Hey Guys,
I'm currently looking to produce a game which would require a variety of shapes to be created out of wood. Things like cubes, spheres, blocks, but also some more exotic things like a tetrahedron. Has anyone gone searching for a wood piece manufacturer before?
Google is completely not helpful. So... I thought I'd ask the board. Does anyone know of a company (or two) which can turn out 1000s of wooden objects?
Check with http://bluepantherllc.com/
Also, Steve of Blue Panther tends to lurk around these forums from time-to-time. You might want to track him down and send a PM.
Good luck!
Kyle Gabhart
Driftwood Games
www.driftwoodgames.com
Hello,
Our thoughts already have gone in that direction for wood dice and other complex shapes. Capable, multi-axis CNC machines to make dice are expensive, otherwise we'd have one already.
If you try any of the usual suspects for wood pieces www.caseyswood.com and others, you will find they do disks and blocks - not complex shapes.
What you need is a place with a CNC router and you need to send them solid models so they can run a cut program out of it.
Or if your volume is high enough, you can get one of the wood mills to get you a decent price from a place with a CNC router.
I would recommend www.caseyswood.com or www.good-wood.com
But get ready for sticker shock if you want polyhedrals.
Steve (who occasionally lurks here)
Blue Panther LLC
Unfortunately, 2k is not large to a wood mill, especially for a custom job. You might be looking at a very high unit price.
SJ
5k, 10k, 50k?
I assume that the minimum applies to each shape because each shape requires the machines to be set up to cut it. The actual machine time and wood cost would be marginal.
I know you can do internet searches for sundry wooden objects and find them sold at places like Michael's at decently low prices per unit. Even after you factor mark up, it still is decent. So, someone must be doing this, someone must have inventories of these items (not individual packages you buy at Michael's) and some objects must be available without even requiring a custom job. But, I just haven't been able to find out who through online searching.
All I can find is online retailers who have limited selection and sell in quantities < 100. I'm wondering how I can get to the 'source'. Do you know any 'sources'? Or if not, where to go that might know.
Thanks Steve.
I assume that the minimum applies to each shape because each shape requires the machines to be set up to cut it. The actual machine time and wood cost would be marginal.
I know you can do internet searches for sundry wooden objects and find them sold at places like Michael's at decently low prices per unit. Even after you factor mark up, it still is decent. So, someone must be doing this, someone must have inventories of these items (not individual packages you buy at Michael's) and some objects must be available without even requiring a custom job. But, I just haven't been able to find out who through online searching.
All I can find is online retailers who have limited selection and sell in quantities < 100. I'm wondering how I can get to the 'source'. Do you know any 'sources'? Or if not, where to go that might know.
Thanks Steve.
My goal here is less to price the game and more to source it. I'm just wondering if anyone can share the name of specific wood mills that have the capability to machine shapes like cones, spheres and pyramids that I can email or call. Whether their minimum is 10k or 50k is immaterial at the moment.
Thanks.
Try www.goodwoodinc.com. That link should work. They do game parts and custom work.
SJ
Hey have you actually gone to Michael's and looked at one of the packages to see who manufactured it? It stands to reason that whoever is supplying these to Michael's would be very interested in talking to you if buying in volumes
 | Dymino Monsters Update 4-18-2024 (1) by questccg |
 | Hidden Movement: What Makes it Cool? (19) by larienna |
| Wizardry Legacy: the Forgotten Academy (12) by larienna |
| TradeWorlds — Tactical Core (3) by questccg |
| Introducing, Jacob! (that's me by the way...) (0) by Jacob |
| Chat GPT: Testing as a design assistant (8) by larienna |
| Winner Announced for the Meta Progression Community Challenge! (0) by The Game Crafter |
| Hi guys ~ Gameland and Yaofish are officially accepting board game design submissions! (1) by questccg |
| A programmer's dilemma (16) by larienna |
| Qubits: a solo trick taking game (9) by Wobt2 |
| Worker placement, Role selection and Action cards: Is it the same thing? (11) by larienna |
| Site Ads and Google Experiments (0) by questccg |
| TradeWorlds — Smuggler's Run (7) by questccg |
| Single Item Shipping at The Game Crafter (0) by The Game Crafter |
| Protospiel Indy 2024 (May 24-26) (0) by The Game Crafter |
| How to avoid being blocked at content creation (10) by questccg |
| Protospiel Indy 2024 (0) by sirvalence |
| In need of some IDEAS concerning a "Battle" System (15) by questccg |
| How to avoid quarterbacking in an adventure game (7) by larienna |
| How complicated could math get? (23) by X3M |
| Can we have gaming ads on this website (7) by questccg |
| Dice Mitigation Challenge - Winner Announced! (0) by The Game Crafter |
 | Delving! - " That is when it hit me, it was starting to feel like other games" (3) by MarkJindra |
| Game Purchase Contract (0) by MarkJindra |
| Blackboard Boogie Board: a bit of a REVIEW... (2) by questccg |
Hey Steve,
Yes, what we're talking about is a volume that approaches wood mill capacity. At the moment, I'm looking for a wood mill that does a lot of different wood shapes at high volumes which could either give me a full list of the shapes they have in inventory or which would be willing to cut the shapes that we want.
We're not thinking polyhedral dice... more like pyramids, donuts, flower pots and pawns. The actual list is flexible, depending upon their capability. But, the quantities are large, at least 2k per shape.
Do you know of any woodmills we could check with? I'm assuming this isn't something you just search google for, or is it?