Favorite Projects of 2017

2017 was an incredibly busy year, it was our best on record since founding and I believe 2018 will see an exponential explosion of new customers as I develop a custom side business that has mass appeal.

I shown the building of this business to a few friends and not one has said anything bad about it, they wanted me to make “one” for them as soon as the site launches which should be in about a week.

Anyways, 2017 saw a lot of new development on CNCROi.com, I’ll pull the stats later but I believe I was very close to achieving one blog post (and project) every two days for most of the year including the retirement (and given to a client) of the Eiffel Tower I designed and brought to way too many trade shows.

CNCROi.com finally got a logo in 2017 after more than 3 years of operation, it was time and I began using it across all our demonstrations.

My accident (getting out of bed, not shop related) put me out of commission writing for a solid month and with everything taking so much longer with only one functional arm, we made lots of projects for customers but I didn’t record any of it.

I’ve now retained almost all my range of motion since the surgery and in a few weeks start-up weight training to get back the strength lost in my arm.

I’ll post a video of all the self-physio-therapy I’ve been doing to my arm to get it back into working order once it’s back to where it should be to help others who happen to also dislocate their elbow and crack a few arm bones in the process.

Getting my very own bandsaw was also HUGE for me, I always wanted “one of those” and I’ve used it on so many projects I’ve lost count, even with all my CNC equipment and hand tools, the bandsaw is just such a wonderful piece of equipment.

I also got another specifically for metal, as well as a bunch of other auxiliary tools in 2017 AND we also moved into our new shop that, to be frank, is already starting to feel like I’m in a can of sardines, we will have to move again in 2018 to something at least 2x bigger than our current location.

Favorite Projects of 2017: Pallet Wood World Map

2017 was the year I started to showcase more of our pyrography skills using our Austrian wide-format CNC laser, it’s an amazingly high-tech piece of equipment that can do amazing things and I’ve only STARTED to showcase some of what we are capable of doing as a company for clients around the world.

Was there a faster and more efficient way of making this World Is Mine wooden map? Absolutely, but it’s the journey and the challenge of doing things the hard way that make you appreciate the easier methods of production and also hone your skills on equipment that might not be used all that often in the shop.

In 2017, CNCROi.com plowed through forests of trees creating projects for customers, a record year in wood and 2018 is looking to blow that out of the water – our most popular material? – MDF and Pine.

Favorite Projects of 2017: M4 Gun Key Holder

I made this M4 gun key holder for my nephew, it was great fun going from design concept to finished product then giving it to him fresh off the laser bed without requiring any sanding!

A little creativity goes a long way, especially when you consider Pine is such an abundant material, it’s thick, relatively inexpensive and produces amazing results regardless of what equipment we use to form it to our needs.

Favorite Projects of 2017: Dimensional Signage

CNCROi.com has a lot of tools as out disposal and using them in innovative ways is fun to prove that it’s possible, in this case, using our powerful CNC laser to burn a wooden CNC routed sign.

If you think about it, our Trotec Laser is nothing more than an over-engineered magnifying glass, so any application that requires burning, it can do, within 5 nanometers of accuracy no less.

Favorite Projects of 2017: Wine Bottle Etching

Wine bottles, CNCROi.com has done HUNDREDS of them but due to budget and time considerations, some of the really cool stuff that we can do for customers never gets requested so I took the opportunity of coming out with our new logo to engrave it at multiple depths on a wine bottle.

I see this end of our business growing quite a bit in 2018 as we gain more traction in the marketplace offering essentially anything our customers could possibly want on glass.

Favorite Projects of 2017: 316SS Plate Etching & Annealing

Lots of metal has flowed through our shop, in 2017 I decided it was time to make our live easier and simply make all out plate out of 316 stainless steel.

Sure, it costs more, but the extra corrosion resistance over 304 is worth it and it gives us and our customers extra piece of mind.

I believe in the month of December alone we went through THOUSANDS of anodized aluminium “pieces” and although not as many in stainless steel, metal has certainly picked-up in 2017 over our previous years thanks to our fiber laser source.

Favorite Projects of 2017: Family Cottage

The challenge with having all this equipment and design expertise in one shop is that, quite literally, the options are endless, but something I’ve very proud to have developed is the ability to transfer just about any photo onto any material.

I’ve probably spent over a year cumulatively at the cottage that my uncle build and my other uncle upgraded and to me, it’s a second home.

Sharing my passion for design and building with my family who’s just as creative is a wonderful joy.

Favorite Projects of 2017: Waterjet Steel Signage

Something I’ve wanted to showcase at CNCROi.com for a while is waterjet cutting, it has its place and finally around the tail end of 2017, I began recording it cutting metal but we’ll use it to showcase some very innovative demonstrations throughout the year.

Each CNC has their place, their advantage and disadvantage, we just happen to know how to design optimally for them and produce the absolute best outcomes using all their strengths.

Favorite Projects of 2017: Custom Stamps of all Kinds!

What is there more to say about stamps, we sold a ton of stamps in 2017 verses very little in previous years, like the wine bottles, the metal and wood projects, 2017 saw an exponential jump across the board across all the work we do for customers far and wide.

Out top seller? Trodat’s 5212 and we do so many of these that we now have to keep inventory of them to be able to make and ship them to our customers within our production goal of 24 hour turnaround for most projects.

2018

I’m really excited about the coming year, as I seem to be with every year but already we have customers with projects that I’m working on and we are January 2nd!

Generally we’d have a slow period in January but if anything, January will be even busier than December and December was nuts!

CNCROi.com has grown tremendously over the past three and a half years since founding and I want to thank all our visitors, customers and soon to be customers for their confidence in our capabilities and our passion to bring a little custom to their lives.