Why we make our samples out of scrap material?
The vast majority of the blog posts and videos you see here on CNCROi.com are actually on scrap material left over from other project. Why?
Use material as much as possible!
Some of the projects we do for customers are highly optimized to our production methods, as such, the amount of scrap is almost nothing but sometimes, customers have projects in odd shapes and sizes that produce extra off-cuts.
These off-cuts can be large or incredibly small, so it comes-up to looking at it and imagining what content we can create to show other customers (or the same ones), other possibilities that can be applied to the material.
Something that’s popular for many customers whom we do thin material engraving and cutting with is using the voids to make promotional items like custom key chains, coaster, name badges and a bunch of other things, even signage!
Scrap material possibilities are endless!
Many of our customers also produce off cuts from their own work that we can easily repurpose and recycle for other uses. One client had a whole raft of polycarbonate sheets for instance in a corner of the shop. What did we do with it? We make signage throughout the building with backlit LED signage custom to their logo (we don’t show customer projects on the site so you’ll never see it here).
Another customer produced lots of rock items and using their scrap pieces that aren’t good for much else, we produced some custom samples for them to display at trade shows and mail to customers to create a new revenue stream of laser engraved items that previously, would have been scrapped.
Scrap: The Ultimate ROI
Nothing beats the incredible return on investment of scrap material, it’s already paid for and generally our customers avoid the extra costs of getting rid of it and turn it into a new stream of revenue. Just like manufacturers who recycle the copper from their EDM machines, we do the same with other stuff lying around costing money.
Another customer needed some high visibility signage throughout the shop, we optimized the design and made a bunch of extras and even after that, we still had more possibilities with the customer so we presented some ideas of novelty gifts using the same material. That’s how this sample came about.
More videos coming and sample scrap projects!
It’s really easy to look for alternative uses for material scraps, you just need to open your creativity to alternative uses. Some material we can’t do anything with but those are rare due to the chemicals and higher resale value of the scrap (think metal) but some things we can use towards other purposes.
Our goal here at CNCROi.com showing all these sample projects are to give our customers ideas of what we can do with their stuff or for their business. Anybody can make something look great using “virgin material” but it takes talent to optimize things so they look great using stuff that’s not so clean and tidy.
Of course, most of our projects are done using “virgin materials” and afterwards, we figure out what we can do with what’s left over.
Scrap has character!
In a world where everything looks perfect, like lots of projects we make for our customers, it’s nice to show people something that’s worn and has scratches and dents. It has more character to it!
Producing a prototype of a corporate award that’s awesome looking and then telling a customer that it was made using stuff they would have thrown-out always gives them a double take. I love that! We had one project that was producing quite a bit of scrap and I transformed it into table top displays for an upcoming corporate convention… they recognized the material right away and were blown away that it can look so great in a completely unrelated application!
Let us put our creativity towards your project!
Everything we do here at CNCROi.com requires creativity and passion, we love what we do and really enjoy seeing the reaction from our customers when they get the work we do for them. Give us the opportunity to make something awesome for you as well.
Contact us right now!
