44mm racks - 4 rows or 5? (1 Viewer)

How many rows?

  • 4

    Votes: 7 33.3%
  • 5

    Votes: 5 23.8%
  • Either

    Votes: 9 42.9%

  • Total voters
    21

T_Chan

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I'm in the process of making some wood chip racks, and am making some for 44mm chips. Do people prefer to have them with rows of 4 or 5?

Of course 5 gives you an even 100, but 4 may fit better in cases and birdcages.

Thoughts?
 
I made a rack which was designed for the 44mm Rounders chips, it wasn't a single rack but a tray that fit 300 chips. I'm making some single racks to fit either 80 chips or 100 chips. None have been cut yet so if given the barrel length of 20 chips I can make them fit.

I'm pretty sure I made this tray to have barrel lengths of 2.75" which fit perfectly.

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This rack is actually 46mm which I made for Trihonda's bounty chips but this is more what the racks will look like:

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Hmm... that would make it quite versatile.

The bottoms can be either left flat, or have grooves milled into them so that they stack. With the regular 39mm trays I groove the bottoms to match the tops so that they can stack. I guess I could groove 5 rows on the underside of the 4 row rack so that they stack onto regular 39mm trays but it might be a tricky fit.

Example of my regular 39mm racks:

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I suppose I could offer different options, but that would increase costs since I can no longer batch the work together. I'm in the process of making a few dozen racks but before I got too much work done, I wanted to see if there's demand for 44mm trays.

The flat bottoms work well but then the trays slide around when stacked. It's easier for me, not complaining but I always try to keep functionality in mind.
 
Fit into Birdcages & stack onto the existing plastic 39mm racks would be nice ..

Do you guys really want to stack wood trays on top of acrylic trays? I don't usually go crazy over stuff like that, but in this case, I'm pretty sure I'd want all wood or all plastic.
 
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Hmm... that would make it quite versatile.

The bottoms can be either left flat, or have grooves milled into them so that they stack. With the regular 39mm trays I groove the bottoms to match the tops so that they can stack. I guess I could groove 5 rows on the underside of the 4 row rack so that they stack onto regular 39mm trays but it might be a tricky fit.

Example of my regular 39mm racks:

View attachment 93638 View attachment 93639

I suppose I could offer different options, but that would increase costs since I can no longer batch the work together. I'm in the process of making a few dozen racks but before I got too much work done, I wanted to see if there's demand for 44mm trays.

The flat bottoms work well but then the trays slide around when stacked. It's easier for me, not complaining but I always try to keep functionality in mind.
DEFINITELY need some 44mm trays!
 
Embarrassingly, I don't own any oversized chips. Can someone let me know the length of a barrel of 20? Last I checked it was 2.75"?
 
Tony perhaps post that question in the Bwalk thread. There are a bunch of guys there with 43mm chips.
 
Embarrassingly, I don't own any oversized chips. Can someone let me know the length of a barrel of 20? Last I checked it was 2.75"?
Why would they be any shorter?
I mean, a barrel of Paulson 43's is the same length as a barrel of Paulson 39's. Fo sho
 
That was my initial thought but wasn't sure if they were any thicker or not.

Thanks.
 
Getting a snug fit is always the hardest part. I got a bunch of blanks that are getting ready to be milled and want to make sure I don't make a big batch of trays that are the wrong size.

Cheers
 
The bottoms can be either left flat, or have grooves milled into them so that they stack. With the regular 39mm trays I groove the bottoms to match the tops so that they can stack. I guess I could groove 5 rows on the underside of the 4 row rack so that they stack onto regular 39mm trays but it might be a tricky fit.

I suppose I could offer different options, but that would increase costs since I can no longer batch the work together. I'm in the process of making a few dozen racks but before I got too much work done, I wanted to see if there's demand for 44mm trays.

The flat bottoms work well but then the trays slide around when stacked.
Rather than mill grooves into the bottom, how about milling it totally underneath leaving an outer border - that would allow the tray to stack on any type of tray underneath, and not limit it to just 4-barrel or 5-barrel trays (and regardless of chip diameter). The un-milled border will prevent stacked trays from sliding, similar to how stacked plastic racks work.

Seems like it would also be less work than milling grooves, not to mention standardizing your trays to meet a variety of applications -- and allowing you to batch work too, regardless of what type of chip the top is designed for.

The key is to standardize the overall length and width dimensions for all of your offerings (the outboard chip dimensions should all be identical, and vary spacing between barrels to fill the overall length). Making them work with other tray types (and in birdcages) will greatly increase your potential market.
 
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That's a really good idea. I'll have to think about that based on how I make the racks.

One problem with that is my 5 row 39mm racks are longer than plastic racks. Sure with a hollow bottom my racks would be able stack on top of plastic racks full of chips, but they do not fit in birdcages. I guess you can't have it all.
 
That's a really good idea. I'll have to think about that based on how I make the racks.

One problem with that is my 5 row 39mm racks are longer than plastic racks. Sure with a hollow bottom my racks would be able stack on top of plastic racks full of chips, but they do not fit in birdcages. I guess you can't have it all.
Birdcages smirdcages
 
First prototypes done. They're a bit thick because I was going to groove the bottoms to make them stack, however thanks go the feedback from the wonderful forum and specifically @BGinGA, the bottoms are just hollowed out completely.

It still needs lacquer but first impression looks good.

This is actually a 44mm tray, just shy of 2-3/4" wide for the chips.

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It's still just a block of wood at this point. I actually have to laminate a couple of boards together, your insert is thicker and wider than anything I have.
 
I guess I shouldn't call it a prototype, I've made them before but just in a different style. I've got a few on the go and working on some more. My next batch will probably be the 5 row so that people can choose which ones they want.

2017-05-05 09.52.59.jpg
 
So I went to visit @Mesnik44 to take the new chip rack out for a test drive. To my dismay, his chips are too long to fit in my racks, this batch of racks anyways. I only brought one rack so I'm going to check the others to see if they fit, but this one certainly doesn't. Measuring them, each row of my rack is 68.8mm long, and each barrel of 20 CPC chips is 69.1mm long. So I'm off by a hair (I have thick hair).

One barrel of his chips among 8 barrels I tried of different denoms fit just barely. Curiously enough, his 39mm chips fit in them just fine, as do many other 39mm chips such as his other CPC's, Pharaohs and horseshoes. So the wood rack did fit on top of a regular rack of chips no problem.

So going forward, my next batch of racks will be made to ~69.2-69.4mm to allow for a bit of breathing room for the chips. I'm now very curious if other 44mm chips are the same height as the CPC's.

2017-05-08 15.38.42.jpg


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