from elsewhere in the world of forums...

@kmealy posted this in an earlier life.. in a land long gone...

just happen to think it may be of interest...

Some of the guys from the woodworking club took a tour of a production cabinet shop last week. Lots of commercial furniture for hotels, schools, etc.
One of the things the owner said was that when you are using router bits, you want "chips" to fly off, not "sawdust." Chips will carry off the heat, sawdust will not and causes the bits to overheat. I heard the same thing a few years ago from the Bosch engineers.
So, the old advice to run a profile with your router, then lower the bit 1/32 for the clean up pass is not the right way to do it.

Back story:

While they had one SCMI saw I recognized as a saw, they had production machinery that did most of the work. Primarily four big tools:

1. CNC to cut all the parts out of sheet goods, drill holes for shelves, hinges, drawer glides, and joinery. Layout automatically optimized for yield.
2. Edge bander that applies, trims, buffs, and cuts off ends. Slide the piece in one end and it comes out the other end all done.
3. Machine that drills holes in stretchers, nailing strips, etc., Glues and inserts a dowel pin. Lasers determine the size and where to drill the holes.
4. Once the parts are assembled on a work table, it squares and clamps in all directions.

From there it went to the finish room where they sprayed on a stain, put the stain gun down, and immediately sprayed on a coat of lacquer. Swap out for next piece, then come back and apply second coat of lacquer. Done.

The other surprising thing was how little they paid for hardware. Seventy some cents for pulls, dollar and a half for the really fancy ones. Less than $3 for a set of ball bearing drawer glides (Haefle or Blum).

And we wonder how the custom craftsman can compete.

Sort of one step away from putting a stack of sheet goods in one end and having a cabinet come out the other. Most of the work appeared to be moving the stock from one station to the next

Edited September 4, 20169 yr by Stick486

Interesting, Thanks.