Tree Machine Filing Clamps

[Tree Machine]

They look nice. What will be your estimated retail?

Good time to ask that, Zogger.

So once the waterjet cutter had the design complete,
He entered the number of units he wanted cut, that told him how much metal needed to be bought.
The computer knew how much time it would take the cutting machine to cut out the parts,
This number, + that number, + the other numbers, all added together,
and divided by the number of units being cut, gives us a total per-unit cost of…..

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

Thirty one dollars per unit?
Thirty one and that does not include the drilling and thread tapping, nor welding together, nor protective finish, nor threaded knob.



All totalled, we were looking at a production cost of around $38 per single unit. Then treestuff would have to make a few dollars and the guy heading the project needs the hope of not working for free. The Final Cost after figuring this all together, was way higher than I had ever thought. Holy Crap!

I knew right at that point that there was no way you guys were going to pay 50 or $60 for a single clamp. No way. To go ahead and produce these, it would be business suicide. No matter, even at a quantity production of up to a thousand units, still too high a starting price to even consider. I had to face the harsh reality. I had failed.

While field-testing these absolutely amazing new clamps and knowing that they were literally the very best I could come up with, at the same time knew they were not going to market. I spent a few weeks field-testing them, feeling downtrodden and dejected, looking for new inspiration, trying to come up with a solution.

There's more to the story, but I need to take a few moments before continuing. I'm remembering how disappointed I felt.

Maybe you should go make a sandwich, too. This next part involves some bull-headed persistence and stupid determination.
And it is the most interesting part of the journey.

Comments?

 

[zogger]

Good time to ask that, Zogger.

So once the waterjet cutter had the design complete,
He entered the number of units he wanted cut, that told him how much metal needed to be bought.
The computer knew how much time it would take the cutting machine to cut out the parts,
This number, + that number, + the other numbers, all added together,
and divided by the number of units being cut, gives us a total per-unit cost of…..

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

Thirty one dollars per unit?
Thirty one and that does not include the drilling and thread tapping, nor welding together, nor protective finish, nor threaded knob.

View attachment 331987

All totalled, we were looking at a production cost of around $38 per single unit. Then treestuff would have to make a few dollars and the guy heading the project needs the hope of not working for free. The Final Cost after figuring this all together, was way higher than I had ever thought. Holy Crap!

I knew right at that point that there was no way you guys were going to pay 50 or $60 for a single clamp. No way. To go ahead and produce these, it would be business suicide. No matter, even at a quantity production of up to a thousand units, still too high a starting price to even consider. I had to face the harsh reality. I had failed.

While field-testing these absolutely amazing new clamps and knowing that they were literally the very best I could come up with, at the same time knew they were not going to market. I spent a few weeks field-testing them, feeling downtrodden and dejected, looking for new inspiration, trying to come up with a solution.

There's more to the story, but I need to take a few moments before continuing. I'm remembering how disappointed I felt.

Maybe you should go make a sandwich, too. This next part involves some bull-headed persistence and stupid determination.
And it is the most interesting part of the journey.

Comments?

gotta go work, rain or not..

Long time ago I made a one off production bicycle, when I had a bike shop. It was spiffy. I wanted something real low geared, fat tires, to go offroad. At the time you had a choice, fat tires and one or two or three gears, or skinny wheels and tires and ten gears. I wanted big wheel fat tires and ten gears. Didn't exist at the time. (70s)

What I built worked well. Coulda sold that bike dozens of times. Eventually it was stolen when my rental locker got sold by the managers, even though I had paid..another story still fries my grits....

Never did a thing with it, because within months a bike manufacturer near me was selling similar. What a coinky dink... Now they are known as mountain bikes....

I did some research, two guys on the east coast and a handful on the west coast were all working with a similar niche design criteria at the same time.

First to market with the best costs wins! And if you never market, well..you never market.

edit: also, this is why today most metal made gadgets come from you know where...

 

[Philbert]

This version almost looks like you are working on a chain rivet spinner!

Philbert

 

[zogger]

This version almost looks like you are working on a chain rivet spinner!

Philbert

Now *that* would be an interesting combination tool, and make it be worth more to acquire.

Right now I have neither chain holder device nor breaker spinner setup.

 

[Tree Machine]

So here is the sixty dollar version,
bare metal, knob from Lowe's.

I learned more from this failed effort than at any other part of the development.

See how the left-side top anvil is longer than the right-side anvil?
It is supposed to be like that, this is the way I though the clamp needed to look.

See the flange bolt coming out the long anvil?



That is to do this:


If you were going for a deliberate production setting
you would want to be set up like this. You can take the chain on and off the bar
without messing with the clamps.

Here is a video that goes along with that:
(watch it full-screen)

And before you watch it, first think to yourself
"How long does it take to remove a chain off of the bar of a chainsaw.?"

(i'm serious, how many seconds or minutes? Approximate.)








By now we had figured out that the flange bolt was not needed,
you just spin out the knob from the short side and use it.
Both anvils had to be drilled and threads tapped.

This ability to be able to BOTH clamp a bar from inside the jaws
and / or MOUNT a bar on the outside,
is what sets this clamp apart from anything else.

 

[Tree Machine]

It was ashame it was so expensive.
A guy would get laughed out of the marketplace.
A redesign was definitely in order.

What we learned at this time was a MAJOR realization.
Not only did we not need the flange bolt,
it became clear we did not need to extend the farside anvil at all,
we could extend both sides' anvils, but use only one side to do both clamping duties

This would cut the drilling and tapping duties in half,
and the clamp would be bilaterally symmetrical.


Check out what happened next. I've never gotten so much inspiration out of a dead end.
This was the crux of the project it all historically would hinge on this next design revision.
This is the solution I came up with:

Back to the drawing board.

 

[Tree Machine]

This dimension was critical.
It determined the minimum stud length, + the knob would give overall knob-stud length.

Up til now we had been getting knobs at Lowe's, and hacksawing them to the correct length.
I had only needed four up til this point, but I needed a price for hundreds,
and the stud length needed to be ~35 mm

 

[Philbert]

I did not appreciate the value of mounting the bar on the outside of the clamps until I watched that video in post #45. It would save time for doing a bunch of chains that are the same size.

Philbert

 

[Tree Machine]

I connected with knobsource.com
to get a price on 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, etc

At this point I am really fearful of making a miscalculation.

When you are making one or two prototypes, a miscalculation is picked up and you don't make that error when doing a production run.
It struck me at this point that we were making decisions for a production run.

You guys will hopefully appreciate this next part.





I had the stud made metric, M8x1.25 because that is what a bar nut will spin on to.
As long as I was pricing a custom knob, I asked all the questions I could think of. I asked this one to the knob manufacturer on behalf of all of you.

It went like this:

"How much would it cost to have the threaded studs made of stainless steel?"
Bwat bwat bwat bwaa
"Oh really? Only that much more?"
Bwat bwaa
"Well, go ahead with that, then. Let's make these knobs out of stainless."

So, that was the official word, The threaded portion is stainless steel.
The added cost was minimal, quality added, maximal.

Now I had to go talk to the waterjet cutter, with the new design and get pricing.
The second time doing anything is usually easier.

 

[Tree Machine]

Here's what the waterjet cutter guy had to say;

 

[Tree Machine]

This is how the computer lays it out
and it tells the cutter how to cut them out of 1/2' thick steel exactly as shown.



The problem is 1) that the waterjet cutter is a very expensive way to cut your parts
and 2) they would then have to send the parts on for drilling, tapping, assembly, welding and finish coat at another firm.

We crunched the numbers, based on 100 units.

Dang! We would have to charge you $44 per finished clamp.
Even at 500 units, the price was around $40 to you.
I did not place the order. I had another call to make.

 

[Tree Machine]

I called a place with whom I'd worked before.
They have laser cutters, robotic TIG welders, milling equipment,
everything except powder-coating, but they said they could send it out for that.

Here is the (rough) prototype. Simplified. You could mount a bar to the outside of it by removing the knob,
put the threaded stud through the (pre-drilled) holes in the bar and tighten down the knob.

It does everything. Time to field-test.

 

[Tree Machine]

Day one at work.
Just to test the clamping power, I mounted the clamps to the bar
with the full weight of the powerhead suspended.

I went ahead to price the order and everything, complete, beginning-to-end we were still in the upper thirties.
But that was for an order of 500.
For 1,000 your price was $37
For 2,000 it went down a little more

For 4,000…. now we are under thirty dollars per unit
And I am guessing this is where the price should be, reasonable for a tool
that should last a long, long time, maybe generations.

 

[Tree Machine]

I had one last idea I wanted to try before mortgaging my house,
a one-piece, minimal, low-budget try to get our price down yet again.

More field-testing. I learned don't clamp too hard on the bar tip.
You can squeeze the sprocket and the chain won't advance.

 

[Tree Machine]

Can you see the model made out of angle iron?
One extended side?
Let me find another picture.


There we are. Check these babies out:




These units work, they are fully functional, the price was a little lower, but still in the upper twenties for reasonable quantities.
I found to this model to be butt-ugly.
Well, it was worth giving it a try.



It is now time, after over two years of development, to make some decisions.
This is where the rubber hits the road, so to speak.

 

[Tree Machine]

This is the part where we have to say goodbye to the blue one.



Say goodbye to all of them.

 

[Philbert]

(These will all go into the Tree Machine Museum some day)

Philbert

 

[Tree Machine]

Heh, heh.

Millions upon millions of people have invented or developed something.
Every product we touch was drummed up by somebody. The inventive spirit is all around us.

I feel fortunate to have gotten to enter the ranks and give it a try. It is something I think I have always wanted to do.
For anyone out there who thinks they can invent something, wants to develop something or even improve something that already exists,
I say go for it.

 

[Tree Machine]

They look nice. What will be your estimated retail?

We are happy to have the black model under thirty dollars.
It is available here at Treestuff

 

[Tree Machine]

We are really, really happy with the design. We have infused further quality, let me tell you what I mean.

The black clamp parts come in crates, and the knobs come in boxes.
This is Joe's work station. He takes a knob, dips the tip of the threaded stud in light mineral oil,



then spins the knob in with an automated nifty device we created that runs off of a drill.


Then Joe tapes two one-inch long pan-headed Phillip's screws to the device
and it is wrapped in brown paper. We will get them over to Treestuff
a milk crate at a time for as long as you keep ordering them.

It is easy to stand behind something that will never fail.

Treestuff, and myself, are very pleased to be able to introduce this fine tool to you, right here, right now.