Targeted Material Focus: Wood
CNCROi.com works across a lot of materials, wood, plastics, metals, leathers and stuff even I don’t quite know what it is.
You might think it’s easy jumping from one material to another but it actually entails unique challenges from getting the RIGHT suppliers, having the RIGHT equipment and developing the RIGHT processes to do work for customers optimally across them.
I started CNCROi.com with only a dual sourced laser (CO2 and Fiber) with a ShopBot Desktop and what took me “so long” to get things to the point they are now is that I’ve been constantly investing time and treasure for associated tooling to feed these machines.
If I had to move back into my parent’s garage today with all my equipment, it would literally be a solid block of tooling and be the ultimate game of Tetris just to get everything back in there, just in wood tooling, I have enough to fill a two car garage, then double that with inventory and double that again with metal… it’s astonishing how much CNCROi.com has grown over the past “almost” 5 years of founding!
For instance, in 2018 I invested heavily in wood tooling culminating in a full sheet CNC router which has been a shop changer for both clients and opportunities we can take-on.
Basically since January of this year, my focus has been entirely on expanding the capabilities we have specifically in wood yet again, growing our live edge inventory exponentially and the tooling that entails for making custom solid wood furniture and both larger and smaller associated items.
Around a year ago, I started to get into welding with a cheap little welder to get my feet wet as to the possibilities that offers myself and my customers and with that, greatly expanded our custom metal fabrication capabilities.
Just like our “custom rubber stamp business”, it entailed a lot of learning, getting inventory, building relationships that has paid huge dividends which means that making more stamps is second nature while if you would have asked me to make you a custom rubber stamp 5 years ago, it would have taken me exponentially longer to get the same task made.
This exact “keep doing it till you get good at it” approach towards continuous improvements in capabilities and related machinery is what has helped CNCROi.com expand so greatly while still keeping my goal of trying to get most jobs in and out of the job within 24 hours.
Truth be told, it isn’t easy deciding in what direction to improve the shop in, getting the full sheet CNC router was a no brainer, it was a massive leap in our CNC router capabilities and I already know what tooling and other equipment I’ll need to expand our other capabilities further.
Just with laser, there are bigger format machines, more powerful tubes and new technologies like MOPA that I’ve been investigating for the better part of a year, if we get a huge project requiring a galvo, we know where and how to get it.
Same with metal cutting, CNC waterjet is wonderful but there are more efficient tooling options out there though more specialized like CNC plasma and the like that wouldn’t just compliment the waterjet but provide a synergy not possible currently.
I’ve found that no tooling really replaces another, it’s just growing complimentary technologies and then using them optimally for custom product.
A great video showcasing what kind of synergy can exist once the right equipment is in place are these “simple” custom corporate awards I showcased in the video above.
They require a CNC router (faster full sheet is best for the volumes we make), CO2 laser source for the engraving and fiber laser for the etching but truth be told, if you wanted to replace the wood and polycarbonate with stainless steel and anodized aluminium, it would be just as fun and yes, we could do that too!
If you would have asked me to make these awards when I first started years ago, I didn’t really have the contacts to make it happen and it would have taken me a lot longer to make them with a lot more challenges due to limited machinery.
Other jobs like these custom plastic tool organizers just wouldn’t have been possible as is many other jobs CNCROi.com performs but aren’t documented or shared online (video or blog) for various reasons.
This has led to other opportunities, the more equipment you have, the more you can do and the more efficiently it can be done such as my Drais BMT (Bike Multi-Tool).
The past 5 years have really flown fast since I returned to North America after being abroad for 10 years, where my life was entirely digital designing models for my other business CNCKing.com until just the two years before I returned thanks to my education in Australia about custom fabrication by Evright.com followed by opportunities I received from ShopBot Tools.
It’s been a great journey so far and the opportunities are only growing with each passing week, more clients, more projects, more challenges and more LEARNING!
Need something custom made?
Contact CNCROi.com right now!