Kit&Co is a design and fabrication company that makes furniture kits. They're not like
the particle board kits you get at the big stores, but a really unique thing is that
they send assembly instructions and metal parts. Then you supply your own wood. It's
really cool if you're the kind of person that wants a hands-on furniture making experience.
But maybe you don't have the time or energy to build something from scratch. The cool
thing is they do their design work in SketchUp. And even cooler is they sent us a kit, and
I think it's getting here right now. Building it can be a great way to experience Kit&Co's
product. Plus, I know just where we can use a new end-table. Let's see what they sent
us. Ooh. Instructions for our new side table. I wonder what kind of software they use to
get that. That looks nice. These are Kit&Co multi-tools. So this is the important part.
This is the actual kit part of our furniture. This is the metal that will be the base of
the new side table. And, ooh, look at this- Kit&Co t-shirt! How did they know I like t-shirts?
Give me just one second. Alright, I think I'm ready. Let's go put this thing together.
Wooh! Well, overall, I've got to say; that was pretty cool and kind of fun. The cooler
part, though, is the guys at Kit&Co invited us to come out and see where these kits are
made. So, I think we've got to go check that out. We're here in Casenovia, New York to
talk with Chris Ryan, Tim Ryan, and Ben Cook- founders of Kit&Co. They invited us to Ben's
house to talk a little bit about how Kit&Co started. Hey, I'm Ben. Come on in. Hey, I'm
Chris. Chris. Hey, Tim. Tim, thanks for having us. Absolutely, thanks for coming out. Tell
us a little bit about Kit&Co. What does Kit&Co do, in your words? We were seeing a lot of
furniture that we didn't like. It was disposable, cheap, or it was really expensive. We developed
a lot of this hardware as a way to help ourselves build our own pieces of furniture, without
having to have a lot of shop space or a lot of tools. We provide the stuff that we think
is more unique. We provide it in a nice, dense box of steel. Then it's up to you to choose
the kind of wood and what kind of finishes. Whether it's from a specific joinery need
for a 2-sided or a 3-sided connection, or a type of table that we're looking for, the
general theme is always flexibility and customization. That is what we're really trying to do, help
the customers make their own cool product. If there's a new product, or a new kit you
want to create, how does that work? Where does that idea come from? I would say I definitely
jump right into 3 dimensional modeling to really start testing and letting ideas go,
working quickly. Because the 3D models are so easy to iterate with, it gets in there
really quickly. Then we'll prototype quickly, because we're assuming we're going to have
to iterate. It allows us to be building the types of product that we want to be creating
to the quality and to the specifications that we want; and to be constantly pushing the
product and the quality of it to see what we want to see created. I thought the instructions
were very clear, good illustrations. The 3D models in particular, allow you to annotate
and explain how it is supposed to go together. Everything that you see here is available
for download on our website. You can download it as a couple of different file types for
whatever you're using as a 3D modeling program. You can mock up your own thing. Whatever software
you're using. Sketchup happens to be one of them. Laughs. So somebody has a wood slab,
or something like that and they want to see, you know, what's it going to look like on
these legs, or something like that. They can actually just go grab your stuff, and prototype
it digitally before they even order a piece? Yup. Products like SketchUp are what we have
used predominantly, and that's what a lot of people have access to, and we offer that
as one of the download types. Just like a lot of people out there, we like having cool
things that we've built ourselves that have a story. People go and do their own project
on top of it, and that's when it's the best. That's awesome! Yeah! So Ben, you've actually
made a lot of the furniture around your house. I was wondering if you could walk me through
and show me some of your pieces? Yeah, absolutely! I would love to. So, we've got this table
here. It's a live-edged maple. It's a 3/8 steel rod, bent, so the cobbler's kids do
have shoes, as it happens. Then, of course, the original baseboard kit. This table is
reclaimed cedar from a 100+ year old silo. One of the cool things about this is every
board was stamped with a number and a letter. So that they know how to put it together,
in sequence. If you look closely at the milling of the tongue and groove, it's milled on a
little bit of a cant, so when you stand them up and put them together, it makes a tight
fit in a circle, or cylinder. Oh wow! Alright Chris, let's take a look at some SketchUp
models to see how you design the parts for Kit&Co. Our design, whether it's hardware
or a piece of furniture, start in a file. Something like this, where we're really just
very quickly trying different things; testing dimensions, testing whatever the idea is.
We do this quickly to try to hone in on the direction forward. So this is a leg, obviously.
It is its own SketchUp model that we can use as a component and drop into kits that use
that leg. For us, as we're working and making drawings, as we change that original model,
it will update the drawing. For us, as a small company, that streamlined process is really
helpful. Because without that, it's so much labor to draw things. Right. This allows the
feedback loop to be really quick. So today we're in Syracuse, New York, and we are headed
to the kit shop. First, we're going to stop at one of our vendors, where we're having
a bunch of hardware powder-coated. Some of it is our new prototypes that we haven't even
seen yet. Kind of a lot of new stuff. You guys are here on a very exciting day for the
Kit Crew. This is basically what we've been talking about. Taking that initial concept,
proving it out through design in 3D modeling, and then now actually prototyping, getting
fabrication done. We're going to actually be able to hold a piece that, like you're
saying, about a month ago was just an idea. Child doors. This is the kind of service we
provide for our customers here at SketchUp. I appreciate that, the heavy-lifting portion
of the day. That's right. They've already got the red markers fired up to write what
they want to change about this batch, and how to make the prototypes even better before
going to production. This idea morphed into the wider plate, and then we didn't make a
square, we made it a triangle. Again, because it helps with
the stability. Oh, yeah! That's what I'm... Oh man! That looks nice. This is better. This
is going to last forever right here. This is better. So this is the current leg, and
this is the prototype; The new leg. Obviously you can't feel it, but it actually feels lighter
and is even sturdier. I can squeeze this, and flex that together. This one's not moving
at all. I mean this has got to be 30% of the weight. And this doesn't look bad, but that's
cool looking. I mean that's, that looks cool. Like 3/8 from the edge to the center. Because
we're moving it at a 45 to the side, I don't know how far it needs to move in, but i'll
just off-set it and the resulting dimension will be what it is. But I think we definitely
put an emphasis on these, and see how it plays. This is the future. You can see where that
goes from that weld right there to... invisible. Good grinding. Good sanding. Good finishing.
Good golly! We're really doing it, Aaron. Big thanks to Kit&Co for inviting us out to
show us their design and fabrication process. Do you use SketchUp for design or fabrication,
or know someone who does? We would love to hear about it. Let us know, and thank you!