I’m developing a small mantle clock with a low price point for the Christmas season; I’ve been made aware that could be what people are looking for. Low price point, handmade, good styling – should translate to sales.

One tool of the trade I use often is Google’s Sketchup program. Usually, I’ll just work up the piece in that, and go right to building the piece. However, sometimes things don’t translate right, or I don’t see things in Sketchup that I see in a real piece; this is speaking from the experience of past projects.

SO, this time, I made the Sketchup drawing, produced a rough prototype, and lo and behold, found some things that needed to be changed, both technically and aesthetically. So, made the changes in SU (Sketchup) and will now go right to a finished piece.

Between those steps, however, is yet another. Since this mantle clock will be a small run production piece, efficiency is important; I don’t want to have to mill 8 different kinds of thicknesses, for instance. So I have to make sure the parts in the SU drawing have a minimal amount of different thicknesses, and will also make a cutting diagram to minimize waste and time. Like the saying goes, time is money, and the more quickly I can make these mantel clocks, the more money I make per piece. I actually need a play book – what I’m going to cut, how to buy the lumber (milled or rough), and so on.