I have come to an agreement with Dustin from C4 labs to onramp into taking over the manufacturing of his products while he goes into a focus on design work through a sort of internship, where I will be spending all my free time possible working with him and learning his processes while I am also recruiting subletters to share the space under the new lease, clients to pay me for production work, and launching my own products for sale online.

My goal is to be able to run this business backend by July, so Dustin can take a month off completely. At that point I need to be ready to make my nut, which is roughly $3200 in overhead expenses a month, before paying myself.

5/14

Spent 4 hours this morning with Dustin getting the DL on the UV printer and router. We discussed the ins and outs of his prototyping process, and decided as an internship process for me, to go through the prototyping process for a new product he’s been meaning to get to, a Settlers of Catan board.

5/18

Spent all day on Friday at C4, 7 am-4:30 pm.

• Arrived at 7 am to beat the upstairs neighbors with making laser fumes. Set up a demo file to cut on one of the lasers and learn the workflow there. I made in scrap mdf a version of a file I’ve cut before in 3 mil ply, a saw handle, and also a Settlers of Catan tile. Cut them out using Lightburn on the mama bear laser.
• Learned more about how C4 uses shipstation to track orders and print shipping labels, and learned more about the packaging/shipping process, and how that interfaces with his visual inventorying system
• Learned about calculating the price of products to produce and how to systemize that using a spreadsheet to track expenses and set retail prices for products
• Spent the rest of the day learning FreeCAD until my brain was melting out of my ears. It seems honestly easier than fusion in some major ways, and because it’s built for 3D making, it is more precise than corel can be, even for designs you only need 2D vector output for. As an opensource product, Dustin also is looking towards the future, of people using AI (or using AI himself) to make highly specialized tools to add on to the software to improve workflows, which is a big advantage over a closed system like fusion\
• Afterwards, stopped by Tinkertopia to pitch Darcy on sign and display making and possible subletting for storage and kit-building space, since we’re just a couple blocks away from the shop. They already have a hand-painted sign maker lined up to remake their blade sign, but they might need the 3D shape re-cut.

On Saturday I met with my former business partner at Yarvi for 2 hours, and he is interested in being a subletter in the space. I’ll be showing him around on Thursday morning. I also presented him with some of the possibilities in continuing to contract with me in producing laser-engraved and UV printed signage, as well as producing flatpack portable furniture for his glamping set-ups using the CNC router. I spent a good part of the afternoon brainstorming products to develop under my own name, which is a high priority so I can make the best use of Dustin’s guidance when it comes to getting products listed online and developing a shipping workflow. I have some solid ideas based on designs I’ve already done some prototyping on.

This morning I went back for a few hours (7-11) to try out the router for the first time. I started with my same saw handle project that i have successfully laser cut. Routing would be a big improvement, because instead of stacking and glueing multiple layers, I could just have 2 layers with a routed pocket to insert the blade. It would also likely improve my screwpost hole consistency; when laser cut, I have had to re-drill the holes after glueing to make the bore consistent. I can also use a V carving bit to contour the handle, and cut down on my sanding time.

Spent all morning going between Corel, Aspire, and WinCNC Controller learning how to make toolpaths work the way I want, and successfully did a dry run, but my final cut hit a problem when the vacuum suction of the router table was not strong enough to counter the lateral force of the V carve bit. So I’ll pick that back up, maybe tomorrow morning. Before I left Dustin showed me how to mask the vacuum table to better improve the draw on my material. Hopefully that will be the fix.