I'm a bit 'old school' at heart. Although my skill level is better with electric powered tools, I love the hand powered tools!
Then we start talking about robot woodwork, and I get kinda triggered.
I have a buddy in Fort Worth Who does CNC & lazer etching. Sure I can do anything he's doing. But it's gonna cost way more time and money for the client, often making it prohibitive for my shop to do the project. After seeing what my buddy Nathan can do with his machines first hand, (including his 4x8+ cnc that he built himself🤯), I've become very intrigued with the possibilities. Especially since I love engineering in general, it has cast a new light on robot woodworking for me.
Then in steps Mr Jerry..... (of course..... Jerry's always gonna stick his nose in there🤠). And I'm glad he has. Jerry said he could fix me up with a branding tag for the projects I do. He said, "no problem", and he was correct. I'll be honest, I kinda took for granted that it would be cool and turn out well. But what I didn't realize at first is that it would take several design iterations before I was able to approve the final tag design. Oh, Jerry knew though. When he handed me the first few design samples he said, "take them to your shop and play with them a bit and see if you like any of them. Then holler and we'll get it all fixed up right."..... or something like that. So I did. Several different designs and none of them were completely doing it for me. I would be fine using any of them but I knew it could be better suited for my needs with some changes made. I hollered, with updates to the design, using different elements that Jerry created from each design. Jerry answered. The next email he sent me after that, had the Final Design looking really great!. I think there were a couple very slight adjustments made to that Final, but a couple of few days later, Jerry handed an envelope with my new branding tags in it AND THEY'RE AWESOME!!!!
I reckon my point to all this is, the robot cranked em out really fast and sharp yeah, but it was Jerry the Human, retired police officer😉 that did all of, the most important part of the work. Communication. Design. Layout. Engineering. Programming the robot. Listening. Adjusting. Design again. Program the robot again. Jerry will say it was easy, no problem. But really, the easy part in my shop is stuffing the wood through the saw, scooting the knives across it and gluing up the parts. Figuring out how the project is actually going to get completed beyond the client's satisfaction and expectation is where the real "work" is. The rest is just me having fun and enjoying the craft.
Robot woodworking, I feel, is not what it sounded like to me, when I was first introduced to the concept. I feel that the artisans who employ robotics in their woodworking, are not just your typical, glorified box builders, like many of us. But they're Bridge Builders....
How do y'all feel about it?
One of the things I like about woodworking is there are so many different ways to accomplish the same thing. From the get-go some folks can go from an idea, some use software for that, others graph paper. I am more of a graph paper person, but only because I am not very technical in todays terms. It creates alot of trial and error, etc. I appreciate the work from high end technology and from the most basic of hand tools. Both require a skill set that non woodworkers will never know. I fall into the mid range shallow end of the pool category. What I really like about our club though is that everyone knows where they are and where they have been, and are willing to help as needed.
Well, I appreciate the kind words but the robot woodworking isn't as difficult as some folks believe. That being said, I had a CNC for almost 3 years and the best I could get out of it was some straight groves to slide some acrylic into. I thought that a CNC would be easy after I had a laser for several years. Seemed like the same concept . . . X, Y and Z axis and you're good to go. I finally sold the CNC because I realized that working with my laser was like learning French as a language, and then when the CNC arrived it spoke Russian (figuratively, of course!). The comparison to a laser went out the window. I never could grasp the CNC details so I sold it. That's OK, I have friends with CNC's and we can trade out stuff!
The HARDEST part about making stuff to sell is dealing with the customer - (CARPENTERTX, this is NOT directed at you)! But it takes self discipline to work with a customer who has an idea and when you begin to work with them, you find out that they have absolutely no idea what they really want. I have had customers that I have fired because the were so unreasonable in what they wanted, and they were ok with taking up several hours of my time going in circles on design ideas, insisting I do things that my equipment could not do ("I want the engraving on the green tumbler to be yellow."), and drifting away to watch Opra on TV while I'm trying to text or email them with proofs, edits, and conversation, and not responding back to me. That is frustration at its highest level.
CARPENTERTX was an easy customer . . . yes, he wanted some edits but each one was understandable and for a good reason. That's not frustrating to me - that's creativeness! I knew we would come together for an end result so I had a defined goal to work for. Many customers don't have that defined goal.
So anyway, thanks, Sir, for letting me do the project! It was fun and I'm happy with the result. I'm more pleased that you're pleased. And I'm especially thankful that you let me "stick my nose in there". 🤣