Trivet

The trivet was the second project for the end of the semester. Making it consisted of milling the trivet to size and writing the code for the CNC machine to create a design on the stock.

 

So what did I take away from this project and what tips would I leave for future classes?

I think one of the most important things that I took away was that sometimes you need to take a step back in order to continue moving forwards. This comes from a simple mistake that could have been avoided if I had just taken a moment to step back and think through what I was doing. That being said for this class especially slow and steady is what will get you where you want to be, as nothing good will come out of rushing.

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How long did this project take and what was the estimated cost?

Currently, the going rate for a skilled machinist in Colorado makes about $20.42 an hour. I would say that this project took me anywhere from 3-5 hours in the lab to complete, so labor alone would cost somewhere between $61.26 to $102.01. The aluminum cost about $21 dollars for a 5"x12" piece of stock. With this much stock, you can make two trivets. this brings the total cost for 1 to a maximum of $112.51.

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How would I modernize this project to make 10000 Trivets?

For this project the only real meaningful process that could make this faster is to Have everything done by CNC, this process will go a lot faster than having someone work by hand to reach tolerances first then CNC the trivet.

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How much less would this cost?

To make 10,000 trivets using the lab method gives out a price of $1,125,100. On the other hand, by using CNC for the entire project you can reduce the time to produce one trivet to around two hours which reduces the price to $513,400 which is well over half the price of the original method.