Using the Router as a manufacturing Tool…

Talking to local businesses…

So you want to create a special project that can be duplicated many times over…let’s say you have talked to the local Wine Store or any store that sells small gifts to their clients. You are creating a sample gift box that is used to replace the wrapping paper. It holds a wine bottle, a bottle of high end perfume or that special knick-knack. This box is made of MDF and has been painted with the Faux finish. The cost of production is approximately $1.50 each.

You present this to the Store manager and mention that this box can have their custom logo painted into the finish. Cost of each box is $9.95 without the logo and $14.95 each with the logo in groups of 10 boxes per order. Use your sample box as your sales tool…get the orders then create the manufacturing line around the construction methods.

You explain that the boxes can be made into any shape and/or size. You can even work with the store to create a in-store special event that groups four wines into one gift box. The store creates a special price that includes your gift box. Retail price of a four wine hand made gift box is $29.95 and works as the gift box plus once brought home it can be the modular wine storage system on the pantry shelf. It’s a collectible item…

Manufacturing with your Router…

Well today’s post is about using the router to create many projects made the same way. As you create this one design then develop the manufacturing process that will then create ready to sell multiple projects. With this technique you can create many items very fast and accurately. The process is to create Jigs and Fixtures that are designed to aid you in the construction operations.

Here is the step by step system for the manufacturing technique,

1) Identify the project you want to duplicate,
2) Make a list of construction processes,
3) Identify the processes that require assistance,
4) Create Jigs and Fixtures for the identified processes,

Test the processes with your new Jigs and Fixtures by creating a pro-type run of let’s say ten items. This is where you have the list of construction operations, required Jigs and Fixtures, and the workstations set up to manufacture your projects. It is recommended to set up each workstation with separate routers and template guides. You need to set up the entire manufacturing line.

Here is an example, the Magic Box from episode 103,

1) Using the dynamic box calculator create a sample box using the inside measurements from the dimensions of one of your favorite wines. This is going to be your sample bottle used to generate sales.

2) The list of construction processes:

A) Using 3/8″ MDF size the 3 different pieces,
B) router the two pieces one side with two rabbets and
C) one top/bottom with four rabbets,
D) router the inside groove in all side pieces,
E) Mark the groove on the outside of the piece,
F) Glue and place into the gluing jig,
G) Cut apart the lid/bottom using the small jig,
H) Sand the manufactured box,
I) Antique and Paint the finished box,
J) Package and deliver to client.

3) Processes that need assistance:

F) Glue and place into the gluing jig, (see project PDF to see gluing jig)
G) Cut apart the lid/bottom using the small jig, (See Project PDF to see the jig to separate the lid and bottom)

4) Make the jigs…

Hopefully this has been a help with regards to the many uses of the router in the manufacturing process. Just one more point, be sure to add a clear Avery label on the bottom of the gift box with all your contact information. Plus add four small felt stickers one on each corner. These will act as small protective feet used to keep your painted surface from being transferred to the clients furniture.

My background image library…

The Background Image Library

http://www.routerworkshop.net/freecontents/TRW_Background_Images/TRW_Background_Images.flv

We have just created the TRW Background Image Library to help the folks that are making Paint Boxes with the custom water slide decals. Things important about this custom library of background Images is that you can put your customer’s family photos into images of exotic places like London, England or maybe on the beach in Guatemala. There are 150 different detestation background images with the royalty free license.

Once you have paid the flat fee of $27.00 you have the right to use these background photos as you wish for your Paint Box projects you create.

Software Customization:

This image library is in a windows software program that is custom made for you. After payment we will compile your custom made software with your name in two places 1) in the top left corner of the window title and 2) in the about button in the bottom left region.

Rights to use:

You have the right to share the photos within the software for any custom project you may be working on. You DO NOT have the right to share your copy of the software or resell the photos alone. Your use of the photos must include cutout photos of your customers family and/or images. These custom images must then be mounted on your custom made Paint Boxes.

Custom Paint Box Tools:

1) Select the buy now button below to purchase your copy of the Router Workshop Background Image Windows Program.

2) Click here to use the free Dynamic Calculator Tools and/or purchase the video and PDF plans.

3) Click here to get a copy of Play with Pictures used to cutout your custom family photos.

Using the Cross-Lap Joint…

Today’s Router Tip is using the Cross-Lap joint to separate items for your Custom Paint Boxes. We start by taking measurements using the inside measurement tool on the Dynamic Box Calculator. You need to make the Cross-Lap dividers for your box is bit larger than the item designed to fit into the desired spot. For this example I am creating a Paint Box that can hold 4 of the 1 Pint Jar.

To use the Dynamic Box Calculators follow this link to the two box Calculators.

Click on the screen below to watch the video on how to measure and make the cross-lap joint in the internal divider.

http://www.routerworkshop.net/freecontents/Cross_Lap_Joint/Cross_Lap_Joint.flv

It’s hard to believe only 18 days left…

That’s right!

Christmas is just around the corner or more accurately there are only 18 days left. As everyone is making plans to go shopping in the days left until Christmas I was surfing the web for ideas on how the woodworker could use their talents to create special hand crafted gifts for the people that are special in their family.

A Neat Idea…

This post is about a neat idea that my Mom gave to us last Christmas as a stocking stuffer. The present was Gift in a Jar, which was the ingredients to my favorite brownie recipe. To add to this she wrapped the Jar with Christmas paper, to top it off with few ribbons and a Christmas card.

It’s all about the Packaging…

So the reason for this post is to talk about how to package the Gift in a Jar using our new dynamic box calculators instead of wrapping paper and ribbons. But before we get to the custom made Painted Boxes let’s explore what we can use as the gift in a Jar.

As a great starter,

I have purchased a few Gift in a Jar recipes. I have converted the recipes into a series of PDF recipes that I am offering to you as a gift from Router Workshop. In each of these Gift in a Jar recipes we have custom made labels used to create a professional look and feel to each of your creations in a Jar.

Now here is the How To information video on how to create and print the Gift in a Jar custom labels.

http://www.routerworkshop.net/freecontents/Gift_ina_Jar/PDF_label_construction.flv

Free Label Software…

I used the Avery Label software to print the labels out to your color laser or inkjet printers. Click here to receive your free copy of the Avery Label software.

Here are the recipe gifts from the Router Workshop.

1) A all time favorite here at home is the homemade version of a quick breakfast meal, Click to get your copy of the Apple, Cinnamon and Walnut Oatmeal.

2) As our second choice we have added nuts and apples to a homemade pancake mix. Click here to get your copy of the  Apple Nut Pancakes.

3) Now this one is for everyone that drinks coffee with a creamer, it is the Amaretto Coffee Creamer.

4) And the last one is the Apple Cake in a Jar so click here to get recipe number four.

Please Note: That all of the above recipes that use Apples can use different fruits to create a different taste. I am not sure how well bananas would work but I am sure apricots, peaches, and blueberries would work just fine.

To finish this post I have included the link to our Dynamic Box Calculators. This resource is here to help you create those custom gift boxes for your friends and family.

Merry Christmas to all,

Here is our own Dynamic Box Calculators!

We have just set up and created two Dynamic Box Calculators for the following projects on the Router Workshop.  These calculators work with Episode 103 Magic Boxes and with Episode 801 the Inlaid China Chest. We have also added the How To PDF plan and the Videos needed to create the boxes. The custom material lists from either of the Dynamic Box Calculators need the correct How To information.

To try and/or buy the How To Information follow this link.

This is a got to have program…

So how does this fit into a router blog?

Well, if anyone is using the Internet to sell their woodworking creations then you really need a program that can cut out the background quickly and easily. If you sell things using Ebay or on your own website then being able to clear the background is a must.

You need to display your product with the least amount of background noise as possible. I have been playing around with this software “Play With Pictures” and have found bar-non this is the top of the pile best software going.

It can quickly cut out the unnecessary background very easily and it has a very low learning curve. As an example I have taken a photo of a set of hinges with screws on the coffee table then in less that 10 minutes I removed the background.

See the comparison photos below Left one, a set of hinges/screws without the background and Right one with the background. This is me a complete rookie with less than 2 hours experience with the program.

Folks, it can only gets better with practice.

To anyone that is interested…

I have purchased a series of License Keys that will give you discount of 15% off the $40.00 retail price.

To test just download the evaluation software and see for yourself. Here is the link to the FREE 15 day software download

If you agree then you can purchase it from me with the buy now button below. If you don’t see value yet, you should at the very least, try it…

License Key

Windows O/S $33.96 Mac O/S $33.96

Well today is the last public post on Painted Boxes…

Has anyone seen the possibilities that can be realized by combining your woodworking skills with access to customers at the next Craft Show. We have shown you the techniques that are a must to the creation of quality inventory.

Next we should talk about the logistics to the creation of your inventory. Here are a few questions that come to my mind.

1) How much and What inventory do you need to make for your first craft show?

My thoughts: Well if you knew the how much and what to make you would probably be better off buying the winning lottery ticket. The best answer to this is that you need to produce a wide variety of sample Painted Boxes. Then from the samples you can take orders and create/deliver after the show. If asked the reason why you don’t have a huge inventory? Your response is that you make custom sizes, colors with personalized decal of local themes.

2) How much of the inventory is unpainted?

My thoughts: With the unpainted you might just have a few common sizes available for purchase because the profit margin for unpainted without the wood decals is quite different than the finished products.

3) What are the most common sizes?

My thoughts: To answer this question you need to know the motivation of your customers. Why would they need a Painted Box? You need to use your sample painted boxes to help your customers begin to think outside the box and see the need to have one, two or ten boxes.

One possibility, purchase a common photo album from your local store and pitch the process of creating a photo album or a brag book of their family members. Your pitch is that by adding the painted box to the photo album it would just be the finishing touches to the perfect package for each of their families.

4) How many are painted and with a holiday theme decal?

My thoughts: Yes the one thing that is going to close the deal best is that you are using quality graphics of that special season. I must remind you that all your graphics need to be original art that you have the rights to use.

Caution: Don’t digitize the cool greeting cards you found at the greeting card store.

5) How many are painted and just waiting for the customized wood decals?

My thoughts: This is a good plan that will work perfectly for that special season. Travel around town and take cool photos of the Christmas decorated town hall or the featured Christmas tree. Get that perfect picture of the highlights of your local atmosphere. This is best taken at sunset or in the evening and it’s a photo of your lighted bridge, the town hall or the local museum. Make it anything local, every location has a cool tourist location that will be that perfect background. Best part is that this is original art created by you easily and quickly. Click here to see tips on Photo Composition:

That’s my thoughts on getting the right inventory for the Craft Show…

Now let’s recap: a) you have the product, b) the methods used to paint and place a graphic decal, c) ways to create original graphic backgrounds and d) the way to personalize each product.

Not sure this is the way to go yet!

Do a trial run or maybe two or three: Start by hosting a home party with your friends. Invite 3 or 4 of your best friends, hey make it a wine or cheese party.

Once this has been a success and I trust this will be a great success! Ask each of your friends to host their own party with 3 or 4 different friends. The more practice you have the better it will be at the Craft Show.

Preparation for this party is simple:

1) Create 5 or 6 different sample boxes each with a special theme. Have one painted box created for each of the invited friends without the completed decal.

2) Ask all invitees to bring a family photo.

3) Have your computer, scanner and printer set up to digitize their photos and add them to your background photos. You know the photos you took while traveling around town.

Please note: Make sure you are well practiced with the software “Play with Pictures”.

4) You ask your friends to help by getting them to add the wood decal to their box.

Please Note: You need know how to explain the process of placing the custom decals to the wood boxes.

That’s it for this post, thanks for now. Below is the plan and video to the painted boxes…

How To Create Personal Graphics Quickly and Easily…

Well we are on the home stretch with our series of Posts on the Craft Show Project Idea. Today I want to talk about a really cool software program that can be used to quickly create personal graphics. With the water slide decal process these graphics can easily be placed on your custom made Paint Boxes.

So what’s the procedure to create a custom graphic wood decal for your custom paint boxes. The program we are talking about is Play with Pictures.

This program is designed to work as a five step process.

1) Load your custom canvas background into the program,

2) Load the family photo and remove a person or a group of people out of the background of a family photo.

3) Insert one or more cut out photos into the custom canvas background.

4) Add your custom text, bullet points and speech bubbles,

5) Save the project and print the color decal.

That’s it you’re done!!! You now have a custom digital graphic decal ready for your paint boxes in minutes with little effort.

Don’t believe me, here is the quick overview “How To Tutorial” which gives you the quick overview on how easy the Play with Pictures program is really.

A side note: Hey folks this video is me using the program for the second time so be easy on me.

http://www.routerworkshop.net/freecontents/play_with_Pictures/play_with_Pictures.flv

To anyone that is interested…

I have purchased a series of License Keys that will give you discount of 15% off the $40.00 retail price.

To test just download the evaluation software and see for yourself. Here is the link to the FREE 15 day software download

If you agree then you can purchase it from me with the buy now button below. If you don’t see value yet, you should at the very least, try it…

License Key

Windows O/S $33.96 Mac O/S $33.96

For anyone interested here is the download of my sample graphic.

Here is a website with a collection of free backgrounds and textures.

Please Note: This program works great with both Mac and PC, sorry folks it doesn’t work with the 64 bit O/S system. That’s it for today’s post! Below is a recap of the past two posts about the Project for the Craft Sale…

Well To Recap about the last two posts:

In the first post, we talked about the tools needed to create the custom sized Paint Boxes. We have three tools:

a) The PDF plan to the Magic Boxes in episode 103,

b) The TRW Episode 103 Video Program talks about the construction process,

c) The free dynamic calculator to customizing the materials lists.

In the Second Post: We talked about a simple decal producing process to print specific graphics and apply those graphics on the custom made Paint Boxes. We talked about the following:

a) A description of what a water-slide wood decal is and how to use it,

b) A step by step instruction process of how to paint your custom made boxes,

c) Talked about the process used to purchase and use scrap book graphics on your Paint Boxes.

Well that’s it folks, hopefully you see this information as an asset and something you could use as a part of creating your series of fine Painted Boxes. If some of you have photos of your Painted Boxes we would be interested in seeing your work.

Using Waterslide Decals on your Paint Boxes…

Well the last time I showed you how to make any size of paint boxes. To follow up with these three tools:

1) the PDF plan used to discuss the construction process,

2) TRW Episode 103 video on how to make the box and

3) the free Dynamic Box Calculator used to create custom box material lists.

Today we are going to talk about using a very neat process called “water-slide decals for wood” So what is the water-slide decal anyways? This is a simple process used to create custom decals for your custom paint boxes.

What tools do you need:

1) Computer and Laser color printer or a color photo copier and the water-slide decal paper.

Please note: You can also use the Inkjet printers but these printers need one more step to prepare your graphics. The Inkjet printer prints water based graphics so you need to spray the surface of the decals with a light acrylic coating. Be sure to coat with at least three thinly based coatings.

See this YouTube video on the steps to create and place your decal on the ceramic cup. Please note that you can add to the wood boxes just as easy. Sorry for the video it’s a bit dry but tells the story.

To prepare your paint boxes:

1) I would spray them inside and out with a base under coat then let dry,

2) Lightly sand and then add a color coat with one or two coats,

3) Let dry and again sand lightly with 600 grit then use the acrylic to coat the finished box. (at least 2 coats maybe 3 and lightly sand between the first and second using 600 plus grit paper.) The better the finished again the better the product.

4) Create the water-slide decal and apply to the top of the paint boxes.

If you decide to completely finish your painted boxes it will be your creativity that will determine your success or not in the sales department.

Try and create theme boxes using the scrap-book technique and be sure to use graphics that have good sense of taste. Better the graphics more money they will pay for the box. With the finish and creativity of the decal the box will command higher price.

Now instead of the $3.00 to $5.00 for the unfinished box you are looking at $30.00 to $50.00 to a piece of furniture or special feature piece for the coffee table.

So Buying Graphics:

If your going to buy someone’s scrap book graphics that are for sale be sure you are buying the commercial rights to the graphics. You need these rights to sell your boxes with the author’s graphics. Don’t get just the personal use rights.

It’s best to explain what you intend to do with the graphics. Your conversation might go like: I need the commercial rights to these graphics so I can sell them with my paint boxes. Also remember all graphics need to be CYMK format and at least 300 dpi? (That’s dots per inch)

That’s it for now…Next Post, and last part to this sequence on Craft Show Products.

I am going to show you how to make your purchased decals into a personal theme quickly. Again with the personal decals comes a price increase. So how can you make the decals personal, you are going to have to wait until the next post to see.

Hit product for your local Craft Show…

Have you ever thought of using your woodworking talents to create wood products for the next Craft Show? Christmas is coming and selling products for Christmas is a good way to supplement your income and help pay for your woodworking hobby.

Here is One Idea:

How about making paint boxes out of 1/2″ MDF and sell them unfinished to your customers. Let them paint them as they need.

Project cost for materials is approx. 45 cents per box depending on the size of the box and they have the resell value of $3.00 to $5.00 each. You can mass produce these very easily and create an inventory of product quickly. We have three key tools used to help you create your Craft Show Inventory.

A. Your copy of our PDF plan as the how to build the Magic Box,

B. Click here to try this FREE calculator that creates custom material lists.

C. How To TRW video on the making of the Magic Box.

So what kind of custom boxes do you want to make,

Think about the following:

1) Create boxes that will fit your customer’s specific needs or

2) Create series of boxes that are designed to fit with one or more of the online custom picture books. It could be a custom gift box. Go online to find the common sizes.

3) Use the calculator to customize boxes of a variety of sizes and using the inside measurement feature on the calculator you can do the following:

a) Build 5 boxes that fit inside of each other.
b) Build a box to fit photo albums found at your local store.
c) How about making the boxes to hold home video CD’s or DVD’s

How to use the calculator with inside measurements:

a) To make the 5 boxes, Start with the smallest then add 1 inch for the next box, add another inch to the next box…etc. Once done you have 5 boxes from smallest to largest each fitting inside of the other.

b) How about creating a box that can hold common items like CDs or Photo albums. Just measure the sizes of the physical items and put the numbers in the calculator questions add the quantity push the calculate button out comes your material list.

Idea one: a series of CD’s of various numbers, made for 2, made for 5 and maybe made for 10. Here we use the inside measurement tool to create the custom materials list.

Idea two: Pick up some sample photo albums then measure and use the inside measurement tool again to create the materials list quickly and easily.