2023 Product Showcase: Shaper Plate

Paul. We got another showcase to do you. Excited George. I'm so fired up. I love tools. I love seeing the innovation that is happening in the industry and it's fun to get together and talk about well being in the position we're in where we get to talk about them amongst ourselves. But then also share that with people. You ready to look at one. Let's do it. Here we go, shaper plate. Um A lot of things going on here. Um Shaper origin, we've talked about a bunch of times we've had this on showcase a number of times. So with plate, what what this is providing is the ability to take your show on the road. I mean, it's so cool the way the dominoes are embedded here. So we don't have to stick taped on every time. And then the other thing I really like about it from an ease of use perspective is the many different ways this can be located on your work. So it is um you know, as we're coming in from space with origin in order to get started on whatever it is that you're going to do. Um We have to know where this goes so that this knows where it goes. And there are a bunch of different ways we can do that. Um As shown in the video that we did about plate. Indeed. So let's look at that. You've heard me talk about the shaper origin a number of times. I still think it's one of the crazy coolest tools to hit the marketplace in the woking world in a really long time. It's now augmented by shaper plate plate is going to give you really high accuracy, really high efficiency because it's about repeatability. It's about getting the origin in the exact same spot time after time after time after time after time, great for a lot of different applications. So here's what's going on with plate on the back plate, there's a sticky surface. And what that means is that when we have this position, most of the time, you're going to be able to simply set it, get the origin on top of this and start machining through the cut window without any additional clamping or anything. If you do think you need a little bit more security, there is the ability to use clamps and that will further secure plate to your work. Now to locate it, we've got a lot of options. There's a fence here at the bottom and with that fence activated, we can then push up against the edge of a piece of stock, take the fence out of the way begin our cutting, we've got a radical here, that radical can be pulled down. And so let's say we're working to align, we can set the radical on the line. And in addition to using this edge to locate against that pencil line, there's also a centering mark here. So when you use that center mark, if I had crosshairs on here, then I could be oriented to left and right and up and down using the radical. Once we're set, we push that out of the way. Now we're again ready to make a cut. There are also flags here here. So with those I can register against an edge, I've got a set on this side and then I've got the same thing going here and that would let me orient against the other edge. So lots of different ways to locate this on your work and again, repeatability, imagine that if my work was set so that I was working off of that fence, all I would have to do is bring it out, get my work positioned, take it out of the way. Boom, we're ready to cut. So now that you've got an understanding of how plate orients on your work. Let's coordinate shaper, studio, shaper, origin, shape or plate and make a cut. I want to spend just a second talking about shape or studio. I'm using it on an ipad. So it's very user friendly. It's easy to use on a device. And what's crazy cool about this is that files I save here, I can basically automatically have access to on the origin. So it makes going back and forth between the two really, really, really simple looking at my screen here. What I've got is the beginning of a bow tie. The design aspect here was very simple uh making a shape. And when I do that, in this case, I've got a polygon, I can change how many sides it has since from 5 to 3, that would turn it into a triangle. Once I have two triangles, I can manipulate them in order to get them sideways like they are here and overlapping. Once I have them overlapped, then the next thing I can do is merge them so that they're going to become one shape when I'm done like that. Now again, what's really cool is I save this file when we go to the origin bowties. Oh One is going to be available on the origin and we'll be ready to cut with my bow tie design done. And it's present in the origin because they talk to each other. I'm going to use plate in order to cut a bow tie on this cool looking slab. I've got a line on here that shows where I want the bow tie to go. And of course, I want the bow tie centered on that crack. So all I have to do is pull radical down use that to get on the line. And then I'm also eyeing the center mark on right there, slip that out of the way and we're just about ready to make our cut. What I can do is grab my bow tie, position it and we'll be ready to go. I'm going to change cutters to a smaller diameter bit that will let me finalize the outline and the pocket is going to be done. Now, important thing in between cuts, I'm not going to move the plate because that'll keep me oriented in the right spot for my bow tie. This is so cool bow tie oriented right on my pencil line. Now, of course, if I wanted to make another bow tie, all I'd have to do is pull my radical down located in another spot cut cut, located in another spot cut cut. So again, it's that repeatability aspect is what's so cool. The other thing that's cool about origin is I can use plate and the bow tie material itself to cut outside the line, giving me that perfect bow tie. So as I said, part of the beauty of this is I grab that same design now use it to cut the outside that that gives me my bow tie. Now, a couple of new things happening with the plate because the walnut I'm sitting on is so small. I did use the clamps to secure everything together. And then also back here at the back of plate, these bolts are here and those help you in a can lever situation like this where I want some support under this end so that this isn't racking when I have any pressure out there. So those bolts just act as legs to help stabilize everything. So now I can get my bow tie from here. Take it to that cookie. I used a chisel and I squared off the rounded corners inside the pocket. See how that feels. Oh, that's so cool. One of the things that I want to make sure you understand is that a bow tie like this is really one of the simplest things that you could do. Taking advantage of what plate offers, think about the complex hardware that's in the marketplace that you might use in a special box on a door, on a variety of different projects, using plate to get that repeatability, duplicate ability is on hardware like that is a really, really good way to take advantage of what plate offers. Well, George, there's a lot of goodness to talk about here. Uh I could, what's your? Well, I mean, I'm gonna lump this all together. So I think about this shaper origin platform in general and what an amazing innovation it is uh in our industry. It appeals to me at a woodworking level as well as a technologist, geek level. Uh And then you have the shaper plate that gives extensibility. They're really starting to flex, what they're doing and delivering this out to all kinds of different use cases. They add the design software to let people create their own patterns. And what I really love is this community that they're forming with the hub where they provide a place to, to upload and download and, and share in the patterns and designs. So if you have a piece of hardware that you're installing, good chance that it's, that there's already a code that you can grab and pull that pattern down and, and, and just use it. And the hardware is really a great segue of Paul's because um the bow tie that I did in the video is a super, super simple form of what plate is capable of being able to plunk that down on the jewelry box. You just made and cut in that really expensive brass hardware that you bought for it. That's a shining example, furniture makers using this to make, but basically using this as a jig instead of making a jig every time. Um really, really great applications of plate. Indeed another showcase in the can Paul. Did you have fun? I had fun. I've got a lot of good ideas to take back to my shop. Cool. And that's part of this is getting those ideas out in front of people so that they can maybe take them back to their shop too. Take them back to the shop and go shopping because you can never have enough tools. Thanks so much for watching.