While sitting on the porch have a cold Molson to celebrate Canada. When I worked for Kodak I went to Rochester NY a lot and they had the Genesee beer. Any of the local beer would work quite well.
Hope you enjoy sitting on your new chairs. You got them ready at the perfect time of the year for NY.
Looks great. Any top tips on anodising. I have tried it with mixed success, especially difficult to get consistent colouring aross several pieces
Best thing that’s helped get mine to come out better is use of pre-etch, degreaser, and excessive polishing. Make sure you’re using actual anodizing dye as well. Lots of guides I’ve seen say you can use other kinds, but they won’t come out as nice.
Made some quick side panels for containing aluminum chips. They’re just dry erase board on one side and chalk board on the other. They slide into aluminum rails on the table and beneath the shelf. Also added some led lighting to brighten things up a bit. And used some dry erase boards for a back panels on the wall and behind the machine to make cleanup easier.
This kind of project would be one that would mostly be cut on a table saw and jigsaw for me. Only thing I would want to use my S5P for would be maybe an inlay or carving detail on the back uprights. Could have the whole thing cut out and ready for assembly in a couple hours.
This is one of the examples of what I was talking about a bit further back about what to charge per pieces made, and what is better to be delegated to other machine. The S5P is great, but some runtimes are so long that it doesn’t make it worth the time ran on it.
Your chairs look great, but keeping costs down while raising profits can be tough with the materials we use and the process we choose to go by in order to make it, can be a bit too off on cost to return.
Always use the right tool for the job… However, you also have to use what tools and skills you have access to. Maybe he can’t get the quality he’s aiming for with a jigsaw. I think the chairs look awesome! If it’s the best way that works for him, then it works. Keeping costs down is always difficult, and is usually a trade off with quality. The way he’s going about is likely the way he feels he needs to in order to get the quality he wants. And his customers will likely enjoy his attention to detail. The customers who would prefer a less precise cut to save a few bucks, probably aren’t his target customers anyway. I sell a head tracking cam for flight simulators that’s the most expensive cam on the market. But it’s also the most badass cam on the market. My customers love them. The people who think the they’re over-the-top and needlessly overengineered, buy something else. And that’s perfectly okay. Knowing who you’re marketing to is important. Filling a niche. If I had more deck space, I’d definitely buy one of those chairs 
I love those chairs! Nice work man. As far as the costs, people will pay for what they want. If you wanted to sell them, somebody would buy them. If you needed to bring costs down, you could offer other woods and finishes as options. On the low end you could do painted mdf with a coat of polyurethane. Pine, stained with a coat of poly, could be another lower end option. Those would both cut faster and finishing would be easier. You could also forgo the fittings and just use nuts and bolts, at least where it’s feasible, for the lower end options. Nevertheless I think they look incredible. Nicely done man!
Nice! I’m a big fan of overkill, go big or go home!
I’ve just recently fallen down the rabbit hole of flight simulation, DCS in particular. Are your head trackers for flight simulators or?
A link describing the build process?
Yes, dcs is a rabbit hole lol Yeah these trackers work with any simulator that supports head tracking. Dcs, racing sims, star citizen, etc. It requires the cam as well as the led tracker. The software is Opentrack, which is open source and free to download.
Here’s my website: https://rjsimtech.com/
And the link my setup guide: IRCam Guide – RJSimTech
Oh, here’s the thread I started for the cams. My first product with the 5 Pro. I’ll probably put together a build video at some point. Or at least describe the process and how I went about designing them. It’s about 1.5hrs of machine time and 1.5hrs assembly time. For the painted options it’s an additional 1hr of prep, paint, and poly coating. The base option just gets sprayed in matte black straight off the 3d printer without any prep. It’s a 12k resolution resin 3d printer, so they’re very smooth even out of the printer, but for the painted versions I sand them to 4000grit.
Eli: You are absolutely right. There are few reasons why I did not use a band saw: I simply do not have one. 1st: my basement shop is small, so I decided to have a table saw. There also is a reason for that: I am a urologist by trade, and do the woodworking as a hobby, and as a preparation for retirement. While I saw several woodworkers doing excellent work with 4 fingers all together my life as a surgeon would be over with just one finger missing. There is a saw stop table saw, there is no such thing as a band saw, and believe me, I see that in “our” emergency department: band saws can cut off fingers at least as nicely as table saws. 2nd: I never saw bandsaw cuts really nice and precise, and if the bandsaw is adjusted for precision cuts: that takes again a lot of time.
Therefore I do not have a band saw.
The cut edges with a router on Richlite are much -MUCH!- smoother as they ever can be cut with any saw and sanded after. IMHO also a jigsaw never cuts as precise and smooth as the router can. However: in any case Richlite needs some specific attention. It is the weight, and the joining. Not that the oak chair was less effort: capping every visible screw -there are no visible screws except the ones for disassembling- and finishing also needed some time, but I think working with wood would not be reason to discuss it here with people that do those things. Therefore I just shared my experience with Richlite, and since this is a forum about CNC I thought it would fit in. Eli: and sorry for the arrogance: the work that that thing ate reflects also the quality. Of course a Adirondack chair can be made with some boards, a jigsaw and some nails. That ingenious brilliant simplistic concept is their charm too! But I had a lot of fun, applying 9 layers or finish for the oak, and to have some very smooth edges with the Richlite.
And you are absolutely right: to choose the right tool is the most important decision on the beginning of a project. If there is a crucial tool missing in the shop: don’t do it.
Joshua: I could not agree more… You encouraged me to look out for customers who appreciate that kind of hand charming quality. That is what these items are about: the rather primal and ingenious concept of the Adirondack chair manufactured as a heirloom. I am just not good selling things, but that can be learned can’t it…
Yeah, I mean, for a small home shop you’re not going to be mass producing something to millions of people. The stuff we build are bespoke hand built items. The trick is designing things that people want. But you’ve done that with your chair. It has to be unique and something people will want. But if it’s well built and hand crafted, someone will buy them.
As far as selling goes, you have to find where your target audience hangs out online. For example, I sell flight sim gear, so I hang out in discords with people who fly flight sims. I got some youtubers that make flight sim related videos to do reviews which boosted sales. Then it’s just word of mouth from people who have them. I’ve never paid for advertising because at the volume level people like us will be dealing with, the cost of advertising ends up eating all of your profit. Or worse, putting you negative.
Try farm and art markets, and home decor forums. Try to identify who is going to be buying them, and then figure out where they are and how to reach them.
I understand you using what you had. We all appreciate you sharing your experience with the materials you used. I would love to be able to run all of my projects on my S5P, but runtimes would just be out the chain for this for me.
I build an Adirondack chair awhile back that was a two seater with a small table between the two, and a drop cooler in the table. The chairs were also built to be able to recline. It was a fun project to design and build.
We use what we have and do the best we can with these things. Great work. You did well.
The important thing is not to sell your time short. If you’ve got a good product that’s well designed and people like it, they’ll pay for it. Don’t go crazy on the pricing, but make sure it’s worth your time to do it.
Awesome idea with the maple leaf back! It’s been a while, but the CDC came by and took samples from some maple trees in my yard back when I lived in the Hudson Valley. You could definitely shorten the cut time with a 1/4" mill for the cuts & carriage bolt holes. Just do your drill process with the 1/8", or even a combination drill/countersink bit to further speed that along some. You may have decent luck without tapping your holes if you use screws that have more surface contact with the driver (ie: Torx or hex head). Richlite suggests it’s entirely doable with the appropriate hole size and screw. from their website:
Pilot Hole with No Tapping. Drill a pilot hole that is slightly smaller than the screw thread. Because of its density, Richlite is nearly impossible to screw into without a pilot hole. The pilot hole should be slightly longer than the screw. You may not be able to penetrate the hole further after your screw reaches the end of the pilot hole, and there is a possibility of damaging the product or pushing through the other side.
• Pilot holes for pan head sheet metal screws:
• #8: 9/64” – 5/32”
• #10: 11/64”-3/16”
• #12: 7/32”-1/4
kudos again
It is nice to see people carry on centuries old traditions.
skysmotor.co.uk sells the following products online: pancake stepper motor, geared stepper motor, servo motors, planetary gearbox and can be purchased online if required.
Terrific work @wilmatos1989
https://www.instagram.com/p/C7AeNjJvfTv/
Scott: TY for your screw diameter recommendations! I did some experiments with scrap Richlite, and came to the conclusion that either the screw broke, or the richlite (from the front side) broke, or I could not fasten the screw at all, therefore the tappings. Thanks again for the recommendations! Will help all users here a lot!
