Doing these custom wall personalised monograms isn’t much of a stretch from our other offerings, SandboxRanch.com actually makes these using the same machine that makes our custom generational piggy banks.

Depending on the personalised monograms you have us make for you, including material type, they may be laser, plasma or router cut by SandboxRanch.com… we’ll tell you ahead of time once we confirm your given application, such as outdoors or in etc.

For this specific personalised monograms, the customer requested we use quarter inch MDF, at the size of this wall “sign”, quarter inch made more sense than thinner stock as it can be fragile using this material with so many cut-outs.

When it comes to routing out letters, any mix of fonts and sizing work well but when the personalised monograms get a little small or fine in detail, then SandboxRanch.com can just switch over to using our CNC laser.

Of course, with personalized monograms, they can be multi-layed however you wish using any design profile you want.

The advantage to your sizing options, it’s pretty much infinite, we could cut these letters out to be as bit or even bigger than our 5ft x 10 ft table and in the other direction, we can laser these down to fit in the palm of your hand.

You’ll notice the inside of the cheers is being cut first, this is done to make sure that the precision of cutting this entire personalised monograms is precise, with nothing moving until the very end of cutting it out.

In a world where individuality and uniqueness are highly valued, personalized monograms stand as a timeless symbol of identity and sophistication.

A monogram is a combination of initials or letters, often artistically intertwined, that represents a person, a couple, or an entity.

If metal is more to your liking, SandboxRanch.com can make those for you as well.

Personalized monograms have been used for centuries to add a touch of elegance, uniqueness, and exclusivity to various items and contexts, SandboxRanch.com now bring this into the 21st century with incredible repeatability, precision and unlimited sizing / material options.

When it comes to personalized monograms by SandboxRanch.com, they work great as a wall decor, which you or we can paint and finish, or inlays or even for stenciling purposes.

Personalized monograms are more than just letters on an item; they’re a statement of your identity, a mark of distinction that sets you apart.

Whether you’re adorning your belongings or giving a gift, the personal touch adds an element of sentiment that resonates deeply.

When searching for the perfect gift, the goal is to find something that captures the recipient’s essence and creates a lasting memory. Personalized monograms offer precisely that.

A monogrammed gift demonstrates that you’ve taken the time to select something truly special, tailor-made for them.

Be it a wedding, anniversary, birthday, or any other occasion, personalised monograms present shows thoughtfulness and consideration beyond measure, regardless of the material or size you have SandboxRanch.com make for you.

If you wanted to spell out the name of a person using banks or even just use the same wood we use to make such products, that’s a possibility as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inSCPwuZoRM/

Although this was a somewhat large personalised monogram, don’t worry too much about shipping costs, we could have spliced this up however you wished to reduce them, MDF is quite easy to patch-up to look entirely seamless on-site.

When it comes to cost-effectiveness at pretty much any size, MDF is tough to beat, acrylic through steel will cost a lot more but the nice thing about MDF is that it can be easily painted to look like metal or even the nice shine of acrylic.

Regarding weight and strength, again, MDF is tough to beat for indoor applications, for outdoor, pretty much the only material I’d suggest is steel, whether it’s mild or stainless, for your personalised monograms as anything else will degrade rather quickly under the sun and general weather conditions.

You can have a mix of imagery and text however you want, so you are not limited by any means.

Now that this MDF personalised monogram is finished, you can see how fantastic this looks, the customer in this case will be finishing it to look absolutely spectacular and just the way they want it to be for their wall.

Whether you require one or a thousand personalised monograms, SandboxRanch.com can make them to order and ship them right to your door in rather quick fashion.

Of course, not everything went according to plan for this personalised monogram, I accidentally cut this out a bit too deep, as a result, this Cheers will be a permanent part of my CNC router spoilboard for some time to come.

Rather than replace the spoilboard, it’s a good opportunity to see if I can seal the hole this created with glue so I don’t have all my vacuum going only into Cheers.

Need personalised monograms? Contact SandboxRanch.com right now!

The post Personalised Monograms appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.

I guess from this blog posts, you can see which designs are popular with our customers, generally our custom tea light boxes are made on-demand and on-order because they want something bigger or their own design or these made with other materials.

I’m very happy to have these custom tea light boxes as part of SandboxRanch.com, it makes more sense to consolidate everything on one site when it comes to this type of product because it means you can order some custom wooden coins with some custom piggy banks and then a bunch of other stuff from one place to be shipped all together.

The diversity of design possibilities with our custom boxes at SandboxRanch.com are truly endless.

The design behind these custom tea light boxes is pretty straight forward, again, any and every aspect of these can be customized however you wish, they are just four interlocking “sides” and a standard base.

Custom tea light boxes provide a versatile platform for expressing creativity and reflecting brand identity as they can be customized in various shapes, sizes, and designs to align with the brand’s aesthetics and packaging requirements.

From vibrant colors and intricate patterns to minimalist elegance, the options are endless as the ability to tailor the boxes by SandboxRanch.com to specific themes or occasions, such as weddings, holidays, or special events, adds a personal touch and enhances the overall appeal of the product.

Of course, glow in the dark paint looks awesome too!

Custom tea light boxes offer a valuable opportunity for brand promotion and marketing by incorporating a company logo, tagline, or unique design elements onto the packaging, brands can increase brand visibility and recognition.

Of course, many people buy our custom tea light boxes for other purposes such as a night light for a child, a pencil holder for a desk and so forth, so the design can be customized however your needs dictate, material through form.

Custom tea light boxes by SandboxRanch.com not only enhance the visual appeal but also provide essential protection and safety for the candles, though I highly recommend that you use LED candles instead for safety reasons.

Here’s how we made the aluminium box you saw in the video at the top of this blog post.

The material used for our standard custom tea light boxes is basically wood, as such, it is biodegradable and you can throw it in a fire pit once it’s no longer of use or purpose to you… or better, just spray paint it to give it a fresh new look!

So whether you are a company looking for something unique at your booth to collect business cards, a grandmother with a child who’s scared of the darkness or just wanting a conversation piece to have in your living room, custom boxes by SandboxRanch.com are an affordable way to start.

I’ve cut thousands of custom tea light boxes through the years, the utility that customers find for these custom boxes has no end, as such, feel free to contact SandboxRanch.com if you have a specific design requirement and we’ll make it for you and ship it right to your door!

Here’s an example of custom boxes made to other sizes.

For this production run of custom tea light boxes, I was using off-cuts from another job, I run through a lot of 1/8″ MDF at CNCROi.com, the parent company of SandboxRanch.com, so this is a perfect use case scenario to get through material that otherwise would be looking for a home elsewhere.

Laser cutting does two things for these custom boxes, it cuts them out obviously, but more importantly, adds a smoky look to all the edges that are laser cut, hence giving free detail and a unique aesthetic to each and every one of these SandboxRanch.com custom boxes.

Laser cutting MDF is a relatively straight forward process, there are no knots or wood density variations to contend with, as SandboxRanch.com has to deal with our custom hardwood generational banks, so we are able to pump these out at a rapid pace regardless of design profile or quantities.

Do keep in mind that these are basically wooden stencils, as such, inner parts must be supported, so keep in mind bridging material must be added to the design in order to keep floating inner parts secure.

These make great gifts for valentines and any other theme or event you may need these custom boxes for.

Keep in mind that we can make these out of other materials such as metal, plastic or anything else, as such, we have the machines to make them optimally however you need these to be.

Ultimate design through production capabilities are what we offer to our customers, and with MDF, we can also meet strict deadlines as well because it’s a material that’s available anytime in just about any quantities you may require us to purchase to make your custom tea light boxes.

You can see how well these custom tea light boxes came out, they ship flat and of course, feel free to combine them with other products we have at SandboxRanch.com.

Need custom tea light boxes? Buy online right now at SandboxRanch.com.

The post Custom Tea Light Boxes Production Run appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.

Here’s the videos showing the first two so you can gain an understanding of the process we’ve been through bringing these newest designs to market and why.

Of course, before doing a refreshed design of our square hardwood banks, I did the same with our rounded banks which were in far higher dyer needs.

For this production round, other than the banks, I decided to magnificently upgrade our Thermwood CNC router beast to have LED lights under the gantry as I was so tired of having poor lighting where most of the work was happening in the shop.

The jigs I made at the very start of this journey towards making custom hardwood banks for SandboxRanch.com customers, square or otherwise, are now starting to show their age and I have enough experience with them now to start revising them to be more functional for their intended purposes.

Even simple tasks like just joining sticks of wood together and gluing is quite an art form to get right, too much pressure, it bows (thus requiring more flattening and making the overall slab thinner) and not enough, they fall apart or have spaces in them.

See that light under the gantry, it really plays a number on the camera and video but wow, I don’t know how I lived without it for the past year, it’s so nice to be able to see brilliantly, I used two T8 LED strips, during production to see how well the carving is taking place for these custom square hardwood banks for SandboxRanch.com.

This is quite a change from the very first run of custom hardwood banks I made for SandboxRanch.com.

You see the shininess on the seams of the poplar hardwood slab I laminated in the shop? That’s glue, and that all needs to be taken off, as you see in the related picture below, in order to have a nice clean and smooth piece of wood before SandboxRanch.com actually transforms this into solid square hardwood banks.

Once both sides of the slab are cleaned-up, the next step is making the banks, just about all of the banks we make at SandboxRanch.com have a chamfer, it’s a simple upgrade that really adds a lot aesthetically to the physical hardwood banks.

Custom hardwood banks made by SandboxRanch.com can be made into any shape or size, here’s what I made for my son Simon.

With the light shinning over the work being made, you can actually see far better any deviations in height, and the clarity on the wood itself really shines a lot, now I can see things without having to squint or with any doubts.

Each time I do a production run of these custom hardwood banks with my CNC router, it’s better than my previous run, incremental improvements might be small but over time, they build-up even if I’m the only one that notices and not necessarily SandboxRanch.com customers.

To me, a custom hardwood bank, which I call generational banks, represent a harmonious fusion of artistry and functionality, SandboxRanch.com is thus offering you a unique opportunity to own a meticulously crafted, personalized, and environmentally sustainable object.

Whether it’s for personal use or as a thoughtful gift, a custom hardwood bank becomes a testament to the enduring allure of crafted excellence in an increasingly mass-produced world, each one of SandboxRanch.com‘s hardwood banks is unique in its own special way.

Couple’s banks are always a popular choice, two banks made “together”.

The major difference between Poplar and Oak, which are the most popular options on SandboxRanch.com really comes down to the aesthetic you are after, if you plan on painting or staining your bank, or have us do it, then Poplar is the best choice forward but if you want something with very strong grain patterns and a bit more weight to it, Oak is the winner.

Once most of the carving is finished, you can see how the banks will mostly look like and this is also where I can see any issues such as problem knots etc. but in this case, everything looks great!

Now for the coolest part, drilling the holes, it’s a very small thing for a machine this big and powerful but doing this on the CNC machine was really a game changer for SandboxRanch.com, no more templates to manually drill holes, just get the machine to do it precisely each and every time!

SandboxRanch.com can produce custom hardwood banks using any wood species you want, if you want something truly unique, contact us ahead of time and we can make these out of Mahogany as easily as Zebrawood!

The drilling operation is generally when I change the dust extraction skirt, as the final cutting out of the custom hardwood poplar banks is almost all the way through the laminated slab so I need a less-high one to get the dust extraction to work properly.

There are two steps towards fully cutting out these square hardwood banks, the first is the roughing bit, this removes most of the material and then the second finishing bit cleans-up and smooths out all the edges so very little sanding is required afterwards at SandboxRanch.com.

Right off the machine, these square hardwood banks are just about ready to ship, they need a little laser work before being packed-up and ready to go to their new homes.

Although these videos might seem to get a little repetitive, they really aren’t, every aspects of production is improved in between each production run for SandboxRanch.com products.

After the CNC routing is done, it’s time to route these again using a power tool, this process goes even faster as I’m just removing a very very thin skin left over from the CNC on these custom square hardwood banks.

Before the routing can be done though, I find it better to just cut-out all the scrap around the banks using my bandsaw, this way, the routing is just along the edge and nothing else is left, though in my next run, when the banks are at the point you see below, I can just router them directly as the process is faster than using the bandsaw to remove this for SandboxRanch.com customers.

You can clearly see the little skin left from the CNC router in the image below and the spinning router in the middle of the table that will re moving this from the soon to be generational banks.

This is s two-pronged approach, while the router is doing it’s magic, the laser is doing its, I don’t have both running at the same time typically though I easily could, just because I want to document the entire process and I only have one camera to do it with but both machines, and then some, could easily be running at the same time.

Any shape, size, wood species or anything you really want… REALLY!

The back of the banks can also be laser engraved with the SandboxRanch.com logo once the acrylic is done and this is where a message could also be added to the back, technically, I could be busy routing out the shapes while the laser does it’s work and the router making more banks to cut production time by 2/3rds but at this point, I don’t have that much of a time crunch to contend with and have the machines doing other work for CNCROi.com in the meantime.

Once this run of banks is all assembled and ready to go, this is typically where I’d start packing, but for this run, the 3rd of 3, I kept all the custom square hardwood banks I made to this point to take a group photo.

Here’s the mix of banks I made in this run of both square, many extra rounded letters and the special heart bank for SandboxRanch.com…

And here’s the group photo of all the V2 custom square hardwood banks, just love the updated design and how they all come so well together!

SandboxRanch.com is now exclusively producing V2 of these custom square hardwood banks, the old ones, the file are kept, but consider this a relaunch of our most popular style of banks.

Need custom banks? Order online or contact SandboxRanch.com right now!

The post Custom V2 Square Hardwood Banks All Updated! appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.

Going from V1 to V2 was a MASSIVE improvement across the board, and now I’m so happy that I can share it with my customers, they are bigger, they are stronger and they look better than ever.

Regardless of the improvements that happen across three stages, design themselves, wood processing and production cycles, you can rest assured that you aren’t just buying a good kid’s or even adult’s bank made to your specs but an awesome one that, if you so choose, you can finish yourself or have us do this part for you.

Laminating poplar is something I finally got my head around, it seems to simple, but it took so long to get it right to get as little warping and slippage as possible, these custom V2 square banks now have perfect seams and it makes such a world of difference for SandboxRanch.com customers.

Literally any shape can be transformed into a custom wooden bank, whether you want a custom letter bank or a shape bank or an animal bank or a dinosaur bank or whatever, no problem for SandboxRanch.com!

Now that I have many of the production issues sorted out, I can now think about shaving off seconds per bank production wise, think of more efficient methods of actually making them and optimizing the design, laser through router, until any possible small issues are fixed way before they become a big problems.

Poplar is a hardwood, it’s a lot harder than Pine or Basswood for instance, but about half the hardness of Oak or Maple but also at half the cost not just in raw material terms but also in abuse on the bits that cut this out, sanding belts etc.

I hope all these videos help you understand how much of an evolution and hard work for physically and virtually, it has been to bring these custom wood banks to market in the fashion that I did.

The steps involved with carving out these custom V2 square banks have changed over the past year but that’s just experience playing its part, finding the optimal production “setting” to make the absolute best custom square bank in the least amount of time for SandboxRanch.com customers.

I really enjoy using my Thermwood CNC router, it’s a beast of a machine and wow can it do amazing work for my customers, it’s equivalent to using a Ferrari to go get groceries most of the time but having such a powerful machine really makes working with it enjoyable as it works so seamlessly.

Using my CNC router to flatten and make the sticks that end-up being the finished slab I use to make these custom generational square banks allows for perfect seams, as such, production is very smooth making these, there are no pieces of wooden shrapnel flying across the shop from stress or warping issues once these banks are done.

Keep in mind that SandboxRanch.com makes custom wooden banks on-demand, as such, we can absolutely combine them however you wish to make custom couple’s banks too!

Aesthetically speaking, these banks are looking fantastic start to finish, everything that needs to be sharp is and the same goes for curved areas, it has taken over a year now to get to this point for SandboxRanch.com banks specifically.

SandboxRanch.com, like my main business CNCROi.com, is build on a continuous improvement cycle, each time I do a project, regardless of what it is, I try to think if I were to redo it again, how would I do it faster, better and with less headaches.

This is why I “bothered” to make the massive improvement with V2 square banks, although my original designs were good for what they were, there were always things that could be made better and eventually, these start to stack-up onto one another and additionally, over time, the return on these stacks gets less and less, thus, it’s best to start fresh using all those accumulated lessons and go for another version.

Although I tend to only show one acrylic front style for this production run of banks, there are many options available, and yes, we can engrave both the acrylic and the wood however you wish for SandboxRanch.com customers.

This is the aspect I love most about SandboxRanch.com that really isn’t present to this extreme with CNCROi.com because I can endlessly improve on things on a regular basis, for instance, in this run, I managed to double the speed of making the holes for the screws in the poplar, a small change, that pays huge time savings, and produces the same result as going slower.

Carving out these V2 square banks, you’ll also notice that I clean-up the slab between the roughing and the finishing stages of cutting out these custom V2 square banks, I found this improves on the overall finish as there isn’t crap moving around with the down cut bit to scratch the sides of the banks up.

I think the results speak for themselves, this is why I say, over and over again, that each time I make another run of custom kids banks for SandboxRanch.com, it’s the best run yet!

These V2 square banks look amazing! Making them bigger really was a fantastic idea, yes, they are only, by default, 1″ proportionally taller than the rounded banks library also available at SandboxRanch.com but it makes a HUGE difference.

When it comes to making custom banks, for kids or adults, or even companies and special events, SandboxRanch.com has the experience to make them in any quantity you want at pretty much any spec you could desire.

After cutting out these custom square banks and getting the wood aspect of them brought up to snuff, it’s time to cut out the acrylic fronts, through of course, if you want, we could also make this using bullet proof glass – it’s an option for SandboxRanch.com customers!

Once the acrylic fronts and the wooden banks are all finished, it’s time to unify them, if there was some finishing required, this is also the step where I’d do that BEFORE bringing them together, you don’t want stain or seal to go onto the plastic.

As mentioned in the video, my acrylic supplier ran out of the acrylic I use by default for these banks, so their replacement is a bit more green but I also have completely transparent acrylic in the shop as well, so you can choose a slightly darker green vs transparent, there isn’t any in between for now.

Want a custom generational bank? Buy online at SandboxRanch.com right now!

The post Custom V2 Square Banks appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.

I’ve been wanting to make custom pencil holders from the very beginning of SandboxRanch.com, there is so much design wise that can be made on that aspect of our product range alone that it’s just as infinite as our banking options and even our coinage possibilities.

As I get more and more experience designing items that can be made on-order with the slabs of wood I make in the shop for just this purpose, there are always voids or spots not being used best and that’s where having other products that are smaller works out great for customers and SandboxRanch.com alike.

I want to offer SandboxRanch.com customers absolute flexibility with their designs regarding what we are producing for them, and that means sometimes we make banks that are 12″ or even 16″ tall which can leave some rather large areas that are too small for other banks but large enough for custom pencil holders and other smaller items I’ve got in the works.

End-to-end control of every aspect of production from the slab sizing to the finishing on the banks and other items means the more efficient I can be, especially when it comes to optimizing the designs being made in this very important CNC router stage, the better it is for the long term viability of SandboxRanch.com.

I’ve been making various types of pen and pencil holders through the years, here’s one I made for my parents a while back for their birthday.

The pen and pencil holders that I made in this production run of V2 square hardwood banks is a perfect example of space optimization, I had a small area that no bank could have gone into but I was able to produce two holder prototypes to see how my ideas come to fruition in real life.

You’ll also notice the imagery that I’m now producing for these blog posts and the video has a lot more contrast now, decided to play things up a bit on the visual front to make things pop a bit more after noticing most of my stuff looks rather flat, probably due to the awful lighting in my shop, hopefully this counteracts a bit of that.

The reason for re-envisioning the custom square banks on offer at SandboxRanch.com was to be able to offer customers the culmination of a year of design through fabrication experience into the revised design, you can only make so many slight modifications to a design before you need to really redo it completely, and like my custom round banks, the square banks were due for a major refresh as well.

The custom square banks for this run were all perfect right out of the gate, I will of course do a few slight modifications to the design, as I did with the previous ones, in order to produce a better product but it’s light years over the old ones in my opinion in both storage capacity and overall aesthetics.

Back when I use to sell digital files, here’s one of my pen and pencil holder designs animated in 3D.

and another

When I made my very first batch of custom banks, the one below in the video where I produced mostly scrap for the fire pit, it was the first time I laminated sticks through tried to make tight designs like these, so the past year has really opened my eyes and given me a ton of experience on these fronts that I’m able to fully utilize with this V2.

It continues to blow my mind just how much of a journey I’ve been on with just these banks over the past year, so much has changed in such a small piece of time!

As for the custom pencil holders, the same experience I used for the banks is being applied directly to that, there are many things that I think about when it comes to making the best pencil holders in the world but before actually designing through fabricating it in my shop, you really don’t know the nuances of such a simple upcoming SandboxRanch.com product.

For these custom V2 square banks and essentially V1 pencil holders, you’ll notice they are being made at the same time using the same slab, this is on purpose, so I can mix and match designs, including the rounded banks, regardless of size, into one production at a time, meaning one slab can “satisfy” many orders at once rather than having to make one slab for one product at a time.

I have started to keep minimal inventory for SandboxRanch.com and will soon be offering quick-ship options as well, truth be told, not everybody wants to play with the nuances that are their banks and holders, as such, here’s what you get, here’s the price and it’s at your door a few days later has advantages rather than waiting for a slab to be filled with orders before proceeding to make a production run of it.

There are lots of ways to keep a desk organized, here’s a card holder I did a few years back for an idea.

More often that not, I’ve had customers NOT order a custom bank because the birthday or event was within a day or two of them discovering SandboxRanch.com, as such, yes, we offer next-day shipping, but it’s still faster than a few days to glue a slab together, router it out, make the acrylic front then package it for shipping.

You can see the custom pencil holders in the bottom right of this slab, after using these for a bit, I realized the error of my ways and will be adding internal slots to keep pencils upright, even if you only have a few, these are BIG and the current design just lets the pencils fall into these custom pencil holder bottoms, making them hard to retrieve.

Another “new” design that I’ve been wanting to make for a while is the new skull bank now available on SandboxRanch.com, it really showcases just how much customization is possible not only in the shape of the wood but the acrylic engraving possible as well.

This production run of custom V2 square banks and custom pencil holders came out great, they are bigger by an inch, as mentioned in the video at the top of this blog post, in order to proportionally increase the amount of volume inside the banks as so much is lost in the squariness of the overall style of these, it was the only solution I could think of.

Just looking at the almost finished V2 square banks above, I can see an immediate change in the D, I’ve since made that middle part thicker as the screw works fine at this thickness but to make sure that isn’t luck, having more material will make sure it’s less prone to splitting, producing a sub-par generational bank at SandboxRanch.com!

As with the V2 square banks, the custom pencil holders also have a skin to keep them in place during production, as such, this must be routed off after they have been individually cut out of the slab I made a few days ago, the ongoing theme here at SandboxRanch.com is that things take time and the steps involved over the past year have increased but they have also become more efficient and as a result, produce a better final result for the customer.

I plan to also release lots of other custom to order items on SandboxRanch.com as it keeps evolving beyond just woodworking, but that will always be the foundational product for me.

Once all the hardwood products are finished being “finished” without a finish, it’s time to cut out the acrylic front, as these are all initially going to be photographed, I want a consistent look on our website so they will all have the same spec, this will be updated shortly thereafter to take into account customer variations and requirements.

We use our laser to cut the acrylic, our router to carve out the wood and lots of power and hand tools to put it all together to make a finished product, truth be told, the only real difference between a custom square bank (in this case) and a custom pencil holder is the size of the slot, coins have a far smaller one to contain the coins if gravity ever gets reversed, with pencils, it doesn’t really matter.

I really enjoy the entire process of bringing these custom banks to life, they all have such a distinctive texture and grain pattern, each is unique like a snowflake and it’s fun getting feedback from SandboxRanch.com customers how these are by far the best custom banks they’ve ever layed eyes on and got the pleasure to use.

Don’t forget, I also have 3D kits on SandboxRanch.com to make rather unique banks too.

The mating process is relatively straight forward, the masking is kept on the acrylic until the very last moment to prevent scratching, these banks will be tagged and shipped after they are photographed at the shop and individually branded!

In this production run, being the first time I bring these V2 square banks into existence, there were a few minor issues that were as much wood related as they were design, so those were fixed so that the next batch of those banks, you guessed it, will be even better than this already awesome batch was for SandboxRanch.com customers!

Need custom hardwood banks and custom pencil holders? You are at the right place!

The post Custom V2 Square Banks & Pencil Holders appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.

And here’s the first batch of custom rounded V2 piggy banks video below.

SandboxRanch.com can now focus on bringing-up the square version of our custom wooden piggy banks up to par with these ones, again, a year later, much was learned and as such, that experience can be put towards providing the absolute best generational banking experience possible for our clients!

Although these steps may look repetitive, that being, the production of these custom hardwood generational custom wooden piggy banks at SandboxRanch.com, many nuances are applied each time, based on experience from the last run, to make things to smoother and better.

Even just the glue-up process has changed quite a bit, I use to use a roller to spread the glue out, now I use a modified widget I made that works better without requiring any of the clean-up for instance, and although I still put too much glue on these, the overall amount is less.

If you are wondering how the custom coins are made at SandboxRanch.com, the ones that come with each and every bank, check this video out… and yes, I’m about to run out of these yet again so I’ll make another production run very shortly.

Regardless of the process, the one machine that shines prominently throughout the production process is our Thermwood industrial CNC router, it not only makes the banks, but makes the sticks that I table saw flat and parallel, perfect for glue-ups, cleans-up all surfaces before production and is an essential multi-tool that does a wonderful job no matter what I throw at it at SandboxRanch.com.

Just look at how clean the surface is above after cleaning it up, and yes, it did look just like the one below before starting on it’s journey towards becoming generational custom wooden piggy banks.

The bits I use to make these generational custom wooden piggy banks has also changed, they are bigger, more expensive and produce a cleaner result than what I used in my initial prototyping runs, so not only has the machine been fully upgraded, but also the bits it uses and the software as well as the overall designs now too.

There are always bottlenecks that I try to remove when making these generational custom wooden piggy banks, things can be improved upon each and every time I make these items, and that’s a bit part of the fun with making SandboxRanch.com products, unlike the general one-offs I do with my main business CNCROi.com.

Big or small, unique or same-old, SandboxRanch.com can fabricate a custom bank to any spec you want, whether it’s reliving your childhood or something as a corporate gift, we can make it for you in any quantity you want.

This production run did have one mistake though, that was the literal piggy bank, at the last minute, I saw something that was “off” and fixed it, but I forgot to update the cut files in the process, as such, alignment of the piggy bank you see below, in the shape of the pig, was destined for the fire pit before ever having a chance to hold even a dime.

These last minute tweaks and thus, mistakes,  are all added to my growing list of things I have to double and triple check for before going ahead and making a production run of generational custom wooden piggy banks, that’s why it has taken so long to get to this point, it’s a process of figuring out what not to do until you figure out how to best do things for SandboxRanch.com products.

I really enjoy the overall process of making these generational custom wooden piggy banks, turning wood into keepsakes for SandboxRanch.com customers, being able to endlessly modify and see the results get better and better makes the process very rewarding.

Birthdays especially SCREAM custom bank from SandboxRanch.com, it’s a predictable date for a person who you know… so why not get them something special that’s been tested and retested endlessly to be the absolute best possible.

If you look closely at the image below, you can see the alignment issue with the generational custom wooden piggy bank, the lip at the top is twice as thick and the bottom almost none-existent, this is because I updated one layer but not the others, I saw it too late to do anything about it, lesson learned!

After carving out all the inside parts of the generational custom wooden piggy banks and inspecting it all, it’s time to cut them out from the poplar hardwood slab I laminated from which these will come out of, just love how these look and feel straight off the machine at SandboxRanch.com!

You’ll also notice a new shape has been added, it was actually present on one of my earlier banking videos but I didn’t have the experience to pull it off correctly, yep, I’m now going to be offering more adult themed custom generational banks, in this case, it’s a beer coin bank!

I’m very proud of our square banks as well, but after seeing the massive evolution of these rounded ones, you’ll love these as well, here’s how V1 of our square banks evolved over time.

The fun part of SandboxRanch.com production is coming out and testing new ideas, having a year to hone my skills hardware through software, means I can literally turn anything into a working generational custom wooden piggy bank.

After the CNC router end of things to make these banks whole, it’s time to cut them out, they all have a very slight skin at the bottom to make sure they don’t move during production, so after cutting them out using the bandsaw, it’s time to throw them on the router to completely remove this.

When it comes to the processes involved with making these generational custom wooden piggy banks, you can just see the amount of work involved with bringing them to life, manual, power and CNC tools must all work perfectly start to finish to produce a final bank you’ll enjoy at your home from SandboxRanch.com.

The important part of this production run was to make sure I got all the letters done, which I did, so now the entire alphabet regarding rounded banks is complete and fully tested out, each letter is another shape so essentially, I updated a total of 52 shapes during this production run of both rounded and square banks, which you’ll see in the next blog post.

Any shape can be turned into a bank, want a submarine that’s 4ft across and proportionally just as high? Yep, SandboxRanch.com can make it for you!

The front windows are out of acrylic, laser cut, so they have a nice flame polish, that process hasn’t really changed much from my initial testing and prototyping stages over the past year, it’s just cut through and a far simpler process that doesn’t involve bits, speeds, feeds and wood of all types.

After these masked clear acrylic SandboxRanch.com front windows are done, it’s just a matter of unifying the plastic to the wood and shipping it out!

I always do a dry test fit first, even though there isn’t any glue involved, it’s always a good idea to find problems before they becoming a bigger one at SandboxRanch.com.

With each cycle that I make more and more banks, I learned how to make them better than the previous round, here’s how it all began!

I still have my little box of screws that I used over a year ago to make these generational custom wooden piggy banks, if it works, keep it, though I’m going to have to start thinking of a better system for managing these as the production runs get bigger at SandboxRanch.com.

And here are the finished custom rounded banks V2, I’m so proud to show you the results of a year of experimentation and experience coming to life!

Here’s the same photo at another angle, each and every one of these banks is truly a labor of love that I look forward to sharing with others as they bring a little custom into their lives with SandboxRanch.com.

Want custom banks? You are at the right place!

The post Custom Wooden Piggy Banks: V2 Release pt2 appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.

Custom wooden piggy banks are a popular way for people to save their money in a stylish and personalized way, and SandboxRanch.com fabricates each and every one of them from rough sawed kiln dried lumber, regardless of the species they are made from.

If you aren’t into letters, let us make any shaped bank you want!

These custom wooden piggy banks are not only functional, but also add a unique touch to any room they are placed in and as they are made on-demand, can be further customized to suit just about any occasion as they can be any size, wood species and finished in just about any color you can imagine.

There are a wide variety of designs and finishes available, so there is sure to be a piggy bank that matches the decor of any room or the personality you are giving this custom wooden piggy bank to.

The journey to get to this point and literally make the absolute best custom banks I’ve ever gone has taken more than a year, and the changes that this alone has brought to my shop have been tremendous, from new equipment to setting-up our own shipping department, it’s incredible what an idea can spawn.

The glue-up you see being done at SandboxRanch.com is the process we perform for each and every custom wooden piggy bank that we make, from the rough sawed lumber, they are cut into sticks then using our CNC router, made square and parallel for the final slab that will then become custom banks.

This processing of raw lumber to finished product in our shop means that every aspect of these custom wooden piggy banks is controlled, monitored and optimized for our clients, each one is completely unique, like a fingerprint but using modern equipment, repeatable enough to be affordable and yet, endlessly customizable at any stage of production.

My goal with SandboxRanch.com is to bring a little custom to everybody’s lives, and I think these banks are a fantastic way of accomplishing this goal.

Custom wooden piggy banks is that they can be personalized in a number of ways, where some people choose to have their name or initials engraved on the bank, others may opt for a specific design or symbol that has personal meaning to them, this is why SandboxRanch.com offers more than just letters on our site and can make custom shapes as well to best suit the receiver.

Custom wooden piggy banks by SandboxRanch.com are designed to be super sturdy and durable, my goal with making these isn’t to just make a bank, but a generational bank, something that will last a very long time and be something that can be handed down later and cherished over a lifetime.

The machine you see below here is a 12 000 pound beast, it’s wicked overkill for this application but that means that what comes off the table of our CNC router is almost ship-ready, saving a ton of time that would otherwise be used for sanding.

I came-up with custom rounded banks after releasing the square ones because I wanted something that didn’t have any sharp angles, not everybody likes that style and so, the contrast offers you an alternative whether it’s for decor or financial keepsake reasons.

There are many different ways to use a custom wooden piggy bank beyond just as a cool birthday gift for children of all ages.

For children, it can be a fun and educational way to learn about money and the importance of saving while for parents can encourage their children to save a portion of their allowance or earnings, and periodically help them count and deposit the money in the piggy bank.

Having a tool changer is a life changer for these custom wooden piggy banks production wise, in the picture above, you can get an idea of the tool pathing that I’ve programmed and thus, is being followed perfectly by our CNC router.

What I enjoy about making custom shaped banks is the endless variety of what our customers come-up with, you want a butterfly bank, a revolver bank or a mountain shaped bank, SandboxRanch.com can make it!

Regardless of whether you are an adult or a child, a custom wooden piggy bank by SandboxRanch.com helps to instill good financial habits and can set the stage for responsible money management.

For adults, custom wooden piggy banks can be a way to save up for specific goals or purchases, such as a vacation or a down payment on a house as by regularly depositing money into the piggy bank, people can see their savings grow over time and feel a sense of accomplishment as they work towards their goal.

So there you have it, custom wooden piggy banks are the perfect gift for a wide variety of reasons and personalities, and SandboxRanch.com offers you endless ways to make it a personalized and individualized gift for just about anybody.

No two banks made at SandboxRanch.com are the same, each one has a different wood grain, texture and finishing option, in addition to different colored front window options.

Now that the machining end of things is done with these custom wooden piggy banks, it’s time to go back to using power tools and cut them out of the slab I created days ago.

You’ll notice these wooden banks have a skin at the bottom, it is yet another aspect of production that I’ve added, along with endless other improvements through the year, to make sure that these banks do not move, as any movement means more sanding by me!

Once I’ve removed the skin on all of these using my table router, the next step is to review each one of them and see if there are any areas that need extra attention such as a little sanding.

There are many ways to make custom wooden piggy banks, I hope these videos and photos show you just how much evolution has happened at SandboxRanch.com for these over the past year.

Once everything is perfect, it’s time to use the laser to cut out the front windows of all these custom wooden piggy banks, in this case, they aren’t engraved yet, I generally do this for SandboxRanch.com customers afterwards as it makes placement easier to see the entire finished piece.

The reason the front windows aren’t transparent is because they still have a protective masking on both sides, generally, I leave this on for shipping to protect it, it’s easy enough to remove for SandboxRanch.com customers.

You can now see the successful finish of these custom wooden piggy banks made by SandboxRanch.com.

Want a custom wooden piggy bank? Buy online right now at SandboxRanch.com or contact us for totally custom offerings.

The post Custom Wooden Piggy Banks: V2 Release appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.

I’m very proud of how TeaLightBox.com has grown through the years and it was time for a refresh, truth be told, the boxes were always more useful than just as tea light holders, or night lights… they make great boxes for pens, pencils and other items on a desk but at the time, at the time, I had to focus on one area and it worked great but I look forward to showcasing how much more useful this custom product range actually is.

Consolidation means no more duplicating resources, time etc. towards maintaining multiple websites, product ranges and databases so as part of a little nostalgia, let’s look at the videos that I produced showing how those great tea light boxes were made.

You also save on shipping because you can get a bank, a box and whatever else on SandboxRanch.com in one order shipped right to your door rather than having to go through and register at multiple sites.

It’s always amazing to me just how much paint can change a custom box, and best of all, this same idea can be applied to the banks on SandboxRanch.com as well, something I’ll showcase shortly!

The post TeaLightBox.com is moving to SandboxRanch.com appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.

I’m entirely self-taught, animation to design, and if you want to get an idea of how I cut my teeth in the custom world, at first virtually for many years before migrating to the physical world, check out my site CNCKing.com – lots of great stuff there that will eventually, one day, slowly, work its way to SandboxRanch.com as kits.

The material I used for this platform crane B kit was quarter inch plywood, nothing special grade wise but as mentioned in the video, plywood is never the thickness you buy it at, it can grown and shrink on you, as such, the scale of the finished model is based on the thickness of the material, so the completed and assembled model would be bigger or smaller by the same proportion.

Laser cutting plywood in this case, was done with a mask on the front and back, as such, smoke was contained only to the edges of the model where it was cut, making the surface of the platform crane B kit plywood free from contaminants.

Each part interlocks into the other, you can really see this directly with the legs of the platform crane B kit in the top picture, the top and bottom parts are distinct, as such, assembly is relatively straight forward for this SandboxRanch.com model when it comes to building it yourself.

This platform crane B kit model actually when through quite a few permutations before settling on this final design, it was actually among the first designs I made as it used round wooden dowels to start with, which I later fixed as this was a BAD design decision (they are NEVER the correct diameter nor easy to fix).

Once fixed-up, I cut it out many years later with my Shopbot Desktop CNC router… that’s how I learned to bring my virtual models into the real world after years of designing on my computer exclusively!

As computers got better, I decided to also improve the assembly graphics so people could get an idea of how it was built without needing extensive instructions, though, those are also provided.

I then started to differentiate model “streams” from laser cut to router cut, they are essentially the same design, but a few extra programming “helps” built-into the model that CNC routers need that CNC lasers don’t.

And there you have it, this is the journey that this platform crane B kit has taken through the years!

When I was designing all these kids toys, I never imagined that one day my own son would be enjoying my passion for these, he’s got a growing collection of wooden toys that he enjoys, I’d say, being rather biased, far more than his plastic or store bought versions.

Laser cutting plywood is pretty straight forward, there are a lot of things I could have done to greatly complicate this model but experience has taught me to keep the piece count low and as streamlined as possible, with parts being as obvious as possible when it comes to making kits for now SandboxRanch.com.

Now that this platform crane B kit is cut, you can see how my design approach, which is still very much valid almost 20 years later, is still very much a good one when it comes to making these kids toys that I put so many hours into putting together and now make available on SandboxRanch.com.

Of course, the nesting for this platform crane B kit is absolutely horrible, I have learned A LOT since cutting this years ago but for demonstrative purposes, each part can be clearly seen, quite a contrast to how you see things being cut now!

I still very much enjoy cutting these models, although I’ve routered and laser cut this model multiple times through the years, it’s always fun to revisit my beginnings into the custom fabrication world.

The reason why you don’t see any wood grain on these platform crane B kit pieces is the masking, that now needs to be removed on the front and back of each piece, something that would actually be done by YOU when you get this kit, if you opted for this option when you bought this kit from SandboxRanch.com.

After removing the masking on both sides, it’s time to get way too many clamps and glue and stick the entire model kit together, it takes a day to let everything dry and another day for the final glue-up to work.

I hope you appreciate the time put into making such a complex model with many axis of rotation and movement using so few plywood pieces once you get to this stage of the build process of this platform crane B kit.

I couldn’t think of a way of interlocking the spinning top and bottom together without causing more issues than it solves but for my son Simon, he doesn’t seem to care, this works fine for him and rarely does it come apart, the glue makes a massive difference when it comes to stability and keeping things tight enough to not fall apart once just friction fit together.

There really is no way around clamps in a shop, or when making kits like this, and the more parts you have, the more steps are involved with glue to final fit and functionality of the SandboxRanch.com model.

From experience, I’ve learned to use far too many clamps than necessary, things like to move while the glue dries, and using too many clamps when building a model with so many interlocking parts makes sure that these drying movements occur as little as possible.

Once the platform crane B kit was all dry and ready to go, you can see a little more glue was needed to keep the gantry in place and to make sure the string didn’t get loose, when I re-strung this for Simon, I actually just drilled a hole and strung it that way through the gantry rather than on top of it, it worked better with his busywork flow.

There you have it, a finished platform crane B kit ready for countless hours of fun from SandboxRanch.com!

Want this kit fabricated (or any others on the site) and shipped right to your door? Get it now at SandboxRanch.com!

The post Platform Crane B Kit Launch appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.

Custom princess coasters have become a trend among those who love everything related to princesses and fairy tales, these coasters are designed to bring a touch of magic and enchantment to any home, office, or event.

They can be customized with a variety of designs and patterns, from classic fairy tale princesses to modern interpretations of royalty, these custom princess coasters are square but they could have been oval, round or even in the shape of a tiara if you wanted it to be.

One of the benefits of using custom princess coasters is their versatility, they can be used in a variety of settings, including home décor, office spaces, and special events such as weddings or birthday parties, as they were in this case.

We can of course combine materials however you wish for your custom coasters.

These custom princess coasters by SandboxRanch.com can be as unique as you wish and thoughtful gift for anyone who loves fairy tales, princesses, or fantasy.

For this specific run of custom princess coasters used 1/4″ plywood, the same we used for the Scrabble coasters and the periodic table element coasters you see on SandboxRanch.com.

Custom princess coasters can be designed to match any style or theme and can also include personalized names or messages to make the birthday party (in this case) all the more special.

Custom coasters can be made out of just about anything, even solid surface materials!

Although SandboxRanch.com can design and fabricate custom coasters out of anything, generally the material of choice is related to wood, it has a warmth and feel that other materials just can’t match.

Custom princess coasters can also be used to decorate themed events, such as a princess-themed birthday party or a fairy tale-themed wedding and of course, we can make other matching themed items to go along with these.

Another reason custom princess coasters have become popular is their ability to be a conversation starter. as they can be used as a way to express one’s personality and interests, and can even spark conversations about favorite fairy tales or princesses.

Acrylic makes for wonderful coasters, they are incredibly (surprisingly) durable and can be customized just as much as other materials at SandboxRanch.com.

In terms of cost, custom princess coasters can be relatively affordable, depending on the materials and designs chosen, they are a great way to add a personalized touch to any space or event without breaking the bank.

Additionally, SandboxRanch.com can offer bulk discounts, making them a great option for party favors or corporate gifts and yes, if you wanted each of them to have a little unique design element, that’s fine too as they don’t all need to be identical.

Solid metal is an option with deep engraving if you want something extremely unique for your coasters.

Materials such as cork, steel, ceramic, and wood can be used to create durable and high-quality coasters and at the higher-end of the spectrum, stainless steel through titanium or even solid glass.

With SandboxRanch.com, you have no limitations when it comes to design through fabrication options that we can offer you, either using your design or our help turning your concepts to reality.

Something to keep in mind is that weight plays an important role in creating custom functional coasters, too light, and they lift with your glass, too heavy… well, that’s not a problem.

In this case, the custom princess coasters made at for SandboxRanch.com, the laser engraving process was actually a no-cut-through cutting process rather than an engraving one.

After the engraving process is complete, they are individually cut out, again, they don’t need to be square, it just happens that this is the preference when it comes to coasters.

In this case, SandboxRanch.com made a production run of 5 custom princess coasters, whether you want a half-dozen or thousands, we can make it and ship it right to your door!

Here’s a close-up of the complete small production run of custom princess coasters from SandboxRanch.com.

Need custom coasters? Anything goes… contact us or order online if you see something you like from SandboxRanch.com!

The post Custom Princess Coasters: 1/4″ Plywood appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.