Modifying Design for Efficiency
I do not often have the opportunity to make something twice. Most of my pieces are custom made, one off designs for clients or my own home. With the launch of my jewelry line, I now need to make many small items and have them all identical. I’m talking about the boxes the jewelry comes in.
These boxes are simple. Six pieces of wood come together, joined at their edges with glue. My first design I complicated it. I wanted mitered corners to flow the grain around the entire box. I made the sides out of single piece, half lapping them so the top and bottom would match perfectly. It was a lot of work and required precision which is difficult on such a small piece.
See, most woodworking power tools are meant to cut larger lumber. Trying to cut thin, small pieces on a miter saw is a recipe for rockets. A miter saw blade, or any circular saw blade, has teeth which protrude past the body of the blade. These teeth do all the cutting, the rest of the blade simply holds the teeth. As the blade spins at 4800 rpm it pushes air causing turbulence. Small pieces can get caught in this turbulence and bounce around, moving in to push up against the body of the blade which can slide the piece back and into the teeth. Once a tooth catches the piece it will kick it and send the piece flying with the force of a bullet. Luckily, a miter saw sends these pieces back, away from you. It is still scary as each time it happens there’s a bang, a big bang. I already called these projectiles bullets, but it is about the same sound as a gunshot. Jarring, even with ear protection on.
So I avoid the miter saw when working with such small pieces.
That means cutting by hand or with my bandsaw, but making perfect 45 degree cuts on a bandsaw means tilting the table or creating a jig. And I don’t like messing with those adjustments.
Long story short, making one box the way I did in the video about my Teardrop Earrings worked, but making batches of them would be a pain. Then I needed to make four more in a week. Time to figure out a new way.
This is where design is questioned. Does the box have to have miters or would butt joints look just fine? Do I need to make the box interlocking or is there another way to hold the top on? Is there a safer way to make these cuts with power tools so I can speed up the process?
To all these questions, the answer is yes. Well, not the first one, that’s a multiple part question so the first half is no and the second half is yes.
The new box design is easier and faster to make, with less clamps during glue ups meaning I can make more at once, increasing my throughput. Plus they ended up looking better, largely due to the way I constructed the boxes.
On the left, my original design. Right is the new version. See how the box is cleaner and comes together seamlessly compared to the gappy old version.
In the first version I made the top and bottom independently and sanded them as one piece. But they were not a perfectly tight fit which made that difficult to keep even while sanding. The new version I made the box as one single piece. Sanded it flat on all 6 sides. Then cut it in half making a perfect box all the way around.
The problem with this method is the box now would not hold itself together. My solution, cut thin strips that protrude 1/8 inch above the surface on the inside. I glued those pieces in place and the top now slipped right over those and the strips held it in place.
Old in the back, new up front. The old version was a pain to have it all line up. The new version was easy. I simply glued in the two rails sticking up and I was done.
That’s the end of it. The whole box is done in three steps and about a total of 20 minutes active working time per box. Way better than the hour I spent on the first box.
As a woodworker, sometimes we overcomplicate things. We make the process hard because we think it’ll improve the design. Usually it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. When the struggle wasn’t worth it, take a step back and recognize that. Recognize you made a bad decision and you need to simplify to improve next time, after all, it’s harder to make mistakes when the process is simple and that alone will take your quality to the next level.