It's not stupid, if it works

[Crazyraceguy]

This was a perfect case for that defense. I needed to trim the end of the ply after wrapping around a curved corner, but there was no way to position the rail. It needed to be a nice straight cut, since it buts to another piece, no jigsaw.
The rail will not sit on a curved surface, so I made it a temporary flat surface. Tacking along the front edge and wedging under the back, to get it square to the face, worked out perfectly. Because this entire assembly was on an angle, I did clamp the rail in place. You would never know that it was cut "in place" rather than before being attached. 

 

[ChuckM]

Makes good sense to me. [thumbs up]

Some clamping cauls work along the same line of attack for irregular surfaces.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

I have never needed to do this before, but the whole bit about the new rails with the sticky pucks got me thinking about non-typical uses. The longer you use things like track saws and routers, the more creative ways to use them come up. New challenge, new way to use something you already have.

 

[ChuckM]

Snip. The longer you use things like track saws and routers, the more creative ways to use them come up. New challenge, new way to use something you already have.

That's the difference between breadth and depth. I know several wood turners, one of them (used to be a furniture guy) focuses on only bowl turning and wood burning. His burned/pierced bowls won many local competitions and awards. At the beginning, he was just one of the tens of thousands hobby bowl turners. (His table saw top, last time I was there, was covered and used as a shop table.)

[attachimg=1]

 

[Crazyraceguy]

That is kind of where I am at this point, and why I am equipped the way I am. Nearly anything could come across my bench. Since I am not a hobby woodworker, I don't get to choose what I make....only how I get it done. That is on me and has changed over the years with tool improvements and upgrades.
I swear I don't understand how the sales guys do it? They take in projects with absolutely no idea how some of the details can even be done.

 

[rmwarren]

That is kind of where I am at this point, and why I am equipped the way I am. Nearly anything could come across my bench. Since I am not a hobby woodworker, I don't get to choose what I make....only how I get it done. That is on me and has changed over the years with tool improvements and upgrades.
I swear I don't understand how the sales guys do it? They take in projects with absolutely no idea how some of the details can even be done.

You've never been in sales... close the deal, figure out the details later. I can say this from experience.

RMW

 

[Michael Kellough]

That’s the opposite of stupid.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

That is kind of where I am at this point, and why I am equipped the way I am. Nearly anything could come across my bench. Since I am not a hobby woodworker, I don't get to choose what I make....only how I get it done. That is on me and has changed over the years with tool improvements and upgrades.
I swear I don't understand how the sales guys do it? They take in projects with absolutely no idea how some of the details can even be done.

You've never been in sales... close the deal, figure out the details later. I can say this from experience.

RMW

I get that, but how could you possibly accurately price such a thing? If you have no idea how something is built, the amount of time required is just as mysterious.

 

[rst]

And sometimes stupid is just stupid.  I do plastic fabrication, some years ago, a very good customer called me needing two obscure 1/4" curved acrylic pieces,  The pieces were not large 12" x 26" that and architect had spec'd.  I called my distributor for pricing as I had done tons of bending with my bending equipment.  They came back with a price of $1200.  In my foolishness I decided to attempt to accomplish this my self having done very small pieces.  I spent a day building the form, covered it with felt only to discover I had no way to heat the entire piece...there is a reason large fabricators have huge very expensive infrared ovens.  I managed to heat the most of the pieces with an small infrared wall heater and a heat gun and clamps.  The architect rejected my efforts so I went back to my distributor to find that the quote they had given was for ONE piece.  Needless to say my customer was not pleased and decided to go another route.  Pretty sure they lose their caboose on that job as did I.

 

[rmwarren]

And sometimes stupid is just stupid.  I do plastic fabrication, some years ago, a very good customer called me needing two obscure 1/4" curved acrylic pieces,  The pieces were not large 12" x 26" that and architect had spec'd.  I called my distributor for pricing as I had done tons of bending with my bending equipment.  They came back with a price of $1200.  In my foolishness I decided to attempt to accomplish this my self having done very small pieces.  I spent a day building the form, covered it with felt only to discover I had no way to heat the entire piece...there is a reason large fabricators have huge very expensive infrared ovens.  I managed to heat the most of the pieces with an small infrared wall heater and a heat gun and clamps.  The architect rejected my efforts so I went back to my distributor to find that the quote they had given was for ONE piece.  Needless to say my customer was not pleased and decided to go another route.  Pretty sure they lose their caboose on that job as did I.

Total tangent but when we built our house the boss finally acknowledged that curves cost a lot of money. Unsurprisingly we have none.

RMW

 

[Cheese]

You've never been in sales... close the deal, figure out the details later. I can say this from experience.

RMW

You nailed this one Richard  [smile], sales considers their folk to be closers, not engineers, not marketeers and not manufacturers, they simply close the deal and get the client to sign the papers. That's what they get paid for and some get paid handsomely for that ability.

Originally we used to have sales not only design new Semiconductor equipment but they would also give the customer delivery dates for the yet to be designed equipment. Talk about stupid...when you tell IBM that they'll receive equipment on such & such a date, it better be there on the dock.

Eventually, we had a Marketing Manager travel with the salesperson and that tempered the situation somewhat. On very complicated requests we'd have an engineer travel with sales & marketing to the customer site, but that took a long time to implement for various reasons.

 

[rmwarren]

You've never been in sales... close the deal, figure out the details later. I can say this from experience.

RMW

You nailed this one Richard  [smile], sales considers their folk to be closers, not engineers, not marketeers and not manufacturers, they simply close the deal and get the client to sign the papers. That's what they get paid for and some get paid handsomely for that ability.

Originally we used to have sales not only design new Semiconductor equipment but they would also give the customer delivery dates for the yet to be designed equipment. Talk about stupid...when you tell IBM that they'll receive equipment on such & such a date, it better be there on the dock.

Eventually, we had a Marketing Manager travel with the salesperson and that tempered the situation somewhat. On very complicated requests we'd have an engineer travel with sales & marketing to the customer site, but that took a long time to implement for various reasons.

That's the key to pricing, a management layer above sales that (1) understands production and (2) approves proposals, connecting promises to delivery. This is where the money is made.

RMW

 

[Michael Kellough]

Way back when I was part of an organization and we were asked to consider making something my coworkers would ask me how long it would take and then multiply my guess by 3 and pass it back up the chain. If we carried out the task the 3x estimate was usually right.

 

[Vtshopdog]

3x longer than I think it will take is pretty much every project I do….

 

[rmwarren]

3x longer than I think it will take is pretty much every project I do….

Absolutely nailed it.  [not worthy]

RMW

 

[Crazyraceguy]

Total tangent but when we built our house the boss finally acknowledged that curves cost a lot of money. Unsurprisingly we have none.

RMW

Curves and angles, complicate nearly everything. As an example, those "boxes" that I posted with the angled laminate are vary overcomplicated, for what they are.
Angling the laminate is in itself a huge waste of material, because of all of the corners being cut off. Then it is complicated even further by having those 1" wide clipped corners. It goes from a simple cube to an octagon, which is much harder to trim, at minimum tripling the time.
Of course the "owners" have to like the final product, but as a practical matter, in a retail environment, the customers who see it every day? Does it matter?

 

[ChuckM]

FW contributing editor and Canadian furniture maker Michael Fortune is one of the masters of curves and angles in the furniture field. He uses a lot of prototypes and jigs in his business.

 

[bobtskutter]

[member=58857]Crazyraceguy[/member] thanks for sharing this.  I'm only a hobby woodworker, but I'm learning about making things oversize then trimming them to fit either with the track saw or a router.

It looks like the curved piece was cut on a CNC machine, could the off cut from the CNC machine be used to make a support for the guide rail?  It should have the same shape curve but as a concave profile.

Regards
Bob

 

[Crazyraceguy]

[member=58857]Crazyraceguy[/member] thanks for sharing this.  I'm only a hobby woodworker, but I'm learning about making things oversize then trimming them to fit either with the track saw or a router.

It looks like the curved piece was cut on a CNC machine, could the off cut from the CNC machine be used to make a support for the guide rail?  It should have the same shape curve but as a concave profile.

Regards
Bob

The support for the back side of the rail could very well have been made on a CNC, to fit that radius exactly, but the cut-off (or opposite side of the profile) would not have been useable. These parts are nested together to save material, so it's not like there is a nice triangle with the curve on one side. In practical application, I would probably have done that by just drawing that shape onto a piece of 1/4" MDF, as a template to route from thicker material. In this specific situation, with such a large radius and a raw plywood surface, it was just quicker to tack it in place with a couple of 21 gauge pins. This made it easy to tap around and shim/wedge the gap, to get it square to the edge. After that, I put in a couple of screws to keep it there. It was very solid.
If this had been a more finished surface, a better fitting form (as mentioned above), would have been better. Double sided tape or tape and CA glue work for things like this too.
Yes, the curved lower plate that you see there was cut on a CNC, in the first place. That is one of the parts on the red cart that I posted about this entire build. The kerfed ply panel was made with a computerized beam saw.
This section of the larger wall, was the first one to be skinned on the outside. That is the point of this procedure. To make the entire 4 section unit come out square, the first one has to be square. The others are skinned one by one following that. Maintaining squareness around a radius is done with the skin itself. I build the "stud wall" section, kerf part of the panel, which is square and begin attaching at one end. Once it wraps around the corner and overhangs slightly, it can be trimmed off. Most of the time I would start from the curve and trim off the flat end, but this one has the joint way too close to the beginning of the radius. Starting from there would be far more difficult. "Squareness" is the most important thing with wrapping a radius. Even the slightest variation creates a cone, making further wrapping more difficult, along with attaching to the next section.

 

[blues]

The Mafell aerofix is such a joy to use and might just be the ideal tool in these situations. No clamping.. No stickers.. No consumables.. scribe.. place and cut. The vacuum attachment can go on top or bottom of the rail. Just a brilliant piece of engineering.  I cant recommend it enough.