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>> it would cost several thousand dollars at least and take weeks if not months to get your product. Or you made it out of wood. Or metal. Or clay. Or carve

>> it would cost several thousand dollars at least and take weeks if not months to get your product. Or you made it out of wood. Or metal. Or clay. Or carved it by hand out of a block of plastic. Building and testing three or four versions of a tool is just a normal day for a shop carpenter or metal worker. Many of this guy's "inventions" are just jigs for holding things. Youtube is full of metal shops fabricating and testing jigs for strange use cases.

spenczar5 4y ago
I don’t know what carpenters you know who make 3 or 4 jigs a day, but that does not match my professional experience in carpentry at all. Maybe you get this impression from YouTube but that is very different from everyday work, it is theater.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  I used to work in film/tv/live entertainment. The shops pumping out scenery and stage devices are probably not normal, but every day was some sort of innovation. If you are building a different product every day, creating new jigs to make those products is a daily task. A new bit of metal to secure a bit of equipment to camera rig, aka a "camera cluster", was a very normal daily thing.
  - spenczar5 4y ago
    That is very cool. But yes, it is extremely unusual. That is, like, the opposite of what most businesses want, which is to standardize the tasks and labor. A cabinet shop has a set of jigs that they use over and over and over.
    - thrashh 4y ago
      Ok but your experience is totally unrelated. This thread is about making prototypes which are one time jigs. The reason businesses aren’t making 3-4 jigs a day isn’t because they can’t but because they don’t want to. But if you’re prototyping, you are literally trying to create jigs. And this sub-thread is whether you could create jigs before 3D printers existed and you definitely can. Of course, it’s great that now you have both options, speaking from someone with a woodworking shop and a 3D printer, but I wouldn’t say there was such a substantial innovation in physical prototyping. The purpose of the movie set example was to illustrate that, if you want to, you can create constructions out of wood really quick, not that it’s normal for a business to do. If anything, the biggest innovation in at-home prototyping was how cheap microprocessors got. Because building circuits is way more painful and expensive than just chucking in a microprocessor.
  - nickpeterson 4y ago
    Yeah but Hollywood carpenters are in another class. They hire Han Solo to build doors in Hollywood.
    - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      Luke looks at door: "What a piece of junk!"
    - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
      I have a friend who was one. He'd get a kick from that comment. This is what he does in his spare time, these days: https://www.youtube.com/@jimkehoe6495 https://www.youtube.com/@jimkehoe6495
      - stavros 4y ago
        That looks fun, I especially like that he put a NEMA stepper in rather than a servo. I do the same thing for planes, where weight is a consideration (no turret there, though), and having no weight constraint is another level of fun.
    - grncdr 4y ago
      I just want you to know that at least one person understood the reference here. (The story is that Harrison Ford was “discovered” while doing odd jobs and minor carpentry for some high status person in Hollywood)
- runnerup 4y ago
  GP said 3 days per item, not 3 items per day.
jolmg 4y ago
Still, there is truth to their comment. It's at least become a lot more accessible to get the tools to do that sort of work with Amazon. 3d printing has also become more convenient and accessible. YouTube sheds a lot of light for a lot of people into how things are made. I think setting up an online store has probably become a lot easier, too. These things are big changes of the last 10-15 years or so.

spenczar5 4y ago

I don’t know what carpenters you know who make 3 or 4 jigs a day, but that does not match my professional experience in carpentry at all. Maybe you get this impression from YouTube but that is very different from everyday work, it is theater.

sandworm101 4y ago
I used to work in film/tv/live entertainment. The shops pumping out scenery and stage devices are probably not normal, but every day was some sort of innovation. If you are building a different product every day, creating new jigs to make those products is a daily task. A new bit of metal to secure a bit of equipment to camera rig, aka a "camera cluster", was a very normal daily thing.
- spenczar5 4y ago
  That is very cool. But yes, it is extremely unusual. That is, like, the opposite of what most businesses want, which is to standardize the tasks and labor. A cabinet shop has a set of jigs that they use over and over and over.
  - thrashh 4y ago
    Ok but your experience is totally unrelated. This thread is about making prototypes which are one time jigs. The reason businesses aren’t making 3-4 jigs a day isn’t because they can’t but because they don’t want to. But if you’re prototyping, you are literally trying to create jigs. And this sub-thread is whether you could create jigs before 3D printers existed and you definitely can. Of course, it’s great that now you have both options, speaking from someone with a woodworking shop and a 3D printer, but I wouldn’t say there was such a substantial innovation in physical prototyping. The purpose of the movie set example was to illustrate that, if you want to, you can create constructions out of wood really quick, not that it’s normal for a business to do. If anything, the biggest innovation in at-home prototyping was how cheap microprocessors got. Because building circuits is way more painful and expensive than just chucking in a microprocessor.
- nickpeterson 4y ago
  Yeah but Hollywood carpenters are in another class. They hire Han Solo to build doors in Hollywood.
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    Luke looks at door: "What a piece of junk!"
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    I have a friend who was one. He'd get a kick from that comment. This is what he does in his spare time, these days: https://www.youtube.com/@jimkehoe6495 https://www.youtube.com/@jimkehoe6495
    - stavros 4y ago
      That looks fun, I especially like that he put a NEMA stepper in rather than a servo. I do the same thing for planes, where weight is a consideration (no turret there, though), and having no weight constraint is another level of fun.
  - grncdr 4y ago
    I just want you to know that at least one person understood the reference here. (The story is that Harrison Ford was “discovered” while doing odd jobs and minor carpentry for some high status person in Hollywood)
runnerup 4y ago
GP said 3 days per item, not 3 items per day.

jolmg 4y ago

Still, there is truth to their comment. It's at least become a lot more accessible to get the tools to do that sort of work with Amazon. 3d printing has also become more convenient and accessible. YouTube sheds a lot of light for a lot of people into how things are made. I think setting up an online store has probably become a lot easier, too. These things are big changes of the last 10-15 years or so.