Bespoke Drinks Coasters

[Gary]

Ok, will definitely have a drink and make an effort not to spend that much on a cocktail.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Great work! What speeds and feeds did you use for the tiny bits in the corian?

[Wal]

You'll laugh, Boyan.

I know how you like to see the workpiece bending and you're never really happy until you've sheared at least one fixture bolt in a day.!

Corian's very forgiving so you'll probably want to start at 20m/min, 1k on the spindle (chips not dust) and full flute length on the DOC. ;)

Off the top of my head I believe I was spinning at 15-16k and feed was around 5mm/sec.

These took a long time - to engrave the circular grooves took in the region of half an hour per coaster. I made a jig to hold four at a time and left the machine to it.

Wal.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Thanks for the info!

I like to push the machine, but not when material is expensive and the bit is expensive. Though when doing 200 pieces any minute could mean a day or 2 more on the job...

Corian was always on my to do list, and the mineral one also, even have a couple of new diamond engravers for such materials.

I could only imagine the polishing... last time i took a job like this , honestly i did want to give back the money i took upfront. It took some will power to finish it

[Wal]

>It took some will power to finish it

Tell me about it. Here's the finishing routine I went through:

1. Wet sand out the edge machining marks and roundover transitions - P180, P320, P600
2. Wet sand the resin back flush to the tops - P180
3. Wet sand the tops - P240, P320, P400, P600, P1200
4. Maroon Scotchbrite edges
5. Grey Scotchbrite edges and tops
6. Polish tops and edges.

Everything by hand. All 125 of 'em... (I did try out a random orbital sander with an interface pad. A non-starter. In practice it was very awkward to use on items of this size which needed a smooth transition into the edge. Regardless - the quality of finish when doing it by hand was orders of magnitude better.)

The material starts out quite grey and gets darker as you polish it. Consistency was important, so I ended up using a phone app interval timer which would count-down the sanding stage and then give me 20 seconds or so to select the next coaster before repeating.



Heh. All good fun..!

Wal.

[Boyan Silyavski]

The big question is: Is there a better/easier/ way to do it? I have thought of making a 3 or 4 spring attachment to spindle/ not the collet/ and a sanding disc , pneumatic or electric. then program it like a grinder to take very very slow pass. I am seriously considering it as soon i will have to sand something like 200 wooden instruments and it takes me a couple of days to do that to 120 grit.

Have you seen somewhere this kind of contraption? the only similar thing i have seen is someone attach an angle grinder to his mill

[Lee Roberts]

>It took some will power to finish it

Tell me about it. Here's the finishing routine I went through:

1. Wet sand out the edge machining marks and roundover transitions - P180, P320, P600
2. Wet sand the resin back flush to the tops - P180
3. Wet sand the tops - P240, P320, P400, P600, P1200
4. Maroon Scotchbrite edges
5. Grey Scotchbrite edges and tops
6. Polish tops and edges.

Everything by hand. All 125 of 'em... (I did try out a random orbital sander with an interface pad. A non-starter. In practice it was very awkward to use on items of this size which needed a smooth transition into the edge. Regardless - the quality of finish when doing it by hand was orders of magnitude better.)

The material starts out quite grey and gets darker as you polish it. Consistency was important, so I ended up using a phone app interval timer which would count-down the sanding stage and then give me 20 seconds or so to select the next coaster before repeating.



Heh. All good fun..!

Wal.

How did you pick up the job Wal, packaging looks just as sophisticated as the products!

[Wal]

Hi Lee,

I know a guy who runs a design agency that looks after a few high profile clients in food and drink. He knows I make stuff, likes my attention to detail along with the fact that we can talk in depth about processes, finishes etc.

Packaging was put together by Synergy Packaging Solutions as a short run job. Top company. I gave 'em an idea of what I wanted and they got back to me with something which was going to work better and be more efficient to produce as a short run. Indeed, they looked great packaged up and ready to ship. I did miss a trick there, though - the bar is a piano bar - I should have left spaces in the foam which resembled the keyboard layout on a piano..!

>The big question is: Is there a better/easier/ way to do it?

Boyan - heh, there's usually a better/easier way..! For this job I had very little time to try stuff out and barely enough material to finish all the coasters (I ended up with two surplus). I think I would have needed to put together a couple of heavy duty contraptions to help me out with this - in the time I had that wouldn't have been viable..!

Wal.