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Can I offer two sugestions to CLC
Hi all,
I just picked up my NE Dory kit and am stoked to get started.
While in the store I was struck by two small items missing from your inventory, that I think could add additional reveue for your business that would be fairly easy to produce and supply to customers. Both revolve around the awesome cutting machine you have.
The first would be a couple wooden puzzles. That machine can cut very precise. I would think that if you put together a few puzzle kits, maybe boat related, you would seel them. You couldn't run your whole business on them of course but I bet you woudl sell more than you would think. Maybe make the kit of puzzle pieces, then have a pre printed piece of ricepaper with a design on it to epoxy into the wood?
The second, would be a couple small wooden model kits. After the initial setup work, I wouldn't think the kit wouldnt take too much extra time to produce, require a fairly small amount of wood and epoxy and would sell fairly well. Maybe an advanced one for adults and maybe a simpler one for kids to build. I could envision myself building my NE Dory while my son builds his own small toy boat kit. He would learn skills for a new great hobby and he could participate in his own way. Also what kid doesn't love toy boats. We purchased a cheesy bird house kit a few years ago and he had a BLAST building it.. now that he is almost 8.. he would love to build his own boat. You could also make a radio controlled kit version..
Anyways I thought I would offer these two ideas from a consumers point of view.
3 replies:
RE: Can I offer two sugestions to CLC
Oh yeah, forgot the radio-controlled version.
You nailed it, Pat.
RE: Can I offer two sugestions to CLC
>>>would be a couple wooden puzzles. That machine can cut very precise. I would think that if you put together a few puzzle kits, maybe boat related, you would seel them. You couldn't run your whole business on them of course but I bet you woudl sell more than you would think. >>>
That's a thought. You'd be amazed at how much non-boat stuff we cut on that machine. That said, even with the Amazing New Machine we often bump up against a limit on the minutes in a day available for CNC cutting. (Anyone who's had to wait weeks for a CLC kit was simply waiting for the minutes to become available on the machine. It often runs 10 hours a day, with the plywood parts for a single kit taking anywhere from 20 minutes to six hours or more to cut.)
For something like a puzzle, the feed rate for the spindle has to slow down to a crawl to hold tolerance. So a just-for-fun puzzle might be shockingly expensive in terms of machine time. As it is, the migration to "puzzle joints" in most of our boats has increased the process time for some kits by as much as 50%. One more reason why we got the Amazing New Machine, which is about 15% faster.
RE: Can I offer two sugestions to CLC
» Submitted by Laszlo - Sun, 3/8/15 » 7:36 AM
Pat,
John Harris loved your model boat kit idea so much that, while you slept, he came out with an entire model boat product line, including a model of your NE dory for your boy to put together while Dad builds his real boat :-)
They're over here under Gifts & Apparel.
OK, sorry for pulling your leg, I just couldn't resist. But take heart, your idea is good enough that CLC has already implemented it. You've got the makings of a boatkit marketing person.
Have fun,
Laszlo