CNC Shop Tour | My CNC Business

real quick i want to thank this  video sponsor which is keeps i did my first cnc project back in august  of 2015. it has been six years exactly and   i have gone from one hobbyist machine to a crazy  impressive lineup of four professional machines   come into my commercial shop called the woodshed  and let me give you a tour of my cnc business in case you're not familiar with how a cnc works  especially if you have multiple machines let me   take you through the process on loading them  up running them and then repeating the process   and then i'll get into more details about the  overall business of it i primarily use these two   machines for my template making business and then  this one for more detailed or elaborate jobs so   first thing in the morning all of the machines  start up at every single machine they each have   their own individual computer jacob has designed  and put together some plywood furniture actually   cut out on the cnc in order to house a computer  used for that specific machine the shop saver unit   actually comes with its own pedestal so we didn't  have to create anything special for that one   when loading up the cnc machine the vast  majority of what i'm using these machines for   is quarter inch mdf it's a little bit thinner  of material meaning that if i'm not using a   vacuum bed which these two machines don't have  a vacuum that means that it needs a lot of hold   downs to hold the sheet nice and flat so that  you'll get a nice consistent cut throughout the   entire sheet jacob has come up with these very  savvy unique hold downs for these machines and   so what we do is use an electric screwdriver to  go through and tighten down on every single one   it has a built-in torque setting that won't allow  you to over tighten and it drastically speeds up   this process then we use two quick squeeze  clamps for the middle of each end whenever   we use thicker material we don't have to use as  many hold downs as this quarter inch requires   next we can run the file and then you can see  both of the carriages start coming this way   once the full sheet is ran now i can pull the  material off of it a while back i actually bought   a sitting standing desk and jacob salvaged it  from my workshop because i never bothered to   take it out of the box and put it together and he  turned it into a raising and lowering workbench   for the use of this so that you can raise it up  to a height needed where you can just pull it up   to the cnc drag the material off go to the next  one drag it off and then as the sheets pile up   you can raise or lower it so that the height is  always where you need it to be now at this point   all of these parts need to be popped out  so that they can start being processed   we have tried several things over  the years and kind of a method that   we've refined is just using brute force throwing  in a piece of wood in order to pick it up and   then using some sort of tool in order to bump  out each and every part it breaks through those   thin tabs without breaking the part by the way  if you're not familiar a tab is a small piece   of material that's left behind whenever you're  doing the actual profile cut that will hold the   piece to the material that you're cutting that  way it doesn't just get flown across the shelf   tabs are mostly necessary whenever you're running  machines that don't have a vacuum bed they're   really great for making sure that your parts don't  go flying however once the parts are broken out of   the waste material now that waste material gets  thrown over into the waste bin and then all the   parts get taken over to a shelving unit in order  to get de-tabbed the d-tabbing station is simply   a router table i'm personally using the triton  work center with their router mounted underneath   i'm using a vacuum hooked up to it in order to try  to maintain good dust control then for a bit i'm   using something called a panel pilot flush trim  bit it's slightly different because it doesn't   have a bearing like a traditional flush trim  bed which makes it far easier to work on thinner   pieces of material i think that's why they call  it a panel pilot flush trim bed as you can see you   can very quickly get into a groove here and just  fly through all of this once it's all d tab then   it gets set over into the rack and our personal  system is to create a master of everything   because we do a lot of templates by the way if you  want woodworking templates you know where to go   the way that we distinguish them is by  painting them blue and then engraving   in what that part number sku is the name of it so  then whenever we d-tab them it's just a matter of   finding that master and then piling it underneath  it this is also our quick reference on which part   we need to cut next now going back to the cnc  machines the beds need to be vacuumed off which   would just keep a separate vacuum underneath pull  it out it can reach both units and then we rinse   and repeat the process go back to the material  rack pull in new material tighten down on all the   hold downs and then run the next part the masters  are also really good at these are the originals   and so every part from here on out should look  like these and so it's really a quick reference   should things start looking different that we need  to go back and either look at the file or look at   the machine and see where it's gotten off right  now this is our inventory system it has taken   me a lot of trial and error to figure out how to  ship out templates without them getting damaged   into the mail personal process is to use some  bubble wrap and also stacking the mdf in order to   use the material in order to create some rigidity  in the packaging using this method has allowed me   to mix the box and instead use a poly mailer  which is just like a kind of a plastic bag   that comes in different lengths and sizes at  this point it gets sent over to my mom who is   of course the shipping department and then  whenever you guys place an order she sticks   a label on it and then it gets sent out into the  mail so i did this process by myself for a solid   year with the help of my mom she's always been the  shipping department uh then in 2020 i heard jake   and he very quickly took over the cnc work and  then since then i've hired uh cindy terry david yeah you justin but you don't you don't  ship packages do you want to ship packages   we need another hand with the help of my  crew i have now been able to take this   from a single machine which by the way the laguna  is still in my personal shop and probably will   remain for the foreseeable future but we can  still use it so now in 20 what year are we   in 2021 where's the time gone now in the year  2021 i have six people running four machines   and it's it's incredible i wanted to show you the  detailed steps that it takes to run the machine   but now let me show you the entire  shop with all of us at our stations so i get asked the question quite often how did  i get to this position let me go back to the   beginning and kind of explain why what my aim is  and my transition here so back in 2019 whenever   i got my laguna and i really started understanding  the full capability of what a 4x8 robot could be   and doing for me i started thinking i  want to create a business that lives   outside of me creating content because  what happens one of these days whenever   you guys don't want to watch my videos or maybe  i can't or don't want to be making videos anymore   i want to have something that still involves me  in the making world without having to to follow   one path and so i started seeing the possibilities  on maybe i could be creating an additional revenue   stream now and then possibly a future career right  and so the laguna for me was a huge breakthrough   it had a vacuum bed and it allowed me to start  making templates and selling it to my audience   in small doses and that worked for a while  but then whenever it ramped up in order to   go to the next level i now needed another  machine and so then i got into a shopbot was just happenstance that i ran across a good  opportunity to get into the shopbot and it has   been a all of my machines have been wonderful so  at this point this is whenever i purchased the   woodshed and uh was doing the renovation my goal  was to get all of the employees that i was hiring   to work on these machines and and process parts  out of my personal shop so that i could retain my   own space but then also give them a shot to work  out of so during that timeline that's whenever   i purchase the woodshed and these machines came  over here y'all probably know this about me but   i'm just not okay with just staying here i want  to go here and i want to go fast i only had room   for one more machine at least at this point and  when considering what machine that was going to   be i am very serious about production and so i  went with a shop saver i believe every single   machine on the market has its place and i'm  very fortunate to have the lineup that i have   but this one is a serious commercial unit that  will absolutely take my business to the next level   one cnc machine is a business and its own what  it does is it automates a process that you would   otherwise have to do manually over and over  and over again if you're a cabinet maker for   example one of these machines is a business all  in itself now the shopsaber machine automates even   more processes than that machine does now that i'm  trying to get to a higher level of a manufacturing   shop automating as many processes as possible is  key so let me get into a few things on what this   machine does in order to help me there one of  the big obvious upgrades is that this does have   a vacuum bed the vacuum is actually stored at the  rear of the machine on the ground and of course   the laguna machine that i have is also a vacuum  bud so i was already familiar about how much   of an upgrade this is for the cnc however it's  worth noting listen to how quiet this machine is this is with the vacuum pump and the spindle  running what the vacuum bed allows is there is   a vacuum underneath that creates suction to suck  down the spoil board as well as your material to   the bed so that you don't have to have either tabs  at all depending on how big or small the part is   smaller parts like this they definitely do need  tabs but we run lots of material that don't need   tabs because it has a vacuum bed one of the  main struggles with cnt is figuring out how   to hold down the material with the vacuum bed  and just relying on that suction to pull it all   the way down it eliminates that completely  then looking at the process that also kills   whenever i have to walk over to one of these  other machines and go to every single one of the   hold downs to tighten or untighten it completely  eliminates that step then taking it a step further   shopsaber has automated the process of loading  material even easier by having reference pens they   have a cordless pendant which is also a really  nice feature but the reference pens are these that's not cool that's like some space stuff   so what what that will do is one you can take off  the material but then whenever you want to load it   back you pop up the pins and now you can reference  your uh material all the way to the bottom and all   the way to the left of the machine making if i  wanted to cut 50 of these then i can make sure   that they're all in this in the same spot to  do that just for the fun sake of it besides the   vacuum bed the biggest upgrade that i'm absolutely  in love with that is a game changer to me is the   automatic tool changer typically on a cnc if  you have a job let's say i cut out a bunch of   charts that first require an engraving bit and  then you come back with a regular end mill in   order to do the profile to cut out the profile of  the chart you have to manually change over that   bit to from an engraving bit to the end mill and  then back to the engraving bit for the next sheet   that process only takes i don't know 45 to 45  seconds to a minute but still that time counts   you can have 10 tools lined up here then  whenever it's done doing all of the engraving   it will automatically come back here release the  engraving bit pick up on the end mill and then   go immediately into the profile cutting another  thing that the atc eliminates is having to zero z   in between bit changes so whenever you put in a  new bit it measures the height of it and then you   z it out it'll remember that so that whenever it  comes over and swaps out the engraving bit for the   profile bit it doesn't have to re-zee it at that  point it can just automatically go in and start   cutting watch how shop saber has incorporated the  dust dock what this does is it removes the dust   boot before it goes and picks up the new tool this  has been a real big point of frustration for cnc   owners so the fact that they've automated this is  just really neat by the way i want to address this   noise real quick because it's actually a really  cool feature you have to hook up an air compressor   to this unit and it's always dispensing a small  amount of air in order to make sure that no dust   gets up into the system so that's why you're  going to hear that throughout this entire video   now in order to maximize precision the shop saver  unit is upgraded to this ball screw system here   and watching this thing work is just incredible  to on most cnc's i think all other cnc's it uses   a rock and pinion system with the rack and pinion  system there's always going to be at least a tiny   bit of play and this ball screw system completely  eliminates that all right let's move up here   because i also think that this is a really cool  feature so typically one of the axes that you're   most limited by is your z-axis and on whenever  i'm cutting fraction to decimal charts for example   there's so much lettering it does an a it picks  up and then goes down to the next letter then   it picks up and goes down to the next level and  all of that z up and down motion just makes the   time it takes to cut an entire sheet incredibly  long z is notoriously gonna be your slowest axis   to work long because it's always gonna have to  raise and lower the weight of the spindle head   what shopsaber has done is they have included an  air cylinder or an air piston that is calibrated   to counterbalance the weight of that spindle head  and that way it can move up and down drastically   increasing cut speed and therefore reducing run  time one thing i'm really excited about is the   ability to add a laser to this shop saver so  this is something made by opt lasers out of i   believe they're polish and they just mount  right here on the side of the shop saver   allowing me to very quickly go from not only the  capabilities of a traditional cnc but now having   laser capabilities as well this unit is a six  watt unit that allows me to do some engraving   passes but note that they do also make a 15  watt unit that has a three laser diode blue   engraving laser head it can also engrave on steel  or cut up to three millimeter plywood in one pass   there's quite a few different directions that  i could get into for my cnc business but um i   get i think to wrap it up let me at least show  you the workflow that we've figured out so far   to work best for us with the machines being here  facing them this way and being able to have rows   in between them has been very really valuable all  of the dust collection and the vacuum bed pumps   are on that end of the of the cnc's on this end  each one of the pedestal lives a workbench not   for working on but just for moving around material  from the material rack to the beds and vice versa   the material is of course storage where it's  readily available to throw onto the machine   but is also forklift accessible whenever you're  working in quantities of this scale being able to   maneuver things with a forklift is invaluable  now moving over here right next to the cnc's   is of course where the d tabbing station is it's  going to be the unit that's closest to the machine   now we want to try to start getting things away  from the machines which is where the inventory   and the packaging up system goes so that's  pretty been pretty much this station here   however as things expand which i'm hoping that  they will then we'll probably move that further   away from this station where multiple people will  always be working once packaging is done we wheel   big carts over to the shipping department where  my mother is working to put a label on it i spent   years not having evenings or weekends because  i was just on this mission to create something   because at the root of it i am still incredibly  passionate about what it is that i'm doing um but   to get to this point in my career to where now i  have a full-fledged team supporting me to where   i can not only take things to a different level  but i can also enjoy life at the same time it's   just an absolute incredible feeling and if you've  also been supporting me from afar and rooting me   on then i can't tell you how much i appreciate it  if you have a high production job that is on your   radar that you're looking for a shop then please  consider me and my crew we do work extremely hard   and very proud of what we're achieving here so  that's it for this one i really hope that you have   found this video entertaining uh informative and  hopefully useful i'll see you on my next one guys way to go team get back to work real quick i want to pause and thank  this video sponsor which is keeps   between co-workers friends and families i have a  lot of men in my life and they all have one thing   in common they want to keep their hair two out  of three guys will experience some form 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Channel: April Wilkerson

Views: 547,859

Rating: 4.9110727 out of 5

Keywords: cnc machine, cnc machining, shop tour, woodworking shop, cnc router, cnc shop tour, cnc, shopsabre, shop bot, laguna, shopsabre cnc, shopsabre tool changer, the wood shed, wood shed, april, april wilkerson, woodworking templates, cnc setup, 4x8 cnc, cnc woodworking, cnc projects, cnc templates, cnc shop, shop tour 2021, april wilkerson cnc, cnc router projects, cnc router woodworking projects, cnc router woodworking, woodworking shop layout ideas, shop sabre

Id: pn6vUag_mHo

Length: 18min 32sec (1112 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021