Duplicating pieces - options?

[SouthernCross]

So I've got this minimalist wallet design that I've been perfecting and giving away to friends as gifts and my friends have convinced me to try selling them through a couple of local gift shops.  This would involve making dozens of them in advance to show my different colors and stamping options.  The wallets consist of only 2 pieces, which are riveted together.  Marking them and cutting them out by hand, over and over, is a pain in the butt.  What are my options for speeding this process up?  I don't have a clicker press, but could I possibly have a steel rule die made and just whack it with a mallet to cut them out?

Any suggestions on how to step up my production?

[electrathon]

Draw them up in cad and cut the pieces on a laser.

[Brianm77]

You could have a die made and use a cheap harbor freight press and a couple steel plates.  Poor mans clicker. 

[SouthernCross]

 

Draw them up in cad and cut the pieces on a laser.

Where could I get that done?

 

You could have a die made and use a cheap harbor freight press and a couple steel plates.  Poor mans clicker. 

Any idea how much a typical die costs?

[bikermutt07]

 

You could have a die made and use a cheap harbor freight press and a couple steel plates.  Poor mans clicker. 

What Brian said.

Yeah it will cost a little for the press and dies. But after that your options really open up for future repeatable projects.

Dang, think I just convinced myself to get one...

[billybopp]

Dies are the way to go, for sure.  It sounds like you're making a relatively small item, so a mallet die might do the trick and avoid the expense of even a cheap modded hydraulic press clicker.  If you do decide to go with a clicker, there are a couple of threads on here about modifying a cheapo Harbor Freight press for use as a clicker.  For dies, I don't have any experience personally, but one of the site sponsors is Texas Custom Dies ... Look for their banner ad at the top of the page here.

 Bill

[electrathon]

 

Where could I get that done?

Any idea how much a typical die costs?

Lasers are very common now.  Ask around and you will find someone doing it.  You can buy a basic one off eBay for about $300 or so.  Once you have a drawing (you can do it yourself) you can have then cut for a few dollars.  I had a bunch of wallet inserts cut (about 10 wallets, used up a goat hide and a pig hide) for about $75. 

If you are going to mass produce, a clicker and a set of dies would be best.  Figure about $75 per die and you will need one for each shape on your wallet.  You would have a few hundred in your start up, and a couple hundred for each change in style.  This is a cheap direction if you are going into mass production.  Expensive for small production.  With a laser you will have similar up front costs, zero cost to make new designs.  It will cut slower than a clicker set up.  Depending 0n your laser could take 15-30 seconds on each wallet, a clicker is faster when you are really moving.

[SouthernCross]

 

Lasers are very common now.  Ask around and you will find someone doing it.  You can buy a basic one off eBay for about $300 or so.  Once you have a drawing (you can do it yourself) you can have then cut for a few dollars.  I had a bunch of wallet inserts cut (about 10 wallets, used up a goat hide and a pig hide) for about $75. 

If you are going to mass produce, a clicker and a set of dies would be best.  Figure about $75 per die and you will need one for each shape on your wallet.  You would have a few hundred in your start up, and a couple hundred for each change in style.  This is a cheap direction if you are going into mass production.  Expensive for small production.  With a laser you will have similar up front costs, zero cost to make new designs.  It will cut slower than a clicker set up.  Depending 0n your laser could take 15-30 seconds on each wallet, a clicker is faster when you are really moving.

I think what I maybe should do then is draw it up and have about 50 or so cut with a laser from a local shop and see how well they sell first.  If they fly off the shelves (we all know that is probably unlikely), then I can maybe look into getting my own laser setup or clicker setup.

Thanks for the guidance.

An afterthought:  How WOULD I go about doing a drawing myself?

Edited April 28, 2017 by SouthernCross

[electrathon]

You need to ask the laser person you are using what format they will accept.  Some of the cad programs are cheap to free, some are expensive.  Yu will not need a lot of frills in the program to do this.  you will need to be computer literate and play in the program to get the hang of it.  You will be slow at first, faster as you learn.  As a beginner, you could pay the laser person to draw it up (get copies of the files) and then have them cut.

[Stuggi]

If you need CAD then Autodesk Fusion 360 is free for enthusiasts and startups with less than 100k USD in annual turnover. It's 3D oriented, but you can do 2D designs fairly easily. There's a lot of tutorials online for it as well, and it has a really nice feature that allows you to insert images for tracing. 

[SouthernCross]

Thanks for the info.

[Matt S]

How complicated is the pattern? If it's simple you could probably make a cardboard template then mark and cut several dozen in the time you could learn CAD.

 

Small clicker dies can be used without a press by tapping along their length with a mallet.

[SouthernCross]

I've got a cardboard template made already.   I'll see how well the item sells and if I get lots of orders I'll have a clicker die made.

[Sonydaze]

Seeing how well they sell before investing in equipment/dies is a good idea.  I don'y buy dies until a new design proves itself.  Look at the widths of your cardboard templates and cut strips of leather to match, cut the strips to length of the other dimension of the template, then finish any cutouts or trimming of the pieces.  That's what I try to do with any shape that is conducive.