Cutting the kit: hire or own#

Sunwake SW-15 · SW-CNC Rev 1 · August 2026

This document compares hiring a professional shop to cut Sunwake's plywood kit with buying a full-sheet CNC router for the build shed. After resale, the costs are similar: ownership costs about $14–18k up front and returns about $6–9k used, while professional cutting is estimated at $10–14k. The decision therefore turns on 200–300 hours of owner time, schedule control, and whether the router will be used during the remaining 5,200 hours of the build. If bought, it should have a 5 × 10 rather than a 4 × 8 work area.

1. Professional cutting scope#

Nesting and cut files are a Phase 3 deliverable from the naval architect either way — see Naval architect engagement. Whoever holds the router contributes machine time, hold-down and handling, kerf and tab conventions, blank logistics, labelling, palletising and shipping. Nothing else. The design content of the kit is bought once and is not in play here.

At Chesapeake Light Craft's published $125/hour for custom CNC cutting, a vacuum-table shop running Sunwake's 250-sheet order at 20–25 minutes per sheet would use 85–105 machine-hours, or roughly $10.5–13k. Applying the same rate to the 310-sheet budget envelope gives $13–16k. This independently supports the $10–14k allowance in the Materials takeoff. Hewes & Company's marine division in Blue Hill is expected to fall in the same range and is close enough to keep freight modest.

The other consumables of the build — roughly 1,000 m² of glass and 785 kg of epoxy — are untouched by this decision. Only the 243 calculated sheets of 6/9/12/15 mm okoume pass under a cutter.

2. The 2026 machine market#

Full ownership bill on the recommended tier: machine $11.4–13.2k, VCarve Pro about $700 (CNC12 or gSender run the machine; VCarve is the CAM dialect the kit world speaks), tooling $0.5–1.5k in compression and downcut bits (a straight bit lasts about 30 sheets, roughly $1–2 per sheet cut), dust collection $0.8–3k which the build needs regardless, spoilboard and hold-down screws and sundries $0.3–0.5k, plus a 240 V 30 A circuit in the shed. Cash in is about $14–18k, with 40–80 hours of assembly and commissioning. Prosumer machines resell at roughly half to two-thirds of new; net cost of ownership after a post-build sale is about $6–9k.

3. Time requirement#

Cutting cannot start before kit release at the end of Phase 3, around months 9–12 on the engagement calendar. A machine bought at Phase 1 signature can be learned during Phase 2 by cutting strongback brackets, moulds, shed furniture and the pilot parts. This keeps training off the critical build path. A later purchase provides less schedule benefit at the same price.

4. Accuracy and risk#

Taped-seam panel tolerance, about ±1 mm, is comfortably inside a well-tuned prosumer machine's capability. The demanding item is puzzle-joint fit, which wants repeatable ±0.1–0.2 mm and disciplined kerf and climb conventions. That is exactly what the pilot cut exists to prove — one bulkhead and one full-length strake, dry-fitted before the sheet order releases — and owning the machine turns that protocol from a vendor round-trip into an afternoon, repeatable as often as it needs to be.

Scrap cost is manageable. At $94–133 per sheet for okoume, a 3 % learning-curve scrap rate across the 250-sheet order is $700–1,000. The larger risk is that the owner becomes the single point of failure, without an experienced kit cutter checking kerf, grain direction and tabs. Mitigate this by buying 4–8 hours of file review from Hewes or CLC at $125/h before releasing the nest, then cutting one thickness at a time with a dry-fit check after the first sheet. About $1k of review can prevent a five-figure cutting error.

5. The sheet-size argument for 5 × 10#

BS 1088 okoume ships in 1220 × 2500 mm (48 × 98.5") — an inch and a half longer than a 4 × 8 machine's envelope, so a 4 × 8 simply cannot take the blank — and in 1530 × 3050 mm (60 × 120"). The production package will default to nesting on 1220 × 2440 because that is the least-common-denominator service assumption. Owning a PRO60120 reopens the format question, and the Materials takeoff already asks for quotes in all three sizes for that reason.

The arithmetic is direct. Sunwake carries four developable strakes per side, two working chines plus a boot seam, on two hulls — sixteen strake runs of roughly 15 m. Laid end to end, a 15 m run takes seven 2440 blanks and six joints, or six 2500 blanks and five joints: about 20 % fewer puzzle joints in the long strakes, sixteen joints fewer across the boat. At 3050 it is five blanks and four joints. Strakes nest on the diagonal so the real counts move, but the direction and rough magnitude hold, and every joint removed is a glue-up, an alignment and a fairing operation removed with it. Bigger blanks also give one-piece bulkheads and beam webs where the 1220 width was forcing a seam.

The 5 × 10 premium over the 4 × 8 is $1,795 on the same Avid platform, and the shed the build needs anyway — 16 × 9 m or better — absorbs the extra footprint without noticing. If the machine is bought at all, this is where the marginal dollars do the most work.

6. Uses after the hull kit#

The hull kit represents roughly 200 hours of a 5,500-hour build. Afterward, the machine can cut about 450 hours of CNC-suitable interior parts, including galley boxes, soles, trim and drawers, many nested from kit offcuts. It can also make arched window-frame templates, jigs, cradles, backing plates, blocking, systems brackets, battery-box parts and replacements. Mid-build design changes can be cut in the shed without another vendor cycle; see Construction.

Together, these later uses turn the router from a kit-cutting tool into shop infrastructure for the full build and strengthen the case for its $6–9k net cost.

7. Recommendation#

Decision rule. Buy if at least two of these are true: the interior will be CNC-cut; schedule control has material value; avoiding vendor round-trips for changes is important; the owner wants to run the machine. Otherwise hire Hewes and apply the 250 hours to fairing; see Build timeline and cost.

The decision can wait until after the design contract is signed. To keep both options open, the Phase 3 production package must be cutter-agnostic: layered DXF for outer cuts, inner cuts, engraving and drilling; documented kerf and tab conventions; and blank size treated as a parameter. The final choice can then be made after the kit files and professional cutting quote are available.

Sources#

Accessed August 2026.

Machines: Avid CNC PRO4896 — $11,389 · Avid CNC PRO60120 — $13,184 · Sienci AltMill sizes and prices — CNC Dad · 4 × 8 price tiers 2026 — CNC Exchange · Avid PRO4896 review — MellowPine · Used market — CNCMachines.com · Surplus Record CNC routers

Service rates and cutters: Chesapeake Light Craft custom CNC cutting, $125/h · 100kGarages routing $60–120/h and bit-cost norms · WoodWeb per-sheet norms (dated) · Hewes & Company cutting for Vivier designs · Hewes & Company — Maine Built Boats

Sheet sizes: Noah's okoume 48 × 98.5 · Noah's okoume 60 × 120 · World Panel BS 1088

Project: Construction · Materials takeoff · Naval architect engagement · Build timeline and cost

Machine prices are configurator and reviewer figures and they move; re-quote Avid, Sienci and the used dealers directly before ordering, and re-quote the cutting service against the actual nest rather than against the sheet count. The pilot-cut and file-review mitigations assume the naval architect delivers layered DXF as specified in the Phase 3 scope.