94 cabinet door rails to tenon ~ both ends!

[Joe Calhoon]

Joe, is that an adjustable knuckle on the outfeed end of the fence in the third photo?

Kevin, It works well for narrow rabbited parts and also useful when doing face mouldings with the feeder turned against the fence.

Cabinet doors are fairly easy to make and several methods are possible for all types shops. Sam certainly found a good way for his shop. We used to have dedicated shapers with the Weaver setup. Every job we do is different and most customers want something different than what is offered by mfgs. Our quick setup shapers work well for our work now. The local cabinet door mfg uses a variety of machines. A lot of dedicated shapers, some Unique machines, a big SCM double end machine for large orders and they just set up a CNC router for outside profiling and sizing of cabinet doors. They used a track fed SCM single end tenoner with jump copes for years but think they wore that machine out.

[Larry Edgerton]

Absolutely Joe. In the end it is about getting the job done to satisfaction of both yourself and you customer in a manner that can be supported by the local economy that you have to deal with combined with the competition that you have to come up against. Different areas have different ideas about what is acceptable and what is affordable. Investing in machines that you market will not support is just as bad as trying to make cabinet doors with an adz and a broadax.

I have spent some time in Sam's area and it is a lot similar to the one I work in, some resort people with a ton of money and then the rest of us. There is a lot of competition for the few high dollar jobs that come up and doing a quick google search of Sam's area shows me that his is the same as mine, a ton of people competing for the same dollars. Its nice to live in a rural setting, but you do pay a price when it comes to what you can charge. If one was to call Martin and have then send one of everything and put it on my card, there would soon be a really juicy auction. I constantly have Martin dreams, but I also realize that I have to pay for them and I can not keep my shop busy enough to pay for it. So I get by with what I have, just as Sam is doing.

When Sam's job is done, I have every confidence that it will be beautiful, and that it will stay that way long after many of us are gone. That for me is my motivation, leave this world with a little bit of quality work that makes people happy.

Larry