Second Batch of Custom Square Letter Banks
Making custom square letter banks is A LOT OF WORK, I hope this blog posts illustrates how much is involved, tooling to time, to make them, in this case, it’s the second batch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB5lXeYO73w/
There is continuous testing happening throughout the process as I further optimized tool pathing and work out better ways to produce these custom square letter banks for SandboxRanch.com.
As the previous batch, the first step is getting the kiln dried rough sawed red oak lumber and then chopping it down into strips, this entire process happens relatively quickly, regardless of what we produce at SandboxRanch.com, this step has remained pretty much unchanged from the very first batch of prototypes I made.
This hardwood is not only very hard but surprisingly strong, which is perfect for these custom square letter banks.
After cutting the lumber into slats, the nest step is to flatten and make it all parallel, this is probably the most important step in the whole process of making these custom square letter banks because if this is the only point in the entire process where a consistent material can be produced, meaning ultimate repeatability and quality can be generated for this product at SandboxRanch.com.
This is the step where having a large jointer would really help production because two of the three sides that I flatten on my CNC router aren’t actually the top and the bottom of the laminated red oak slab I’m making but where the glue joints will be, up to this point, this is where the most material is wasted as a result.
After flattening three sides (I need one flat side to go down on the clamps), then it’s time to glue everything up, the results from the CNC router are absolutely amazing in this regard, the joints are absolutely perfect, it’s just the process isn’t very efficient from several points of view at this point at SandboxRanch.com.
After the glue has dried, it’s time to yet again flatten both sides, this cleans off the run-off glue and creates the slab that will be ready to become many many custom square letter banks at SandboxRanch.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1zB5JNYk_w/
You can compare the changes in production from this run to the last, they are subtle but they are there.
In this case, I think the CNC is a better tool to accomplish this than any other power tool I could get at the shop, a wide belt sander could do it but I’d be flying through belts while the router does everything precisely and cleanly in one step.
Now, I just have to flip the newly formed and greatly strengthened red oak slab to flatten the other side and I can go right into production making some custom square letter banks.
No matter how hard the material is or the glue, my CNC router powers right through this without any problem, it’s quite amazing how much of a transformation that occurs up to this point from the rough sawed lumber to actually a very beautiful surface from which the custom square letter banks will be cut from.
What you are looking at here is probably the last time my ShopBot PRSAlpha will be cutting out these banks, I’ve bought a big industrial Thermwood that will be able to handle the requirements I have in both time and production quality that I’m having a heck of a time achieving with the ShopBot, so enjoy these photos as the next run will most likely be from a far bigger and exponentially more powerful CNC router machine.
The results are looking great, this entire journey to this point has taken many areas of investment, from developing my own shipping department to be able to process and ship these banks directly from the shop to custom router bits that really produce an AMAZING result and soon, a massive new router to compliment and finally put production quality to a whole new level at SandboxRanch.com.
So far the work involved with getting SandboxRanch.com off the ground has been quite monumental but it has benefited CNCROi.com in so many ways, this tangent has been a wonderful way to push forward new production methods and efficiencies shop wide… and it all started with wanting to make custom children’s banks out of wood myself in the shop with incredible customization capabilities.
With the new CNC router I’m getting, I’ll also have a 7 tool changer capability, which means I’m not limited to just two anymore, this means I can not only be a lot more efficient in production quality but also add features that I’ve been wanting to but was really unable to up to this point as the production times and efficiencies were borderline criminal in how much they negatively affected things.
Many of the steps you see happening here for the production of these custom square letter banks will not change, the process will just be faster, at a higher quality and will include some aspects of production that I simply cannot do well with my current equipment but is no problem with the new equipment coming to CNCROi.com very very soon!
SandboxRanch.com has been optimizing and improving on these custom square banks for quite a while now, we are almost there!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQybRyVXS1Q/
There is quite a bit of work involved with both power tools, hand tools and CNC machines to produce the final custom square letter banks, it’s very much a labor of love at SandboxRanch.com and I can’t wait to finally have all these learnings applied and out the door for people all around the world to enjoy because yes, SandboxRanch.com can now ship ANYWHERE right from the shop!
You can already see the quality of the cutting-out and the excavation is dramatically cleaner than the very first batch of custom square letter banks I made at SandboxRanch.com… this is only possible with a lot of testing, optimization, prototyping and more testing in endless circles of improving things.
After cutting out this batch of custom square letter banks, it’s time to jigsaw them all out of the wooden slab I so lovingly created in the first place at SandboxRanch.com.
The jigsaw just cuts out the rough custom square letter banks so that I can then go over it with my router table to remove the left-over skin of red oak all around the banks, left there on purpose, to hold them down using my vacuum table.
Now that the wooden aspect of these custom square letter banks is finished, it’s time to cut out the front windows, using our CNC laser, for each and every one of these… of course, as this is the first run of these windows on the updated design, it requires more prototyping.
But first, look at the picture below, the “C” is what tung oil does to the color and texture of these awesome custom square letter banks, this is one of the options that is available and in my opinion, unless you plan on finishing the banks yourself, a bare minimum to add a lot more beauty and resilience, as well as protection to your very own custom square letter bank.
MDF is cheaper than acrylic, so I do all my testing using this material, and once that’s sorted, the next step is cutting it out of the acrylic.
The custom banking business is a lot more involved than at first sight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYlrz6dMwKk/
Luckily, my time spent optimizing these front windows, countless hours at SandboxRanch.com, have produced a method to get these right the first time, in both form, fit and function!
These fronts look great, the next step is acrylic versions of the same thing, they are the same thickness, so I’m also able to test the edge quality of all these custom square letter banks as well.
Acrylic is transparent, so you can see the money you put in the bank, which I think is the most fun part of the whole process in getting these, after customizing it to suit your ultimate personal aesthetic.
Acrylic is like cutting gas, there is fire, there is flame and there is danger, but luckily, I know what I’m doing, haven cut a ton of acrylic at CNCROi.com over the years.
The acrylic isn’t only the front but also holds in the coins, so having drill holes in them is vital, the next step with the wooden banks is to actually have the machine do the drill holes, which will save me a lot of time and produce a more consistent product rather than manually doing so with a drill at SandboxRanch.com for each and every custom square letter bank.
The nice thing about acrylic is that it’s completely transparent, the bad thing about acrylic is that it’s completely transparent, which is why SandboxRanch.com also offers engraving of whatever you want, on the front of the acrylic and many different acrylic choices as well, from different colors to even transparencies.
This second batch of custom square letter banks came out even better than the last, it’s a crazy amount of work to get things to this point, and there is always room for further improvement, which I’m chipping away at with each bank I produce at SandboxRanch.com.
Want a custom square letter banks? Visit our online store and feel free to contact us if you want something even more custom at SandboxRanch.com.
