We Made 240 Signs 6x Faster: Our Secret Production Workflow

We're bringing 240 signs to our next craft show and we're going to show you how we get our production done six times faster What is up welcome back We know you love to do it build it and make it and we're here to help you sell it If you tune in on tuesdays, you get to watch us paint and assemble one of our signs in about 60 minutes But on tuesdays, we're making art But when we're prepping for craft shows, we're making money and art, but mostly we're in it for the money Many of you are making signs for craft shows and producing somewhere between 40 and 80 signs for your events But what if we can show you how to do that three times faster with only half the effort? We're going to show you how we produce our signs six times faster using a batching method Step one we're going to make all of our cuts. The key to batching is to cut multiples at one time We're going to cut six of the same design and paint all six at one time We're using mdf to cut our door hanger signs mdf is king for batching It is consistent every time you're going to use the same settings. It's going to cut through consistently every time plywood has voids glue pockets grain issues Everybody spent the time trying to cut their little pieces out or trying to sand the back to get them out Or if you did get through maybe your edges are all charred up Now I know what you're thinking mdf door hangers outside They won't last outside. We're about to bust the massive workshop knit Now it is true if you put mdf in a bucket of water the edges are going to swell But your door hangers are going to live under a porch or some sort of overhang with some protection They're not going to be living in a swimming pool. Now. Here's what happens in the real world with plywood It gets wet maybe the moisture or the humidity it starts to get into the grain And once it gets into the grain the grains will start to shift And immediately potato chip they're going to want to twist against themselves And that twisting causes tension on the glue joints and over time As it twists the glue joints separate and your 3d letters go rolling right off the porch Mdf on the other hand is completely stable. It stays dead flat Even if it's out on your porch and humidity gets to it, it might swell microscopic on the edges But it's going to stay dead flat and it's not going to twist and warp And that means the glue bond never breaks if it stays flat Your glue is going to be where it's supposed to be and if you're using the right kind of glue It's going to be weather resistant heat resistant and that means over time your pieces are going to stay together Plus mdf is a whole lot cheaper Little pro tip here if you want to use all of your board Which we do we want to make sure that we're saving the most amount of money And using all of the space on our board. You can cut ornaments in your empty space You know, you're going to need to bring smalls to craft shows This is a great way to add in and use that extra space for something that you could sell Pro pro tip to keep our mdf clean and residue free so that there's no sanding and cleaning afterwards We run at least 20 psi through the head of the laser It makes it nice and clean gets rid of all the char and keeps those edges nice and soot free We also use a blade bed to keep the flashback down on the back of our items and a jig to make placement consistent now you might be wondering why we're doing this in a tent and that's because We're in a warehouse. It doesn't have any air conditioning So we can only keep this one small space cool to keep the humidity down so these cut perfectly We also use tabs And frames to help keep all of our projects together step two Now you paint Now the trick about batch painting is to loop all of your like pieces and colors together So we're going to go ahead and lay these out around this table You might not have this much space to paint in but the concept is the same We're going to do all of our backers first You're going to do six backers at one time And then put them down below and take the next three if you have to i'm going to group all my colors together at one time So these are going to be Where are we going with these red stripes over here? Yeah, red stripes. These are all white And then again i'm grouping my colors the insides of this are blue So let's keep all those reds together. We'll lose over here A furry all the reds. Okay home to me Hey Try to break them Then promises hey I feel like there's a fish stores in seattle. Hey If you're enjoying this video give us a like and if you're not yet subscribed hit that subscribe button and tick that bell to be notified Notified of our new videos each week and if you watched us on test cut tuesday, then you already know The tape trick here. We're gonna pull this out and all of these little pieces get taped down so they Don't move when you're trying to paint them Another great thing to think about when you're batching your signs Batching works. Well if you're doing mainly Simple signs now this one's a little I wouldn't consider this one simple, but it is three colors So that makes it super easy or is it four colors red white blue and gold four colors? So it's easy to group all of those colors Like colors together now that we've separated all of our pieces into our colors. We're going to start painting We are using our foxy hughes paints. This is our brand of paint It is an indoor outdoor acrylic paint and what's great about this paint is because it has those outdoor properties It is uv resistant weather resistant. It's not going to fade when you put these projects out on your front door and the sun beats down It's great for indoor outdoor projects now Let's address the elephant in the room. We get a lot of comments. Why don't you use spray paint? We tried using spray paint that's where we started but spray paint one can that costs about six to eight dollars Maybe does two backers Then it takes a lot longer to dry. I need ventilation or if I try to do it outside. I have to worry about humidity bugs Then I really have to worry about the over spray in the neighbors And we also do these same designs for workshops And we can't have 16 people in here using spray paint rattle cans So indoor outdoor acrylic paint is great for this again It's low vocs. You can use this right inside your home and do all your painting while you're watching your tv Step three Time to assemble and we're going to use some star bond thick And we're going to work our way from the bottom up and the bottom now we're using star bond thick because It has a little thicker viscosity Which means it's not going to run when you lay it down and you want to use a little bit of glue Now you want enough glue that you're covering the surface area But you don't need a ton of glue so it's not oozing everywhere I like star bond because it dries in like 30 seconds to a minute tops It's not like that e6000 stuff that takes forever to dry Or wood glue that takes a couple of hours to dry This is down and there for life In about one minute And if you're wondering where you can try this star bond thick you can get this at our website K and g make it.com As well as the foxy hues paints. You can get that at k and g make it.com Now we do get a lot of questions about why we don't use the 3m tape Yeah, well the 3m tape would be a lot of waste for something like this. Do you see all the pieces that? open space open space It's a lot of 3m tape. I'm just throwing away And if I did the whole back if I did the whole piece I have 3m tape on my backer Step four take it all down to bow town Now we just put a ribbon hanger and a bow on them Well, actually I don't actually put a bow on them. I'm just going to put the ribbon hanger. I'm just going to Measure it super simple to do these and I can line them all up and do them real quick I measure it just about an inch or two over the width of the hanger and then Because we put these nice little ribbon slots in here. We do not have to add any nails screw Glue or attach anything to the backer. No external. We don't need it a time ago So I just fold this little ribbon tuck it back here and put a knot and we are good to go You actually give it like a threefold you fold it fold it Stick it through the ribbon slot Give it a knot. This isn't a bow tutorial video You give it the old slot knot and you're done There you go. Here's an example of the old slot knot This is the slot knot method Total cut time was 33 minutes total assembly and paint was an hour and 20 minutes So an hour and 50 minutes in total So this is what a batch process will do for you. You can get so much done So much faster if you do multiples of the same sign and you group all your pieces together now We did this together in an hour and 20 minutes. I still think I could have done this in an hour No more than 45 minutes by myself You think you'd be faster without me? No, I wouldn't say faster, but I definitely think Nope that I can damage is already done pretty efficiently. My feelings are already hurt Damage has been done. That's it I'm about out of time I gotta get back to doing something kim's gotta get back to batching out and we will see You next week where we'll do it build it and make it again Big thanks to the make it mafia. That is the best family over there over there We have extra svgs free svgs extra content monthly zoom call, but it's really about the family There's nothing good to bounce throw around because Keep digging your hole. Yeah