Custom Wooden Piggy Banks: V2 Release pt2

In the previous blog post, I showed-off the first batch of custom wooden piggy banks that were rounded, completely redesigned based on a year of feedback and production experience and now I’m happy to announce the second batch has been come and is ready to go as well, completing the rounded design style of SandboxRanch.com generational banks.

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!