence that existed in our country. There are very few American companies who can say that everything they sell is 100% made in the USA, and that is a drain on our economy and our pride. We urge everyone who reads this to take a step back and view your lifestyle, and determine how much you do that contributes to the rampant flow of merchandise into our country. Try to support local businesses, and pay the few cents extra to get things that were packaged in an American factory, because you’re paying to keep our fellow Americans employed. Check back next month for our next installment in this series on The Recipe for a Successful Business.
Although it’s fun to always be doing new things, sometimes it’s a plus to be able to reuse work that you’ve done in the past. It not only saves you time, but also gets you looking at old designs with new eyes. Here are two examples that I’ve worked on recently.
Puzzles:
5 or 6 years ago I was talking to my wife who works with a Pre-Kindergarten class about ways to make learning to spell a little more fun for young kids. I had been playing around with designing puzzle pieces to cut on my PRT benchtop and decided to try designing some pieces that would lock together in any order, with a single letter on each one. Eventually called “letter linkers”, these first pieces worked so well and were such fun for the kids that I ended up making sets with numbers and letters (using a chart showing the frequency of letter in the game “Scrabble” to determine the number to cut of each letter) for each pre-k, kindergarten, and 1st grade class in the school.
I forgot about them for a while until a friend, an avid (maybe rabid is closer to the truth) Virginia Tech football fan, asked about a present for his grandchild. I was trying to come up with something new and clever when I thought of the old Letter Linker files, and decided to cut a set in the Va Tech colors of maroon and orange. Everyone loved them!
That was 3 or 4 years ago and I hadn’t done much with puzzles since, until my friend Robert Bridges was renovating a building in town for a Pediatric Physical Therapy clinic. The original Letter Linkers only had puzzle connections on 2 sides, but I had wanted to do some that could connect on all 4 sides so that someone could create crossword puzzles or play Scrabble. As we were hashing over ideas for a floor that would be neat for kids and not too expensive to do, the idea of a puzzle floor out of plywood seemed a natural. A quick rotation of the “puzzly” parts of the original design created connections on 4 sides, and Robert scaled the parts to fit a dxf floor layout and cut them out. He even engraved the clinic’s name, “Little Hands, Little Feet” in the floor at the entrance, and made a sign for the entrance using the same shape.
We sent some images to Angus Hines of Hines Design Labs, who immediately replied that he was looking for an interesting floor for a hallway in his house and thought a floor like this would be just the thing. Here’s Angus’ floor, cut from Oak ply.
Next Robert got a job remodeling a home, and the owners wanted a map of the Eastern Shore of Virginia engraved into the entranceway floor. The same puzzle file worked for this application too, with some scaling and layout editing to split the map into puzzle-shaped pieces.
The most recent use of this puzzle design was to cut puzzle letters on the new ShopBot Desktop during the New York Maker Faire last month. These puzzle pieces were smaller than the original Letter Linkers and had connections on all 4 sides, so that words could be made in any direction. We had a pile of them on the table for kids to play with, and even made a set that spelled “Inventor” for the Autodesk booth next door.
Cutting crabs:
Roger, the owner of one of our favorite seafood restaurants the Machipongo Clam Shack, asked us one day about doing some crab cutouts to attach to their billboards. They had a sketch that the owner’s artist sister had done that was really nice…a very pretty crab!…that only required some digital tracing and editing to create a file that was toolpath-able.
We ended up cutting a dozen or so out of 1/2″ plywood for their billboards.
The customer liked them so much that a couple of months later they got us to cut some more for decorations for their restaurant that local artists could paint….
…and even one out of 1/4″ masonite to use a stencil for their parking lot.
We made a little bit of money on these (and ate a bunch of free crabcakes!), but since we figured that we would never have a need to cut out crabs again we forgot all about the files until Roger called a couple of years later and asked about making some double doors to separate the kitchen from the front counter. Those same crab files came in handy once again…scaled down… as both decorations and peepholes to keep the waiters and waitresses from crashing into each other.
Now the point of this posting was not to show off some of our projects, but to get you thinking of your cutting and design files, not as one-time uses but as something you want to save for possible future use. I freely admit to not doing a great job of backing up my files…this is more “Do as I say” rather than “Do as I do”…but here are some techniques and methods that have worked for me:
Come up with a sensible naming and storage system for your work files. I tend to use version numbers in the name as I work on a project, but sometimes using the date works better. And be descriptive…don’t just name it “back v2.sbp” or you’ll never figure out what it is if you find it outside it’s folder.
Along with selecting filenames that are easy to remember, keep all the files for a project in a folder with a name that will make sense years from now. You’ll probably forget what “Smiths chair” looked like, but won’t have a problem with “Clam shaped chair with dreadlocks” or something like that. And don’t skimp on the folders. It’s a lot easier to find a specific chair file if it’s in a folder named “Chairs” inside a folder named “Furniture”, than it is if it’s jumbled up in a gigantic folder named “Files” or “Projects”
Do regular backups! Your computer probably already has a program to do backups…both Windows and Mac do…but there are lots of aftermarket ones as well. None of them will do you any good if you don’t set them up correctly and use them, so do your homework!
Search is your friend! If you did a good job of naming your files, the search built into Windows or Mac will find them.
A little hardware can be a big help. USB thumb drives and external harddrives are cheap and quick to use for backing up and can be stored for quite a while. Almost every computer has a writable CD or DVD drive these days, but be aware that those cd’s have a limited life so don’t count on them as your only option
Some of the dedicated backup “appliances” like Windows Home Server can make backing up and restoring painless…that’s what we use.
If your customer paid for the design work, think about giving them a copy of the files as an additional backup. They have a vested interest in taking care of them if they think they’ll have to pay you to create them again.
Your files are assets that might come in handy sometime in the future, so pick an archiving method that works for you and stick with it.
We visited John Haggerty’s shop in Souderton, PA again, and got to see a number of new projects he, and Bob Dodd have been experimenting with over the last year. The majority of “Campers”at this one were new to the machine, or had never seen one before, and they got a very well rounded ‘tour”of the machine, and it’s capabilities.
Bob Dodd brought in some of his latest projects which ranged from bending fluorescent plastics, to cutting small ( 1/32″bit) components for doll houses ( see above) . Bob also has been testing a variety of exterior coatings for foam, and he brought in some samples of styrofoam coated with a product called “Styrospray 1000″. Bob also explained some of his techniques for doing rotary work on a number of shop built indexers he has created over the years.
Our host John has a shop full of “eclectic” projects ranging anywhere from a rack of noses he sells to people who need a place to stash their eyeglasses, to some serious mold making jobs that ranged from small statues to a cannon from the 1700′s…!
Much of John’s work this past year has been concentrated on the concept of making a variety of molds to increase his production capabilities, and he showed us some of his ‘poured corbels’ as well as some other pieces that involved using his machine to generate large numbers of pieces for other companies. He had just finished up a large “run” of egg and dart molding strips built out of HDU before we began the Camp.
John is also dabbling into the kind of jobs that others would turn down because of the complexity of creating specific shapes. He even “invented” a roller system which allowed him to turn a crank, and “bend” strips of zinc into an customer specified molding shape to use as an edge accent on a custom bar installation. And John’s Shopbot ( a 2002 PRT) is anything but “stock” as he has embellished it over the years with a variety of clamping, and indexing features , which gives him the ability to do repeatable shapes in volume.
All of the above helped to answer some of the questions our other Campers had about ways to incorporate the machine into some ideas they were considering as business opportunities, so we also got into a discussion about “what do you do after you get an idea in your mind for a product?”.
Here’s another, somewhat more complicated solid wood machining project I completed a while back. In order to get a nice kitchen cabinet job for a contractor I had worked with before, I had to match some curved mullions for several glass panel doors which the client had fallen in love with from a competitor’s catalog. I planned to order all the doors and drawer fronts for this set of kitchen cabinets from one of my regular suppliers, and they were only too happy to give me a price on the design that my clients had chosen – $350 per door. For a set of four doors that would be $1,400 above the cost of the door frames and glass. I figured I could do it myself and save some serious money.
Two of the completed doors.
I had to start with some basic decisions about how to make the curved strips and how to handle the joinery where the mullions overlap. I decided that bent laminations would be stronger and easier to machine cleanly than milling the curves out of solid stock. But the joinery almost had me stumped. I happened to be looking through a router bit catalog and noticed a router bit set for making the exact same joint with straight stock. That set would not work with my curved workpieces, but it enlightened me to the concept of using a fancy half-lap joint to get the pieces to mate cleanly, with the profiles matching up in all corners of the completed joint. I drew the overlapping shapes in my CAD program and zoomed in on the area in question to try to visualize what exactly had to be machined. It took a while, but I finally figured out that by bisecting the joint vertically and horizontally, I could rout out the top-right and bottom-left quadrants of one piece, and the opposite corners of the other piece. In fact, by holding one piece upside down during machining, the two halves could be machined exactly the same way, and when the upside down piece was flipped right-side up, the parts would mate. I had my plan.
Using CAD to figure out what had to be machined.
I saved all the narrow scraps of maple that were generated from the rest of the job, and ripped them into strips about 1/16″ thick. After measuring the door frames, I drew the shapes of the forms that would be needed for the glue-ups, and nested several sets of forms onto a piece of leftover 3/4″ plywood. The glued strips were clamped into the forms and left for a day or two, then wrapped with stretch-wrap to maintain their shape until all the glue-ups were completed.
Cutting the forms out of 3/4 inch plywood
Each curved strip is glued up of 6 laminations
The glued up assemblies were kept in shape with stretch wrap until machining day.
Once the curved shapes were ready for machining, I loaded a scrap piece of melamine on the table and routed out the area where the workpiece would sit. This allowed me to precisely place one of the male forms on the table and use the female form with some cam clamps to firmly hold the workpiece in the correct position. The routed area also created a flat reference surface for the workpiece to rest on, allowing me to start by surfacing the tops and bottoms of each strip to create clean surfaces and a uniform thickness. I then used a profile bit to shape the shoulders of each mullion. It didn’t matter that the bit also cut away part of the form.
Some leftover melamine becomes the table fixture.
A workpiece ready for the first surfacing.
After the top face is cleaned up, the piece is turned over and surfaced to final thickness.
The same setup holds the pieces while a profile bit follows the curve.
I machined the half-laps with a 1/16″ diameter straight bit. I had to order a “long” 1/16″ bit (with a 1/2″ cutting length), and I was sure worried about it breaking when I saw it. But with such small areas to be machined I was able to use small step-downs, slow feed speeds and ramp settings as gentle as I could get them, and managed to complete all the cuts without breaking any bits.
One half of a half-lap joint.
I thought I’d have to do some hand chiseling in the corners, but to my surprise the overlapping pieces fit together almost perfectly. They practically snapped into place.
The completed half-laps.
One of the biggest challenges was machining the ends of the mullions to fit the inside profile of the frame. I drew the profile and used multiple copies of the shape of the router bit to approximate the shape that the ends of the mullions would need. Then I used the offset and depth of each copy of the router bit shape to create a pass on the router. It was a little tedious but it worked. The parts fit together and into the frames so well they hardly needed glue.
Calculating the end cuts using CAD
The ends had to be machined to fit the inside profile of the frame.
Big sigh of relief when the pieces fit perfectly the first time.
Bottom line: this was a successful project. I started early one morning with the glued-up parts and a vague idea of how to proceed, and ended the day with four custom doors ready for finishing. Using only scraps, I was able to replicate what my supplier would have charged a high price for, and the customer was thrilled with the result. Adding up the time spent ripping and gluing, planning, cutting and fitting though, and I came to a realization: maybe $1,400 wasn’t such a high price after all.
The picture above is a very good summary of our host’s philosophy about running a business. Glen Kadelbach, owner of Innovative Foam, ( as well as a number of other affiliated businesses) believes that sometimes you HAVE to act on instincts, and hunches, and then take a chance by trying to make these ideas into something tangible.
This was our second Camp at Glen’s shop, and he again showed us some of the ways he has incorporated this concept into building a successful business ( or two, or three…). Glen’s work is almost exclusively in foam, LARGE foam pieces. And he has found ways to make his work SO interesting that he consistently gets great projects to work on. Last year he was showing us some of his techniques for building large pieces, and then coating them for exterior applications. Some of you may have seen Glen’s work on the Shopbot web page, including pieces for the Department of defense, Macy’s, etc. This year he showed how a business can be built by developing a reputation as being “the guy who CAN get the job done, regardless of size…”.
When we walked into his shop he was starting to put the final touches on a “forest of foam” which will be part of a large ( NYC) Christmas display. The fact that Glen is in Central Minnesota, and getting this kind of work further points out the reputation, and success he has been developing. In addition to the “forest” there were various, huge projects all over the shop including a foam bridge, white board writing pads, and very large sets of numbers for other shops to work with. He even had to move a couple of 250 pound blocks of foam out of the shop so we would have room to place our chairs etc., inside.
Glen works with a Shopbot ( that has a very deep Z axis) and a CNC hot wire foam cutting machine, and there probably isn’t a shape he can’t generate in one way or the other between his arsenal of tools, and his ingenuity. In addition to his booming businesses, including one which exclusively builds props for photographers, he also finds the time to run an 80 acre organic farm as well, so he has some equipment around the shop which is waaaay beyond the scope of the average ‘Botter.
So we were able to use some of these ideas in our sessions during the Camp. We got into the ideas of how to develop some products, and then get them out into the public arena. Everyone attending shared some of their own business experience, and we had a pretty good interchange of ideas.
Eric Erickson didn’t have a Shopbot at last year’s Camp, but he bought one right after attending the Camp, and he brought along a few signs he has started to market from his new shop in Wisconsin.
Miles Thormodson, and his son Stephen brought along some wood pieces they have designed, including a clever wooden arrowhead . And Stephen, who is a high school student explained HIS “business plan”of developing a marble game he hopes to cut out on their machine.
Dan, and Bridget Nelson drove down from Wisconsin and explained how they are trying to develop their own business , so they were great catalysts for the discussions by asking a bunch of “how do you”type questions.
Stephan Voelkel spoke about his plans to build a plasma machine to go along with his Shopbot for doing larger sign work. And he brought along a friend who was interested in using CNC to build boats of different styles. So we covered a pretty wide range of topics in a short amount of time.
On top of all of this good information we hit what will probably be the last great weather in the area for awhile so we were able to do a quick “tour”of Glen’s facilities to see everything from his barn(s) which are currently housing 500 tons of hay, his diabolical looking arsenal of farming tools,to his now ( in)famous project from last year, the Shopbot built chicken plucking machine. Thanks again to Glen, and his family for having us around for the weekend !
