Anyone out there with rotary playback on thier machine

[Damon Nabors]

I forgot to mention, Great looking stuff you got there Ray.

[DanEpps]

Dan,

I can't speak for the RPU, but as for the regular non RPU stuff, you can spend a day on some of those carvings. If you were to charge by the hour, you would have a hard time collecting. I look at it like this, I have the router and there are times when the machine is just idle, so start carving and go do something else while it make shavings. You could probable only charge $10/$20 per hr for carvings, simply because of the time factor vs what the market will bring. If you can make it personalized with names and such, then you can charge a little more. It is great to have the flexability of being able to make your own carvings. The time factor in programming also cuts the profit margins way down also.

That's sort of what I figured. I just couldn't see how it could be profitable if you tried to use it to produce a product line. I guess the real value comes in by being able to exactly reproduce an existing carving for a customer--say to replace a damaged/missing leg on an antique. That is the only way I can see it come close to being profitable.

[Georgi Baltov]

Damon/ Dan,

your point is the most popular. When things come to being profitable and making money no one could argue. But then if you have something very simple that you want to reproduce and you need it fast it is nice to know that you can use your own machine to do it. The cost of an RPU is not big (we found it reasonable), plus we already had the main software to use it with. We have a few small upgrades on our two machines. They are not the money makers, they are the trouble savers. These upgrades are not so expensive but save you trouble taking the job out of your shop and relying on people that are not always so good in what they do and the time that they do it into.

Again we are pretty busy custom shop. So when time is crushing you, it's simple thing that you want to make, why not make it yourself. After you make a few jobs like that the RPU is paid for. Then it's all about fun. And lets not forget that although we are all in this business for the profit we also enjoy what we do.

So that's why I wanted to know what are other people being able to do with their RPUs.

Brad, has given me some nice ideas and hints. And I have some nice custom projects coming.

Thanks for sharing these great pictures with us Ray.

[Ray Jorgensen]

Dan,

I can't remember exactly how long it took to cut the leg. Something like 2.5 hrs, I think. I've never seen where you can buy one that looks like that so I can't tell you.

On the egg and dart profile. It,s an hour for a 8' straight. I can speed that up, I just haven't gone back to the toolpaths to tweek them. Putting the egg and dart on the round cut in about an hr. also - maybe a little less. Again, I can tweek the speed by going back to the toolpaths. I couldn't find anything that came close that replicates what was already in the 100+ year old house that I needed to make it for originally.

There is no way I could ever get anyone to pay for the time to design and code this - well maybe if Thernwood did it - but not me, I'm painfully slow!!!! On the egg and dart it's kinda paying off cause I'm incorporating it into other items other than it's original purpose. It's probably not alot different than with a moulding machine, If you have to get custom knives, it's gonna cost more....

Where I have been able to make these types of things pay off is where it can be bundled with a total job. Say on a $30K kitchen and they love the look - what the heck another couple thousand is nothing. I can give them something no one else around can. That's where the production sharing can come in - you can add that extra that your compeditors can't - or don't know how.

Thanks to all for the kind words.

One note on the rental programs, there is some real nice stuff out there that can be incorporated. The problem I see is that the pictures are pretty poor and it's very hard to see what you'll get. I've cut stuff from there just cause I can, it's cheep and I've been amased that I didn't get what I thought I would, but it's still pretty cool. My brother is a proffesional photographer - picture for Time, New Yorker, that caliber of stuff - he told me pictures sell, or don't sell. If you want to see for yourself, go to ebay and just look at pictures of the same item, then ask yourself which one you want to bid on. This could be a suttle hint to Thermwood???