Why are some of the cubbies filled with foam and others not? (from the facebook pics)

Jon, these jobs you get are fantastic. What a great way to keep your staff interested, with new ideas seen to execution. They all shold be proud of themselves.

Posted By Tom M on 15 Jan 2010 01:40 PM
Why are some of the cubbies filled with foam and others not? (from the facebook pics)

Jon, I wondered that also. What is the purpose of the foam?

Jon -
If I was a fabricator I would be knocking your door down trying to get a job. Working on different projects like that would be great.

Jon, That is simply mind blowing.  thanks for all the photo's on the facebook site.  Truly inspiring and they really get the brain gears turning and thinking about new possiblities.

Again great job.

Johnny C

Maybe I should switch schools.

 

Great work as usual, Jon.

 

Joe

The design also lets me know that the food is gonna be clean ...dont know why...but at some designs i look at and notice its going into the food industry just makes me wonder...awesome

Looks great! One nice thing about the design is that you were able to control the frame part of it. That would have been rough to fabricate the solid surface to someone else's frame design - not that it was an easy task this way by any means. How did you test that the arc was "true" when you had the framing set up in the shop? What CAD software do you use - SolidWorks?

Have a good one,
Seth

Posted By Seth Emery on 16 Jan 2010 08:14 AM
Looks great! One nice thing about the design is that you were able to control the frame part of it. That would have been rough to fabricate the solid surface to someone else's frame design - not that it was an easy task this way by any means. How did you test that the arc was "true" when you had the framing set up in the shop? What CAD software do you use - SolidWorks?

Have a good one,
Seth

Seth:

Good point.

I built a curved reception desk with curved trim above several years ago. I cut plywood plates in my shop for the rough framers to install on the job. The desk and trim fit perfectly without templates.

Joe

Seth/Jon,
Okay, I'll bite. What makes Solid Works better in this situation?

Jon....  when I see a design like that, I can appreciate all the fabrication skills that took place to produce that.  It truly is a work of art.

  When I see a shape like that, I really have to wonder about the longevity of this project.  In the past year, I have flown into San Antonio, Denver, and Nashville. All have had irregular shaped solid surface counters, and every one of them had failures in them.  How is the stress relief designed into a project like that, especially when there is metal being attached to it, plus the addition of heat and cold and weight.

Second,  and I have to follow Tom on this one.  So much of the area I see, will never be touched, only seen, so I too have to wonder the justification to use such a expensive material. 

   Jon,  Thanks for sharing the pictures,  your projects never cease to impress me.

  Curt

Not to refute KC's point, but I was referring more to the software you are using. I had not heard of Soft Works.

I can see the wonder in using solid surface versus laminate in many of these areas. but the compound bending would be tough indeed with laminate.

Posted By Jon Olson on 16 Jan 2010 08:25 AM

Hello Seth good to hear from you. Yes we use Solid Works. The office is only 10 minutes from our shop .So it makes it easy for training. We went out to the job site and made templates than we came back made up 3d templates. You can see that in the first photo's on FB. We than after the ok, photo top the the 3d templates. Made a few adjustments in Solid Works and away we went.

 

after the frame units where installed we than made templates for the counters off of the framed part

Gene your correct.  The shelves even have cove corners for easy cleaning

 

Pretty cool, Jon. I've never had the chance to use Solid Works. That's nice they are so close to your shop. The benefits of digital templating are brought out in a large scale job like this. It's nice (and a lot more accurate) to have the ability to digitize all in one shape instead of having to digitze multiple pieces and put them all back together.

Posted By Kowboy on 16 Jan 2010 08:28 AM

Posted By Seth Emery on 16 Jan 2010 08:14 AM
Looks great! One nice thing about the design is that you were able to control the frame part of it. That would have been rough to fabricate the solid surface to someone else's frame design - not that it was an easy task this way by any means. How did you test that the arc was "true" when you had the framing set up in the shop? What CAD software do you use - SolidWorks?

Have a good one,
Seth

Seth:

Good point.

I built a curved reception desk with curved trim above several years ago. I cut plywood plates in my shop for the rough framers to install on the job. The desk and trim fit perfectly without templates.

Joe

Thanks Joe. Nice idea with the plywood plates. We occasionally do templates in the millwork company's shop, and then install the tops once the millwork has been set up again out at the jobsite. This is always somewhat risky, especially when there are tops going against walls and we are depending  on someone else to set things up the same way that they were set up when we templated.

Posted By Tom M on 16 Jan 2010 09:22 AM
Seth/Jon,
Okay, I'll bite. What makes Solid Works better in this situation?

Hi Tom. From the looks of things, this project could have been drawn in AutoCAD. I have never used SolidWorks, so I'll just have to say that I've heard it is better for 3D CAD drawings. It can also be used to determine structural integrity. I sometimes have trouble showing 3D representations of edge profiles in AutoCAD. This is mainly when I try to extrude the shape around an outside corner with a small radius. It just can't calculate that there will be a line running down the corner if you put a 3/4" roundover on a 1/4" radius outside corner and comes up with an error. The reason I figured Jon's company was using SolidWorks had to do more with the integral shower/sink top that he had pics of a couple months ago and the complex themoforming molds that they have to make. I don't know that you could draw all of that with "plain" AutoCAD with no add-ons.

Seth,
Thank you for the reply.
Is there a program pout there that you can (for instance) design a "cone" or conically shaped item - say 12" high with a circumference of 10' at the top and 8.5' at the bottom of the twelve inch drop, and then allow you to unfold or unwrap the face piece to see what kind of polygon you would need?