One for the cabinet guys...

[Mike Jungers]

Hello all,

I'm looking for some advice as I'm planning a shift in my business focus, and after lurking for the past few months I know there are some very helpful professionals here who's opinion I'd like. Thanks in advance, and now a little about me: I'm going on fifteen years as a contractor in St. Louis, doing mainly remodels in what I call the executive level market, and have built a steady client base through only word of mouth referrals. What's kept me busy is that each project gets something custom, usually built-ins or some cabinetry my clients can't get off the shelf. I've slowly been shifting to subbing out things like hanging drywall and laying hardwood to free me up to focus on the one-off parts of the project and so far it's working well. Here's my problem: I'm working with consumer level equipment. So far I've been able to get the the quality I'm after at the expense of too much time and frustration but now I've got cash flow and I'm fed up. I'm using a Jet contractor saw and jointer and a screamin' Dewalt planer. For doors I just got a PM2700 5hp shaper with a PM feeder and now I'm satisfied with rail and stile production. I moved to Festool sanding equipment years ago for on site and shop sanding. No widebelt or drum, all RO sanding of everything. I have plenty of compressor and I use CAT's gravity gun with their CRP cap, so I'm okay with my finishing equipment and routine for now.

My question is: what's my next or next few moves? What I'm after is a level of tooling that I can count on for accuracy and repeatablity, but won't break me if it sits for two weeks out of the month. Right now I can't count on the jointer and planer and find myself making extra parts in case something gets ruined. The saw does the job but I'm very clear a slider would double my productivity. I know that only RO sanding is too slow and more importantly, the inconsistency makes me work harder during finishing. I was looking at a Supermax dual drum but reading here has me thinking a small wide belt would be better.

A few things about my process: I design everything with an accurate Sketchup model, and create my cut list from it. All my lumber comes S3S at 13/16" and requires jointing or a track saw before planing and ripping for face frame and door parts. I've cut dados with a router but I prefer a dado stack on the saw. If I do get a slider I'll have to see if it's faster to keep the table saw set up for dados or put a dado on the slider.

As far as budget goes, it's looking like I can come up with about 20k for capital this year and I know I can do 10k for the next few years and still make money on the woodworking side.

Any input on equipment, strategy, or processes is appreciated.

Mike

[Erik Loza]

The slider would definitely be my next investment. That's been the most common "first step up" for all my shops. Well within your budget and a huge jump in productivity. Most of the Minimax sliders will dado but but that being said, if they have the space, most of my shops just keep the old saw set up specifically for dados. It's faster and easier. As you know, time is money. Your shaper is fine.

Erik

[eugene thomas]

What size shop you working out of. As To Tools We All Love To Help Spend YOUR money.....

[jack duren]

You don't need a lot for a small cabinet business. Slider helps but not necessary. S3S shouldn't need to be joined. I simply rip it and run it through the planer on edge for doors and face frames. You can also buy it to 1.25-4" from cabinet suppliers. Cabinets just aren't that complicated. It can be very complicated if you want it to be, but its not...

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

What about outsourcing your doors? If you're selling to a high end market, then you can afford to buy premium doors from a door manufacturer, which will free up a LOT of your time.

[Jim Becker]

Slider and J/P combo would be my choice for "big machine" upgrades. Those are the "heart" of my shop and I've really enjoyed the MiniMax quality for the money. Those two plus your existing shaper really provide great production capability. But Gerry makes a good suggestion that some things are good to hire out for. Even as a non-pro, I've purchased drawer boxes to save time on my larger projects for the house. For painted, I might sub out doors, but for natural wood, I'm personally more likely to always build them because of my anal requirements for grain and color matching.

[Mike Jungers]

Thanks fellas. I have and still will hire out for doors for the few straight ahead cabinet jobs that come my way. With the shaper up and running though I make a cut list, go out to the shop, and knock out the 2 to 10 doors and face frames I need for a project in the same day. With most of my work still requiring me to be on a job, being able to schedule shop days without lead time constraints has been a big improvement. For example, a typical master bath project will have a vanity with toekick drawers and an open shelf or magazine shelf on the toilet end, a matched medicine cabinet with blocks for sconces, and something like a matched frame for art or a full length mirror with 4" rails and stiles that match the other doors. The cabinet guys want no part of that kind of job once I show them the design so I stopped asking years ago. So, I've accidentally carved out a niche for my little shop with the bling that sells the rest of the job.

What I'm still working on though are my processes and upgrading my equipment to bring my speed up and frustration down. Right now I think my two weaknesses are getting stock prepped quickly and accurately and sanding. A better quality jointer and planer or combo I know would help with the first area. As for sanding, I have no experience with pro equipment so I'm hoping for suggestions. Of course, I don't know what I don't know, so I'm interested in any suggestions from guys that have gone through this growing phase.

Thanks again.

Mike

[Patrick Kane]

I don't do cabinet professionally, but I do have a side gig woodworking. Trust me, I would love a widebelt, but a 36" widebelt would require power that I don't have at my house, not to mention a fair amount of cash for a used one. If you can find a used performax or supermax 37x2, I would snatch it up in a heartbeat. That is what I have and it is slow compared to a widebelt, but it will take your sanding game to another level. Another thing to consider is you aren't really a production shop. You wont be doing this 8 hours a day 5-6 days a week. A good drum sander might be all you need. I bought my used supermax 37x2 for $1700 with a bunch of paper. A good used 36" widebelt is going to be more like $5-6,000. The extra $4000 can go towards grabbing a great jointer/planer.

Quality jointer/planer is paramount. If you don't have flat/square material to start a project, then you don't have much. I make solid wood surfaces on the side, btw. I am not a fulltime professional, but I do pretty well and chew through a lot of lumber.

[Frankie Hunt]

For a production shop, if budget and space allows, 2 of the small Grizzly shapers added to your Powermatic make for a nice door setup. You can set one of the Grizzly shapers up for rails, the other for stiles. Use the Powermatic for raised panels. Once the two small shapers are set up you don't have to mess with them much at all. Fast, quick and easy. Not much out of your budget either. (Both for $1200 plus shipping) Several of the shops I know have the 3 shaper setup.

A better saw would be the first upgrade. Either a slider or a cabinet saw with an appropriate out-feed table. Ive been around several cabinet shops, all had a cabinet saw(s) and none were lacking in their speed/ability. A cabinet saw sure would allow your other funds to go farther!

Anytime you have to change tooling, even if it is quick, time and setup suffers some. I would suggest the 20 inch spiral head planer from Grizzly and their 12 inch jointer with spiral head cutter. (Both for $5400 plus shipping.)(IF a 12 inch jointer is sufficient, and I would think it would be for a cabinet shop)

I don't know much about sanders.

[Prashun Patel]

I'm not a pro, but will ask a couple questions:

What do you use for joinery? Is that a bottleneck for you?

For material prep, I personally wouldn't get a J/P combo if you're trying to speed up your production; changeover and resetting can be quick and bearable but never as optimal as 2 machines, dedicated. Of course, J/P combos tend to have wider jointing capability than people would usually buy themselves, so if you're doing drawer faces > 8" you may prefer the combo.

You might consider a helical head planer. A good one will produce a surface that has minor scallops. I go straight to 220 with mine. The fine sanding never takes a long time; it's the 60-100-150 that consumes my time.

What is your finishing regimen? On any cabinet project, this tends to be 50% of my total time. Using the right finish has helped me to reduce stress and improve speed there.

[Peter Kelly]

My question is: what's my next or next few moves?

I’d say developing a business plan should be your next move. Identify a target market, advertising budget, determine markups and methods for quickly estimating projects, profitability, identify competition, etc. There's a lot to consider prior to committing to long-term professional cabinetmaking.

Similar iterations of this same question has been asked on the Woodweb[dot]com forums many, many times over the years. Some great professional advice there so you might want to poke around there for a bit.

[Jeff Duncan]

There are many ways to skin a cat, what works for one shop might not work for another. So take all advice with a grain of salt.

My first thought is you should start subbing out the cabinetry as well. Use the extra $10k plus you have a year to invest in machinery and instead drop it right into a SEP account. If shops are turning down the work, find another shop. Serisouly, there are tons of shops out there and not all of them are too busy to take on work. Making a living building cabinetry is tough, the more you invest into equipment the more you need to keep it running. The more you try to keep it running the more you'll be distracted from the work that's likely paying the bills.

If your convinced this is a good move then you need to also consider a couple other things....space and power. How much do you have and how much will you need? To be really productive generally means having large industrial equipment that requires a lot of room and power. If your working out of a small shop now there's a decent chance you'll outgrow it the more you lean on the cabinetry aspect. I started out my first pro shop with about 700 sq. ft., a 60 amp single phase service and a single entry door to move product in and out. I'm now in my 3rd shop and am at 2400 sq. ft. with 2 garage doors, (one a drive in), and just paid to upgrade to a 200 amp 3 phase service.

I rely on all my equipment and I do a pretty wide variety of work. There are some types of work that would not require as much equipment, but for me flexibility is key. The table saw is probably priority number one. Next most important would likely be the widebelt sander, my shapers, then the jointer and planer, and of course dust collector to keep them all clean(ish). Then the edgebander and the Blum hinge machine, oh and if you get busy the jump saw is a recent acquisition for me that I should have done years ago! A good heavy bandsaw is also a must for my work. Re-arrange them in any order you wish, and some you may not need, at least not right away, but they're all good to have. I also have some other equipment not as necessary so I won't go through all of it. Also I'd personally avoid inexpensive Asian entry level machines if at all possible. My experience with them is they are actually very expensive and not worth what they cost for a professional shop, just my experience though and YMMV. The heavier duty industrial stuff can be a good investment however.

anyway that's it for now, good luck!
JeffD

[Martin Wasner]

Next step? You could dump money just about anywhere and it would be smart money.

You need another cheap shaper, a couple more tablesaws could be handy. Definitely a widebelt. You need something to bore hinge cups. Do you have an edge sander? How are you coping door parts?

Hunt for used stuff. I dumped $55k back into my business last year in tooling. Most of it was used stuff. If it weren't for trying to put up a new building this year I'd probably spend about that again this year, (I did sneak another SAC shaper in the other day though, I couldn't resist)

[Mike Jungers]

It's been an informative day. I had a some very good conversations with equipment salespeople working out a properly scaled equipment lineup for my needs. For my two primary bottlenecks, I'm headed towards one of the higher end jointer/planer combos and as mentioned above, a dual drum sander. Thanks Patrick, you're saying what I've heard all day about the dual drums. I looked at wide belts and for my needs the ROI would just be too long. As it's usually one or two of us in the shop, changeover on the combo won't be an issue with proper organization. I've had both the blessing and the curse of working with a small shop; it forced me to be disciplined and organized so now there's very little jumping around of processes.

I will definitely be getting a slider and now have a pretty good idea which one, but it will probably be next year after the other two purchases. My current saw is doing the job with a 52" rip fence and an 8' outfeed table. I also have a 4' x 4' table on casters for support on cross cuts. All my box material gets cut at once, followed by dados grouped by fence setting. I'll be keeping this setup after getting the slider and use it for dados or just as an assembly bench the rest of the time. I'm looking forward to cutting my frame stock against the stops on the slider and freeing up room taken by the miter saw. Lots to think about.

Frankie, I took a good look at picking up two smaller shapers but I really don't need to make that many of any one thing. For now I stack my cutters and use the DRO on the PM2700 to change from coping to sticking. For the small amount of solid panels doors I do I don't mind the changeover for panel raising. Takes about five minutes to go from one setup to the other and I rarely change over more than once on a project. Time spent getting the cut list right is time well spent IMO. I am however trying to keep my eyes open for ways of using the shaper and power feeder to either get better or faster. Accepting suggestions.

Thanks Prashun. My joinery is about 60/40 pocket screws to dominos depending on the situation. I use a lot of dominos in the field and have come to love that system. I literally have gotten jobs by using Festool and keeping peoples homes clean when I work. But I digress... Here's an example of an upcoming project that's more complex than most of what I build but gives an idea of what I do:



For stuff like that I pull out every joinery trick I've got. One of the salesmen I talked to today said my needs are closer to furniture making than cabinetry. I've never thought of it that way, and I still probably won't out of respect for the real furniture makers. My finishing is about half wiping stain/ sprayed precat and half brushed oil with the occasional Aqualente sprayed for non-yellowing. Sanding is still working through the grits with the Festools. I'd have to say the trickiest part of finishing for me is getting the strategy right for complicated pieces. Lots of room left on the learning curve but I'm doing OK.

Thanks Peter and I agree completely, but I'm a little further down the road now with an established remodeling business. I don't always do a good job being clear on forums because I don't want to overstate my abilities or sound like a jerk, so I'll clarify: I'm not trying to set up a cabinet shop, I just want to approach the woodworking side of my business more like an, er, business from a tooling and process perspective. Right now I spend from 10-25% of my time for a given project in the shop cutting up trees. I'm reminded regularly that this part of my business is what sells the rest of my work, and I'm going on 15 years working strictly from referrals. If I tried to go head to head with any real cabinet shop I'd get clobbered for being that far out of my wheelhouse. Hats off to those guys 'cause the earn every penny. For a new guy starting out, I'd print your suggestion and tape it to the bathroom mirror for the daily reminder.

I really appreciate the input and keep it coming. Thoughts on good quality dual drums?

Mike

[Leo Graywacz]

If you are going to get into custom cabinetry and you want to make things yourself the basic tools you should think about are a Unisaw with a large table surround it. Upgrade the fence and put a digital reader on it. Minimum of a 15" 3HP planer, minimum of a 8" jointer. 3 shapers for a door setup, cope, stick, panel. Edge sander, might not think it's important - it is. Of course various small tools, RO sander, a couple of routers, dovetail jig, battery drills/impact gun. Things you'll want but don't necessarily need would be a drill press, bandsaw and some sort of a wide sander.