Wood selection and manufacturing techniques for goodwill project

[LGBT]

Hey everyone! New member here..I'd like to start by tipping my hat to other members and the old guard around here. Also, not sure if this is right place to post this..so sorry if it belongs somewhere else.

I've grown up doing a lot of small projects (some zebrawood picture frames, small tables, Adirondack chairs from cypress, pressure treated, and redwood, and some other random projects) and I'm always reading something woodworking related so I have quite a bit of know-how and experience when it comes to making things..at least for my age, 21.

The reason I've come here for help is these two words: mass production. I'm working with a friend on designing and manufacturing a product whose sales would go to support one or more causes. Not sure yet on the causes we want to support, but I would like to support something local and something international (one idea for international we have thought about is supporting the construction of schools in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan..provides education to those who otherwise would not receive it and it offers an alternative to radical Taliban schooling).

Anyways, I have drawn the design many times tweaking and retweaking it and I have finally come up with a design I like which is a good balance of design and practicality to manufacture. I don't want to give too many details about the design since we will be making and (hopefully) selling it and supporting things that will make the world a better place, but I'll try to give you guys enough info so you can understand what we are trying to do and offer up some suggestions.

It is going to be a hard cover bound (like a book) wooden case. The wooden case will divide right down the middle (like you were opening up to the middle of a book). When you open it up there is storage on each side for two predetermined items. Rough dimensions for the finished product are 8"x6"x1". I would like to use one piece of wood for the whole thing and bookmatch it on either side. It seems like everything that is mass produced out of wood these days is getting cheaper and cheaper in quality and it would be awesome to be able to offer a quality woodworking product that can also meet a need for a lot of people. So here are the two things I need help with, so far at least, haha:

1. Wood selection: I want to use as nice of a wood as possible given the price restraints of making a product that will be sold. Also, it needs to be strong along the grain. I need something that will be fairly strong (it will have the hard cover binding so it will have some help) when it is only about 5 inches wide and 3/32"-1/8" thick. I picked up some hard maple at Capitol City to make a candle centerpiece that was featured in a Woodsmith a while back and will experiment with that..seems to be a pretty solid wood for a reasonable price. It's not very figured, but it's still better than most wood that is used for mass producing stuff. Any advice out there for wood selection? I'd like to try several so I can choose what is best. I'd also like to buy locally.

2. Manufacturing: If I was just making one or two or even 100, I would make some router templates and get to work. But IF there ends up being a lot of demand (we will advertise thru a website and Amazon) I can't continue to make them. I've never done anything with a CNC but I think it should be able to do the job. Does anyone know anybody local who does CNC work?

Well I think that's about all my brain can handle for right now. I know there is more info I will need, but there will be plenty of space for that later on! Again, the main goal of this is to support several causes and not necessarily turning a profit. Whenever possible I would like to support local guys, whether it is purchasing lumber or manufacturing so that we can have something to be proud of.

Thanks in advance! I'll check back later tonight.

[scsmith42]

Hi Jeff; welcome to NCWW! You have an interesting project; based upon your description I would think that a CNC router would be your best option. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you want to take a 5/4 board, S2S it to 4/4, resaw it down the middle, and then machine out pockets in the two halves, leaving an outer skin of about 1/8" on both halves?

Scott

[cptully]

Hi Jeff,

Welcome to NCWW! You are correct that a CNC router is likely the way to go for mass production. I don't have the link handy but I am pretty sure that I have seen a How to Build article on Instructibles.com. Also a quick Google for "CNC Router" turned up http://buildyourcnc.com/default.aspx as well as multiple commercial options. On the DIY side keep in mind that this is a long project that requires light metal working and potentially heavy coding, depending on which controllers and software you end up using.

Although I am not opposed to DIY when it will get me the tool I need faster than i can buy it, when I got interested in CNC routers a while back I quickly decided that I could save up the money to buy a commercial unit faster than I could build, program and test a DIY unit, not to mention that you are the tech support for DIY units...

Good luck and all the best on your project!

Chris

[LGBT]

Hi Jeff; welcome to NCWW! You have an interesting project; based upon your description I would think that a CNC router would be your best option. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you want to take a 5/4 board, S2S it to 4/4, resaw it down the middle, and then machine out pockets in the two halves, leaving an outer skin of about 1/8" on both halves?

Scott

Hi scott! I think you are tracking pretty well but I'll explain it a bit better than I did last time. I'm thinking I will start with S2S 5/4 board 6-6.5" wide, resaw it down the middle, then plane/thickness sand each half to the correct width. Once this is done then each half will be ready to machine out the two pockets. The two pockets will be different as well.

One will be really easy to make, the other will be a bit more difficult. The easy one will be roughly 8"x6" and will have a 7"x5" area that is shallowed out from the middle..leaving 1/4"-1/2" (depending on the closure mechanism used) around all four sides as a skin.

The other side will be the same dimensions except that the 6" sides will have the 1/4"-1/2" of the skin removed, leaving the thickness of the 6" sides the same thickness as the middle that has been machined out...thus the need for a wood that is fairly strong along the grain. There will also be a few 1/8" thick tabs that stick into the middle of the machined area from the top of the skin on the 8" sides to hold the object that is placed in there secure. Because the object needs to fit under the tabs the wood below the tabs will need to be removed, so a larger diameter router bit will need to be used to get under those tabs. There will also be a slot in the side so that the object can slide in and fit underneath those tabs.

So, I'm looking for ideal woods to use for a project like this and a way to mass produce it consistently and quickly. Hope that helps and thanks for the welcome to NCWW!

Hi Jeff,

Welcome to NCWW! You are correct that a CNC router is likely the way to go for mass production. I don't have the link handy but I am pretty sure that I have seen a How to Build article on Instructibles.com. Also a quick Google for "CNC Router" turned up http://buildyourcnc.com/default.aspx as well as multiple commercial options. On the DIY side keep in mind that this is a long project that requires light metal working and potentially heavy coding, depending on which controllers and software you end up using.

Although I am not opposed to DIY when it will get me the tool I need faster than i can buy it, when I got interested in CNC routers a while back I quickly decided that I could save up the money to buy a commercial unit faster than I could build, program and test a DIY unit, not to mention that you are the tech support for DIY units...

Good luck and all the best on your project!

Chris

Thanks for the reply Chris! Wow, I thought the DIY table saw belt-driven thickness sander I was looking at was tough enough to make, haha. To start off I think I will need to find another way to produce them (either pay someone to make them or pay someone to use their CNC or I heard there is a public shop with a CNC in Durham you can join for around $100 a month)..but making/buying a CNC router will probably be the way to go if demand happens to take off.

[JimmyC]

Hey Jeff,

The place to use cnc equipment would be techshop, it's no longer in Durham but now RDU.

http://techshoprdu.com/memberships

Good Luck,

[scsmith42]

Jeff, if you opt not to do the CNC work yourself, my advice would be to find a reputable firm that does CNC work as part of their business, and ask them which woods machine the best for your application.

We can all offer suggestions based upon our own preferences, but ultimately the guy running the CNC will probably know what's best.

Best of success to you.

Scott

[sushinutnc]

As JimmyC indicated, TechShopRDU is the place! I have used the ShopBot there. If you want to pursue doing the work yourself, you'll need to take a safety class (with or without the added CAD and/or CAM classes available, too). And you'll need to decide on what type of membership you need. I don't have enough projects to warrant a membership of longer than 1-month at a time. You can take any class without being a member.

I took just the safety class (SBU), because I'm very familiar with CAD, but had no real experience with CAM. There is a LOT to learn. The safety class just lets you use the machine.. so otherwise, you're on your own for reallllllly learning how to use it.

Alternatively, there are several members there who regularly take ShopBot work from other people. I have no idea what fees they request. If you are interested in contacting the main guy who teaches the class and does side work, PM me and I'll give to contact info. He's a wealth of info on the ShopBot and all 'round generous with his time and experience.

[Warren46]

An alternative to a CNC router may be a pin router with a templete. Since there are only two variations of the pockets you want you may not need all of the ease of making diffenent shapes that come from a CNC machine. The cost for a pin router may be considerably less than an equivalent CNC router and production could be as fast, or perhaps faster with appropriate templats.

Check out Grizzley pin routers as an example of what the machine looks like.

Warren

[LGBT]

Hmm..thanks for all the great suggestions! Tech Shop looks like an awesome place..especially for a guy like me who doesn't have much of a shop set up yet! Come May, when I graduate (YESSS!!!) and will be back in the Raleigh area, I will probably join..especially if I am needing to crank out a lot of these. I'm not sure yet what to do until then. I'll probably either use the pin router set up (Thanks Warren! I think I saw one of those a while back but it didn't cross my mind to use that for this application.) or try to make a really efficient router template set up. I had the thought that I could rip a 4x8 sheet down to 2x8 and then use 1"x1" pieces to divide it up into different bays and then attach a template to each of the bays so that I could insert and rout 20 or so at once. I could also have a 2x4 frame under it that I could attach a ShopVac to that could hold all the workpieces down by suction. I would need to make several of these for all the different profiles that will be routed..but if I had a router set up for each of the different profiles then it should move pretty quickly.

Thanks again for your help..this dream is getting closer to reality each day. Now to go get some dinner and talk with my partner and his cousin about the nowhere-near-as-fun part that doesn't involve wood or tools..a logo and name, haha. Also I'm going to try to find my way around the rest of the site soon, so hopefully you'll see me on some other threads!