That's what I wrote back in January of '06. Well, we've come a fair distance since then, learning-wise. As expected, we can produce a lot of things faster and more accurately than before. And we're producing other things that weren't even on the map a couple years ago.

I mean, who'd have thought we'd be cranking out a variety of custom switch panel nameplates? Then again, who knew there were folks out there with boats that had four separate bilge pumps and who wanted each switch labeled and placed...just so? Fine by me, and glad to help.

Thing is, we do a fair amount of business with a custom boat services outfit here in Marathon (Sea-Air-Land-Technology, or S.A.L.T.). And they do a lot of business with yacht owners--and I mean Yacht owners--so all of a sudden, specialty signage has become a part of Buck Woodcraft. All thanks to the CNC, natch.

S.A.L.T.'s also now making custom switch panel arrays, and guess who's fabricating the enclosures?  Yep, we build custom panel boxes to spec, then add hinged switch panels that open just like our Starboard boat doors -- complete with stainless steel hinges and whatever kinds of latches the customer wants. These things look good, and they provide clean, instant access to all the wiring and stuff.

More on the whimsical side, we've started making a variety of stencils for a local signage company, along with personal signs for people who want, well, personal signs. And though I don't have any pictures to show you yet, we've started producing traditional name boards for trawler-type boats.

All of this, of course, is on top of the other stuff we've been doing all along. And as I hoped, we've gotten way more efficient in producing multiples of things. For example, a local resort that's going up here in Marathon came to us and asked for a new fish-cleaning table design. It incorporates a central drain that's plumbed underneath to accept a standard 3" PVC coupler -- so the fishy stuff can be directed wherever the resort wants it to go, rather than straight off the dock and into the water.

And, oh yeah, they ordered 17 of these puppies. That kept us hopping for a while, but we (just me and Uncle Phil, my broken down old wreck of a helper) got them all cranked out in good order, thanks again to the CNC. Actually I was just kidding about Phil -- so far as we know, he's nobody's uncle.

We've also gotten better and faster in the one-off department -- especially when it comes to our King Starboard boat doors. I had the idea a couple of years ago that a lot of boaters might want a selection of standard size doors. Turns out I was wrong -- most of our boat door business still consists of building them one at a time to customer specs.

The difference now is I can build a custom one-panel door to whatever dimensions you need, for the price of a stock door plus a $45 setup charge for the CNC.

And once that custom door is complete, I can build it again and again with no setup fee at all; so it becomes, in effect, a stock design. This holds true even with multi-panel doors for center consoles, like this one on the right.

Right now, we have more than 50 of these "stock" designs loaded into the CNC machine -- and every time we complete a new custom door, we add that design to our list. A lot of these doors have been built for people who own Mako or Whaler designs, along with others. I'm hoping that, over time, we'll have enough designs in stock to meet a lot of the common door replacement needs that folks have out there.

Okay, enough. If you've made it this far, I appreciate your taking the time to read all this stuff. I'll update this page again if and when something else comes along that I think might be worth a look.

Thanks again,

John Arbuckle