136Phone: 516-328-3970www.technocnc.comCNC ArticlesRichard Foster has been making giftsfor his teachers, friends and relatives since elementary school and became so good at it that people began paying him. Like millions of Americans, Richard Foster dreamed of establishing his independence and fi nancial security at an early age by developing his own business based on doing what he loves to do, which is woodworking. Now 16 years old, Foster faced a series of challenges early on in his career and was able to tackle those challenges and meet the needs of his growing customer base by becoming more efficient and offering quicker turnaround times.Foster had been using a table saw, drill press, and power router to build all sorts of pieces including a motor driven clock for his tennis coach that consisted of a hand-carved tennis racquet about one foot in diameter.Shortly thereafter, Foster began to receive numerous orders for racquet clocks. Foster was limited in the number that he could produce, as each one took four to fi ve hours to carve with hand and power tools. Soon orders for golf clocks followed and, the next thing he knew, all of his free time was occupied with makingthe clocks, which he sold at $80 each.I found that more and more people16-Year-Old Entrepreneur Builds Successful Woodworking Business with CNC Routermodel. The accuracy of the clocks is far better than even an experienced woodworker with 12 years experience, like Foster, is able to achieve. Foster then sands, paints and assembles the clocks and they are ready to.Thenewmachinehasdrasticallyreduced the amount of time required to make each clock, says Foster. This made it possible to cut the price of each clock in half, allowing the clocks to be more affordable for my customers and also gave me the time to design five new clock options: baseball,soccer,football,hockey,andbasketball.Foster established a company called Time for Sports and looked for new avenues to expand the business - quite achallenge for someone notyet old enoughto acquire his own credit card or drive to any business appointments.Fosters next move was as a sponsor at the Nasdaq-100 Open, a tennis tournament in Key Biscayne, FL. He made 570 clocks to sell at a booth at the event. Foster set new sales records and established an important new marketing channel for his company. He later became a sponsor at the Pilot Pen Tournament in New Haven, CT.Fosters early entrepreneurial success led to media exposure, includingTV appearances on Warehouse Warriors, Something to Talk About, and Senior Moments, and in the New York Times, and Newsday, all of which has helped drive traffi c to his Web site: www.richardfostertimeforsports.com and also helped to increase sales.TheTechnoLCSerieshasplayeda major role in helping me to achieve a signifi cant level of with very little overhead, Fostersays .Its capacity andability to operate on its own provide the potential for our company to introduce new products without any additional capital investment.wanted to buy the clocks but there wasnt enough time in the day to make them, says Foster.I was aware of CNCmachines, but I knew that they cost a lot of money.Fosterrememberedreadinganarticle about Technos new low cost LC series CNC routing system. The machineprovides a number of features that fi t Fosters needs. Ball screws are providedon all three axes, offering smooth motion,a high level of accuracy and repeatability,and minimal maintenance. A closed loopservo control system provides higher power, constant position feedback that eliminates the possibility of losing position
in the middle of a part.The Techno machine seemed to have all the features that I was looking for, says Foster. Besides cost ($15,000), it also offers a high level of accuracy, repeatability and minimal maintenance. Techno also provided me with Rhinoceros and Visual Mill software.I was able to set up the machine in my familys garage and I was off and running.The
new router made it possible for Foster
to increase his clock output
in a fraction
of the time.I started by defining the geometry for my clocks with the Rhinoceros software, Foster says. This process required me to fully define the design andensured that every clock I produced wasidentical. Then I imported the geometry into Visual Mill, where I defi ned the motions of the router required to cut out the clock. I then downloaded the resulting G-code program to the CNC router.Fosterthenloadsafour1 x 12 pine boards onto the machine at a time, and can cut out one side of 12 tennis clocks in an hour. Foster then turns over the board for the machine to cut out the other half. Each clock is produced exactly like Fosters original computer With the help of his Techno CNC router Foster was able to build all sorts of pieces including this motor driven clock.As written by and seen in Wood & Wood Products Magazine, December 2005