I have been busy cutting tons of box part over the past few days. I am still waiting for some final design files for the front and top panels, so to keep things moving i have been cutting and assembling the rest of the sides.
So what is the total number of miss cuts, aborted jobs or overheat pauses after over 9 hours cutting and 640 parts on 59 sheets of Proofgrade plywood? Zero!
I’m most impressed that every single part was cut perfectly. I was expecting a few to have not cut all the way through or for a job to have failed or something. But it worked like a champ.
Keep in mind i have my GF in my basement where it is always fairly cool, sometimes down right cold, so overheating wasn’t an issue.
Hats off to you @dan and your staff for some awesome material. You have made me a true believer.
Here is the stack of leftovers i have now. I’ll need to come up with some long thin projects to use up the scraps.
Then on to glue up. Unfortunately i could get all the grain to line up like i wanted without waiting a ton of material. So a few boxes are a little weird in that department.
I’m hoping to have the final art in the next few days so i can start the long engrave process.
Couple things i have learned… Straight cutting for hours on a day with no wind will produce a steady stream of smoke. It was starting to look like my shrubs where on fire. And my wife hates the smell of burning walnut plywood. The first is not a problem but i really need to find a solution for that second.
Well back to work these boxes aren’t going to assemble themselves.
I am impressed at the Proofgrade consistency. Is that the trim router that Dewalt makes? I have the trim router and was wondering if the plunge base for it is worthwhile.
No, it’s the their 2 1/4 hp router. I wish it was mine, but I’m just borrowing it from a friend for this job. A trim router would have been perfect for this job. This one gets a little heavy after about 15 minutes hunched over the table.
The walnut problem can be solved.
Make that many boxes in non-proofgrade acrylic.
She’ll beg for walnut- or even proofgrade. Anything but the toxic stink of non- acrylic
A little tip on the router bit: using the rounded part of the router against the raised edge is easier and less prone to drifting instead of using the flat part. It seems counterintuitive but it’s actually designed like that. Using the rounded part gives you more control of the router.
Wow…nice assembly line! And I learned a few things…
I need a good router to make the slide top channels…I’ve been engraving mine…
And this is a duh moment…instead if placing glue individually with a popsicle stick on each of the Incuts and sides of the tabs for gluing…laying it flat and running a line of glue does the same coverage and will save me a ton of time!!..
-edit- looks like I’m not the only one who can learn the glue technique…lol. Dont feel so dumb now…
I will say the the router is a huge time saver when making a bunch of boxes, but i think i would still engrave them if i was only making a few of them. the laser is just way easier and has less chance of messing up.
While the GF didn’t mess up any pieces, but i had a handful of trashed pieces and quite a few less then perfect ones from using the router.
Could be that i was using the router wrong, thanks @darkdesign for the tip. That is totally counterintuitive.
being used for production.
acrylic
