Custom Pickleball Paddle

Over the years, I have fallen in love with the sport of Pickleball. For years I have consistently played with a cheap wooden paddle I purchased from Walmart. After playing with my paddle for so long, I thought to myself, “I can make a better paddle than this,” and so I did.

GAME POSTER

NEW CNC (Laguna SWiFT) / FINAL CUT:

I knew I wanted to create this new paddle using wood because I enjoy the weight that wood paddles bring. I was already planning on using my University’s new Laguna SWiFT CNC for a different furniture project so I created my paddle design in Rhino 3D and added it to the same layout of the other project pieces, two birds with one stone.

DESIGN INSPO:

The first step in any project is the research phase. I needed to figure out what what design aspects I wanted to incorporate. After gathering som inspiration, I know I wanted to have a rocking element to the chair and add some type of soft good to either the chairs of the game board itself

PROTOTYPE 1:

I began making a rough prototype as to what I thought I wanted my game to look like. I wanted to incorporate a soft good element with the plywood.

What I like about this first design is the fabric seat which draped across the chair. For the table, there were four distinct areas where the player could sit. Although I liked my initial design and game choice, I needed to keep in mind the limited material I had, one 4’x8’ plywood sheet. I decided to choose and new game that would be two players only so I only had to make two chairs.

NEW GAME & CHAIR DESIGN:

In order to have enough materials for my game and chairs, I decided to switch to a two player game called Sling Puck Game, which involves using an elastic band to sling your pucks to your opponent’s side before that they can do the same to you. I also decided to explore a difference chair design.

COMPUTER NUMERICAL CONTROL (CNC):

This whole project revolved around using a CNC machine. During the beginning of this project, we were set to use our TECHNO LC Series 4896 machine. The drill bit we used is a .25 diameter compression bit. However, towards the end of the project our CNC was upgraded to a newer Laguna SWiFT, which I will show later in the process.

TECHNO LC Series 4896:

There are two main types of motors in these CNC machines, servo motors and step motors. Servo motors always know its position even if the cut is stopped and started. Steppo motors are unable to take the drill bit to its original position after the cut is stopped and started. The two main cuttings paths these machines follow are conventional and climbing.

FINAL DESIGN / SCALED DOWN FINAL MODEL:

After many design trial and errors, I finally landed on chosen look. I created the layout using a computer program called Rhino 3D over a 4’x8’ template, the same size of our plywood sheet. I downsized the final layout and layered it out onto a sheet of foam poster board to make sure the pieces all fit together.

SANDING / GLUING:

Now that the CNC cut out all of the pieces, it was time for me to put in some elbow grease. I had to sand all my pieces down, including the edges and faces. After I finished all the sanding, I had to glue two seat pieces together so the chair could hold more weight.

FINAL RESULTS

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Custom Glass Plate