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.

If you want to see what a decade does to a creative man, here’s me showing this model off way back when!

My son loves his CH-47 Chinook helicopter, it instantly become one of his most favorite toys among all the other toys I’ve made for him so let’s see how I made it!

As you saw, I originally cut this out using my ShopBot Desktop, a machine I still have to this very day, but I decided to laser cut it out this time around, the model works either way, and each technology has a plus and a minus when it comes to making model kits, there are no best machines out there or processes, just the best given what needs to be made.

For this specific CH-47 Chinook helicopter kit that I’m cutting for SandboxRanch.com, I used plywood that was slightly less than 1/4″ thick, it was actually 15% thinner, so the model was scaled to match, thus the finished model is 15% smaller in scale than originally designed to be quarter inch.

I design my projects based on material thickness, it makes the model so much easier to design and scale as the % off the designed thickness is just applied to the kit design file and voila, you have a perfectly fitting interlocking model when done.

For this CH-47 Chinook helicopter model kit on SandboxRanch.com, laser cutting it out means I don’t have any clean-up on the edges to do as I’d have if I made this with my router, that being said, it is a lot slower to laser cut than router cut this kit all other things being the same.

As you saw in the video, I made a few modifications to the kit for my son, he’s 2.5 years old and as such, there are certainly hazards that I saw ahead of time so that they don’t become a problem.

This CH-47 Chinook helicopter model kit has been cut a few times, and yes, I’ve laser cut this before as well, but the models have been lost through the years so it was time to cut a fresh one for my son.

This just shows you how ageless model kits are, what I designed over a decade ago still cuts fine and fresh today as it did back then, regardless of the technology used to make it with.

Before SandboxRanch.com or even CNCROi.com, there was CNCKing.com (and WoodMarvels.com), so it’s been a progression through the years of teaching myself custom fabrication as equipment and software evolved over time.

Laser cutting plywood is no different than other materials we cut at the shop, it just goes faster on thinner material and slower for thicker, this being quarter inch, it’s relatively fast and CNCROi.com has cut a ton of that though the years.

Our CNC laser makes relatively quick work of the plywood to transform it into pieces that will then form the finished CH-47 Chinook helicopter kit.

You’ll notice that the wood does warp a little during the cutting process of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter kit, these do not affect the finished SandboxRanch.com model.

There are internal stresses present in plywood that get released when our laser goes through the material, so this isn’t caused by heat, but by the internal composition of the plywood itself.

These stresses are also released in plywood when we use our CNC router, so they are not exclusive to laser cutting of, in this case, SandboxRanch.com‘s CH-47 Chinook helicopter kit.

Plywood is a unique animal but these stresses present in it are just more apparent the thinner the material is, you also get these in hardwoods and other materials, including metals so they are present in both man made and natural materials.

Now that SandboxRanch.com is finished cutting this CH-47 Chinook helicopter kit, you can see all the components that will make the finished model.

Before gluing the model together, I always do a quick dry-run, just to know ahead of time how things go together, even though I’m the designer of this CH-47 Chinook helicopter kit, I still follow this process myself.

I always apply plenty of glue on all my kits that I personally put together, I’ve been screwed in the past by not putting enough so I’ve found putting too much to be the better necessary evil.

For this specific SandboxRanch.com CH-47 Chinook helicopter kit, I painted it green then gave it to my son Simon to play with, about an hour later, one of the rotors was broken, as such, time to make them indestructible!

So I laser cut polycarbonate, which is bullet proof glass, and also add washers and longer screws to hold the rotors in place.

Here’s the broken rotor Simon did and the updated rotor design, it’s safer and slightly shorter as well, works out great!

Here’s a close-up of the rotor one layed onto the other, the reason for the additional circle of material on the polycarbonate rotor for the SandboxRanch.com CH-47 Chinook helicopter kit is for strength and to give less room for him to hit his head against it when he spins it.

And here’s the finished model with the updated polycarbonate rotors, it’s now his favorite SandboxRanch.com toy until I make him another toy.

Get your kit now at SandboxRanch.com.

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For this specific project, I used quarter inch MDF, which was just slightly thicker than quarter inch.

Although most of my model kits are interchangeable regarding being cut with a laser over a router with a few modifications, for this project I used my laser as this stereo bank model kit had many many inner sharp corners that were required for proper interlocking assembly.

This stereo bank model kit came-up when I was teaching myself how to design and I wanted a combination of secret storage areas and a bank, so every component of this has a storage area “hidden” in plain sight.

As I was laser cutting these from two sheets of quarter inch MDF, once one was done, I’d take the pieces out and throw the next sheet in my laser to make the finished SandboxRanch.com stereo bank model kit.

Banks can be customized however you like and even combined however you wish by SandboxRanch.com.

Laser cutting, unlike routering, doesn’t require any hold-down and the diameter of the cut is infinitely smaller, so it gives a lot more flexibility when it comes to smaller models with lots of details in them, but at the cost of speed.

Part of efficient material usage is using every clear area with nothing to make parts, and you can see that at full display in the image below, these are the speaker fronts.

There are also many shared lines that I took full advantage of when laser cutting out this stereo bank model kit for SandboxRanch.com by removing the repeated cut, meaning one cut would often cut out two parts – hence the tight nesting you see across the MDF sheet being performed.

Banks come in all sizes, shapes and materials, there are many different ways to make a bank, each has their cost and benefit.

You’ll notice that the laser is jumping around during the cutting process of this stereo bank model kit as well, that’s because many “lines” were cut when I removed double-lines for this SandboxRanch.com design.

The advantage of MDF over plywood, is that it paints very well and it’s very cost-effective verses just about any other material available, it also sands incredibly well and is easy for equipment though rough for router bits.

You might think it’s difficult to put together something with so many parts but it’s actually quite easy as many of the parts are duplicates, there are two identical speakers built using the same parts for instance and the other parts are distinctive enough that you know which goes where as that’s the only place it can go.

If you didn’t want to put any paint on your stereo bank model kit and just keep it as you see it, regardless of material, SandboxRanch.com can apply masking on both sides that you then remove which will also remove all the smoke stains along the cut edges.

Basically anything can be made into a bank, even a volcano… and this assembly process is a lot simpler and straight forward than this stereo bank kit.

After all the parts of this stereo bank model kit are finished being cut, the next step is to sort them all out, as there are really three models in this one model, the main stereo system and two identical speakers on both sides.

All the parts fit well into bins, so sorting is relatively straight forward and you can see in the image below, some of the inside parts are “stuck”, they pop right out, it’s just friction holding them there as they were cleanly cut through without issue.

The stereo bank model kit with all the inside parts removed and parts sorted looks a lot more manageable pretty quickly, distinctive parts really helps a lot when it comes to efficient assembly of model kits.

Before I use glue on this SandboxRanch.com stereo bank model kit, I always do a dry run to make sure I have all the parts and everything fits properly, if I have any issues, I’d re-cut the updated parts but generally, this isn’t required as everything cut perfectly and accurately.

This wasn’t the first bank I designed years back, here’s another one inspired by my environment back then, a TV bank!

Glue requires clamps, I have a lot of clamps in the shop but need more smaller ones for projects such as these as you can only glue as much as you have clamps to hold things together while it dries, so clamps are always a limiting factor for model assembly.

Assembly is pretty easy, as long as you take your time, glue doesn’t set for at least 10 to 15 minutes, though with MDF, it can be faster, so there is no rush to plow through this process.

The trickiest part of this stereo bank model kit glued-up assembly was the top part, you can see I used spacers to prevent the top from gluing to the stereo system record top, and it worked great!

Models made-up of multiple layers are a great way to add lots of “free detail”, as laser engraving costs more than cutting.

This will now sit on a shelf at SandboxRanch.com to remind me of my beginnings, it’s a fun design to put together though dated, as stereo systems like this are hard to come-by nowadays, but when I designed this stereo bank model kit, they were all the rage.

The post Stereo Bank Model Kit appeared first on SandboxRanch.com.

This four in a row game has a number of improvements, they are focused on making the game solid and a lot stronger so that my two and a half year old won’t destroy this game when it plays with it in his free time.

I had some scrap plywood and MDF in the shop, both quarter inch, so that’s what I used for both the custom four in a row game and the tokens that you use in the game for this new SandboxRanch.com product launch.

Here’s the first video launch of this four in a row game I made, back in 2009, as you saw in the video at the top of the blog posts, I made a few modifications to my design for extra strength and durability for a young child.

I then 3 years later released another animation at a higher resolution to make the video clearer.

Simon knows his numbers, colors and shapes, in three languages, so it will be interesting to see how well he puts it all together to realize that this is a game that’s actually very simple and learn the rules that all he has to do is put four of these in a row to win.

When it comes to four in a row games, the rules are exactly that, vertically, horizontally or diagonally, just put four tokens in a row.

The cool thing about designing your own items is that you can customize it to your needs exactly, there are no molds or rules other than physics that you need to adhere to, this is an aspect that I really enjoy and am so happy I taught myself to do all those years ago.

As you can see, this is quite a contrast to the banks I made earlier, but to me, it’s really all the same.

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

As the laser cuts away through the quarter inch plywood, you can see some smoke stains appearing on the surface, I wasn’t concerned about this as it’s for personal use and I was expecting to have a few issues in this prototype that would require me to make a nicer version of this four in a row game but as luck worked out, everything was perfect so I ended-up using this one to play with my son Simon with for this upcoming SandboxRanch.com product.

The nice thing about laser cutting this four in a row game is that I don’t have to worry about holding the material down like I’d have to do with my routers and I don’t need to account for extra cutting material being lost due to using a spinning bit, as such, the process is slower but also faster, the precision is the same.

Quarter inch plywood is nothing for my laser, it cuts it fine, the inner corners are sharp, not rounded like they’d be if I used my router, and I can nest things incredibly tight across the board as the diameter of the beam is almost nothing.

If you are wondering, this material actually comes from a custom box making project I did a few months ago, have just one more sheet of scraps left over from this project which I’ll use for another job then it’s all eaten by production!

My main business, CNCROi.com, has and continues to engrave and cut a wide variety of materials, this is left over plywood from one of those such products, I prefer to use what I have in the shop if possible for product testing as it’s already in place and I’ve already optimized the cutting process for this material.

The design of a four in a row game is pretty straight forward, front and back, with spacers in-between and held together with two side parts and a solid base, once all glued together, the overall structure is incredibly strong, which is why I designed it this way.

Making this entire four in a row game out of plywood gives it a lot of strength as well, laminated wood, either as ply or slab, which I do for the SandboxRanch.com banks, adds a lot of redundancy to a design and lessons the power of warping from humidity and environmental changes that can slowly cause a model to break apart.

Doing a dry run of this four in a row game, everything fits together fine, if it was for non-2-year-old use, I’d say using it without glue is very possible, but with a little boy, this is guaranteed disaster, so it will be thoroughly glued together.

This isn’t the first plywood project I have on SandboxRanch.com, this is the same plywood I used for our element coasters.

But first, I need to make the little tokens, or chips, that will be then painted contrasting colors on both sides to turn this game into a four in a row game where colors and numbers are required, it’s actually a fun little game, the rules are simple, but if you go fast, easy to screw-up and lose from innateness.

I used my go-to paint, enamel paint, the red came out great on this quarter inch MDF and the white just as good – really enjoy using this paint, it spreads great, provides a solid color and cures very fast.

After the red side is dry and somewhat cured, I used the same board that I cut these out of to do the other side, this way, the paint doesn’t get onto the edges of the custom four in a row game tokens.

Of course, if you wanted these chips to be made out of hardwood, not a problem, we also make custom wooden coins, which is basically these things.

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

While the tokens are drying on this SandboxRanch.com game, I can begin the assembly process, again, I wasn’t expecting everything to work perfectly right off the bat but it did, so the smoke stained and seeping glue version of this custom four in a row game is the one I brought home to play with my son Simon.

There is one slight design change I’ll do to this custom four in a row game though, I noticed that the base wanted to go beyond the supports I gave to it, it’s a minor detail that didn’t affect the model but a slight mod will make the assembly by somebody that isn’t me that much more intuitive, and that’s the goal on SandboxRanch.com, to sell both assembled models and those that you do this yourself.

I decided just for fun to sand one side of the custom four in a row game, looks great to me!

There are a ton of game options that I want to launch on SandboxRanch.com soon, here’s another one I did many years ago that’s a prime candidate.

I played a game against myself and I won, this custom four in a row game is awesome!

If you are interested in buying this game, it’s available now at SandboxRanch.com, head over to the top header under buy now and follow the linking hierarchy.

I no longer sell digital files for various reasons, so you can buy this in pre-cut kit form or fully assembled, up to you… of course, shipped right to your door!

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