CNC for cabinetry

[Jesse Busenitz]

I'm a one man shop entering into the cabinetry business. I've done woodworking for quite a while and have done a couple complete houses and am looking to upgrade some equipment. Mainly I'm looking at line bores, and sliding TS. but also considering cnc as an option as well. So what I'm looking for is advice from those of you who build cabinets and use cnc. What do you all do with it and is it better than hiring another person to help??? Space and money aren't a huge issue... I'm looking at 4'x8' machines though, and possibly auto tool changers.

[Art Mann]

There is a guy who is a member of SMC whose name is Jim McGrew. He is a large cabinet/furniture maker and CNC routers have been central to his business for years. I'm pretty sure he would be willing to give you some very solid advice. I suggest you send him a private message. You can get a link to that from the Sticky thread in this forum on pictures of CNC work. He may be a little slow to respond right now as he posted on another forum that he has been sick.

[Tony Joyce]

JMHO, but if you're using a CNC you shouldn't need a line borer, maybe not even a slider. You can cut, rabbet & bore on the CNC using one bit. While it is slower at boring. You will be handling the panel a lot less. It should come off the router ready to assemble.

If you're not using a cabinet program I would consider one first. Most people don't realize how much time is spend calculating sheet, door & drawer part sizes. Plus they can be made to work seamlessly will the CNC router.

This is just my 2 cents based on my experiences.

Tony

[Jerome Stanek]

There are a lot of cabinet guys using Shopbots. I have one and do a few cabinets but most is trade show displays and not the little pop up displays. Most are in the 20x30 foot range with a few 20x150 and even one that was 80x250

[Jim Underwood]

I wouldn't even consider going back to cutting cabinet parts by hand. Of course I work where we use a industrial grade CNC router with ATC and a 9 position drill block. It, along with a good cabinet design software, makes so many things possible.... and much faster. It used to take me about 20 minutes to figure out how to optimize, rip, and crosscut parts on a 4x8 sheet on our slider. Then you still had to add the lineboring, dados and rabbets. Shaped parts took even longer.
Now all that's done in less than 5 minutes on most sheets...

[james mcgrew]

A Cabinetmaker needs an ATC, CAMaster has developed a 4 x 8 stinger 4 with a carosel 4 tool changer that is meeting the market need, if you want to call and discus this feel free. My number is on the website, I am with Jim there is no way I would live without an CNC ATC, I have two sliders and one has been Idle for over two years