Comment by konschubert
3 years ago
Thank for the tips on the woodwork. I am not sure if a darker color would make the screen look brighter or darker.
I had noticed those gaps in the frame as well. I agree they look poorly made :)
I think they are mostly from the fact that this was cut with a hand saw, and the cut wasn't even throughout the Z axis. I am hoping that I will be able to fix this as I go from a prototyping process to a more refined production process.
Another commentator brought up CNC milling the wood - what do you think of that idea?
Not the original commenter, but
> CNC milling the wood
It’s a frame. It’s not a complex shape. A simple mitre saw should be enough to do this consistently. Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be.
Guillotine cutters are also useful for making frames: https://www.rockler.com/miter-trimmer
Picture frames are a solved problem. Metal, wood, whatever. Build your item to known demension and let people order exactly what they want
CNC sounds like kind of a bad fit unless you're going to mill the entire frame out of a solid piece of wood -- you'd lose a lot of material to the router bit and still have to do a fair amount of finishing by hand. For mitered joints like this, there are computerized saws that can feed and cut the lumber pretty precisely, but those are very expensive.
I'm not super clear on whether or not you're doing all of this by hand or working through a factory. If it's the latter, I would recommend just setting your expectations for the final product very clearly and then make sure that the end product is meeting those expectations. If you're doing it by hand, practice makes perfect! Go to your local lumber yard store and get some construction grade pine or fir boards and cut several dozen miters by hand (you can also invest in a compound miter saw -- that's generally useful for any woodworking that you'd want to do down the road as well and you can find them used for ~dozens of dollars or brand new for ~100-500 depending on features, size, power, etc -- just make sure you've got a good, sharp blade with lots of teeth for a nice smooth cut). You'll get the hang of it. For soft woods, clamping pressure and even glue distribution matters too -- you can clamp them a little tighter and the wood fibers at the boundaries between the boards will crush down a bit and help to even out the joint. That doesn't work so well with hardwoods though - you'll have to be pretty precise to get those done right.
Depending on the thickness of your wood, you might be able to do something with a laser cutter, but you'll need to figure out how to square up the edges appropriately (since laser cut edges on thicker lumber are rarely perfectly square).
If you're particularly lucky, you might be able to find somewhere that will give you some time on a water jet. Those edges will be perfectly square and everything will be cut perfectly -- just make sure to thoroughly dry your parts before assembly.
Hey, thank you for that comment. Those are really good tips regarding the woodworking. I'll look into one of these miter saws.
Frame making is actually more complicated than it seems, it's not enough to just make one mitered cut on four pieces and call it a day (if you want it to look good / fit well). It's certainly a learnable trade, but more complicated than just butting four square pieces together with glue. If I were you I'd stick with what you have working now, unless your current process is significantly time-consuming or costly.
As for the look, see if you can make the wood grain go the same direction for the entire frame, rather than the grain changing from vertical to horizontal. Should make it look more attractive. To expand the appearance from there, you can sand it down and apply different oils, stains and paints.
Sure thing! Feel free to reach out (email in profile) if you get stuck or want input on something. Woodworking (and especially woodworking with tech inside) is one of my favorite hobbies and I'm glad to share what I know when I can :)
If you want the bezels look less chunky, have them taper inwards towards the screen. It'll give the allusion of thinness and also pull the screen forward visually.
Re CNCing the wood: I'm not a woodworker, but given the simplicity of the cut, I'd dare say that miter sawing the planks using a guide would more than suffice.
I'm both an amateur woodworker and a professional CNC programmer, and this is right. Frames like this are made with routers to carve the profile, and miter saws to cut the corners.
Personally I'd love to buy the guts and make my own frame, to personalize the gift with a nicer frame than I'd want to pay someone else to make.
Give me a good dimensioned drawing or a 3D model (or both!) of the display panel and the electronics that drive it, I'll chop some scrap into a mockup of the screen, craft a custom frame around it, and then swap in the real guts when I'm done.
You can email me at mail@konstantinschubert.com - I think there should be no problem with me sending you the "guts" at-cost once I have converged on a final BOM list.
I also have question that you might be able to help me with:
The frame requires some special shaping on the back-side to accommodate the "guts" as you call them. In fact, if I can freely choose the profile of the frame on the back side, I can probably solve some other constructional open questions I am having. You seem to be an expert on this: If I provide a CAD file, what will be the order of magnitude in cost I am looking at for one or more custom profiles? Both in terms of design and in terms of per-piece production cost?
I'd be happy to give you some more details over email of course.