Portable Pulpits

About this plywood case for the Arc3 Table

In order to make a versatile and strong plywood box, we needed a lot of design thought and a clever method of making.

This case fits an Arc3 table. It has intergrated joints and is glued and screwed for strength. It has no padding or foam. Plywood is inherently slightly softer than the metal parts, so it protects the parts and does not need any padding or foam. We cut the parts ourselves on our computer controlled machine. Each plywood part is complicated with many notches and details, but it is fast to cut on our computer controlled machine. The result is that it is quick and efficient to make. We use plywood made from hardwood, so the boxes are strong and yet relatively lightweight. It has 2 wheels to make it easier to transport.

The handles are cut into the plywood. This makes it easier to move without protruding handles that would increase the overall size. Also we save time and money not needing to buy handles and attach them.

More about this plywood case for the Arc3 table

We use our CNC machine to make plywood boxes and trolleys.

This helps make our production more efficient and keeps the podium and/or table parts safe while we are making and storing them. More of our plywood boxes travel around Sydney to outside engineers who do speciality work on our pulpit parts. We have developed special techniques to make these boxes. They have interlocking joints and other features to make them durable and robust.

In 2015, Brian Houston from Hillsong Church made a book tour of the USA (to promote his book ‘Live Love Lead’.) We made plywood boxes to hold his preaching equipment. The boxes were efficient to make and the plywood protected the contents without the need for extra foam or padding.

Some months later it occurred to us that this might be a way to make reasonable priced boxes for our customers that need to bump their churches in and out every Sunday. 

This was not a new problem to us. We had previously made flight cases using conventional methods (aluminium extrusions, panels etc) but these were expensive and time consuming to make. We then made special laser cut metal parts to make this more efficient, but the cases still needed a lot of assembly and padding, so the process was better, but still expensive and not efficient. We investigated making plastic cases (like you would get tools like drills in), however because of the large size, the mould costs would make this very expensive. Also you can’t improve it after you have made the mould, and improving podiums is our favourite thing to do!

In our normal style, what started as a modest goal turned into an ambitious project as we produced prototype after prototype, endlessly improving the humble plywood box. Each plywood part needed fulfil 2 functions. Each joint needed to be strong and also efficient to computer cut and assemble.

We fought for every millimetre to make it as small and lightweight as possible. Finally 28 prototypes later- we had the optimum result. During the process we reduced the size by 32% and the weight by 24%.

We think that by putting in a lot of design effort, the product can be better and more efficient to make. As a result for your church, you get an optimum podium case for the price.  We don’t really want to outsource it to a low labour country where we may have quality control issues and long wait times, we prefer to do it ourselves and make it in an efficient manner. 

This case weighs 11kg/25lbs empty
With Arc3 Podium - 20.5kg/45.5lbs
With Arc3 Preachers Table - 19.5kg/43.5lbs

The plywood case will leave us in perfect condition, but it ships with no extra packaging around it. It will arrive with shipping labels attached directly to it. For this reason there may be minor blemishes and marks from the process of shipping it to you (its first journey!)