May 7th Weekly Update

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

My week this week was mostly taken up with catching up on taxes and other logistics that I put off until the kickstarter kits had all shipped.

Shipping Update:

The batch of kits destined for the EU has arrived on time in Germany. It will take several days for them to be unloaded from the train and sent out, but that process is underway. I will be sending out tracking numbers for those kits as soon as I have them which will hopefully be in the next week or so.

That is the final large batch of kits. There are still a significant number of lost packages, packages which had some shipping issue, or packages which bounced back and need to be sent out again which need to be taken care of, but it will feel really really good once these kits to the EU make it to their final destinations.

Projects:

I try to cut things regularly as a part of testing. I'm a big believer that if things aren’t being used regularly then they won’t work.

This week I cut out a miniature greenhouse to go on top of a raised planter bed, and a sign for a friend who is helping to organize the Folk and Forage music festival.

With both projects I tried to push the limits a bit with good results.

The sign was cut from 5/8ths ACX plywood in two passes at 2000mm/min which is a bit more aggressive than I usually cut, but it worked well other than the dust collector not being totally able to keep up, although it seemed to usually clear out the extra chips on the second pass.

For the mini greenhouse it was fun to figure out how to get the sinusoidal corrugation pattern wrap around a circle in Abundance. I have some bigger projects in the works which will use the same corrugated roofing so this was a small practice option.

New spoil board ideas

Unfortunately, part way through cutting a planter box this week my foam spoil board shifted which partly ruined the cut. The issue was that my foam spoil board wasn’t heavy enough to grip to the concrete and also it had lost some of its gripping pads due to me 1) not having the right glue, and 2) not having enough non-slip pad to cover the whole surface.

I took the opportunity to make version two of the spoil board which has a couple of improvements. First the entire surface is covered in non-slip material. Second, I staggered the layers making it slightly larger than 4’x8’ so that I can easily support the sled when cutting right to the edge. Third, I made the whole thing from plywood to give it some extra weight. 

Overall I am happy with how it is working. The extra size is great, and having non-slip surface everywhere makes it super grippy so it’s not going to slide, but the extra weight of the wood does make it harder to move around and I’m worried the duct tape hinges aren’t going to hold up for long so I’m not totally sold on that aspect of it.

The next thing that I want to try is non-slip foam tiles like this:

If anyone has any good ideas for what to use as a spoil board, don’t forget to share them in the forums! Nobody in the world knows that the best way to do any of this is yet so we’re all figuring it out together.

Have a great week everyone!

-Bar