kmealy Posted May 12, 2021 Report Share Posted May 12, 2021 Artie, John Morris, Cal and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Morris Posted May 14, 2021 Report Share Posted May 14, 2021 It's a well rounded perspective I feel, and without judgement, good job Stumpy! Cal and Artie 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gene Howe Posted May 14, 2021 Report Share Posted May 14, 2021 Have never considered a CNC as a replacement for any saw. But, that doesn't decrease my lust for one to perform other repetitive tasks. Artie and Cal 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmealy Posted May 14, 2021 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2021 I went to a small factory in VA with my BIL years ago. They made mostly fireplace surrounds and other pieces of furniture. It was only a few thousand sq. ft. and had maybe 5 or so employees. The owner showed me his CNC that was probably 6'x10'. They'd unload a shipment of sheet goods at the dock. They had a gantry that would lift the sheet and put it on the CNC. A guy from a local big factory would come in at the end of his shift there and run the CNC thru the evening and just cut parts. They were put on carts for the next operation. It kept the assembly and packing crew busy the next day. He said that it came to a decision of buying the CNC or hiring a bunch of new people and getting new equipment in. I figured for the price of a year's salary on one person, he got the CNC. It worked great for repetitive work. It was also around the time of the 2008 recession so he was looking at expanding his offerings and made design and cutting way easier. A few years later, I visited another factory that made cabinets, mostly for schools and country clubs. They had design software that could customize the sizes and went right to the CNC for cutting. It was efficient, but sort of sad that the only thing workers did was move materials and parts from one machine to the next. Even the (dowel) joinery and edge banding was automated. They did apply glue to 1/2 of a doweled joint, then put into a giant press to clamp it down while they put glue on the next piece. About the only other manual process was two coats of lacquer sprayed on. Cal and Artie 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post 4DThinker Posted May 15, 2021 Popular Post Report Share Posted May 15, 2021 In production the goal is to maximize efficiency and lower cost. Several years ago I took a bet (with myself) and made a nice computer cabinet prototype to show my dept. head. He liked it enough to ask if I could make 30 of them and said he would pay me. What I was paid was never mentioned, but effectively what I would have made teaching a summer school class rather than making 30 cabinets. He bought the materials needed. I had a big shop space (furniture design classroom) to use. I'd spent 10 hours or so making the initial prototype, and knew I couldn't afford to spend 10 hours x 30 cabinets. The first day I spent making jigs/fixtures/patterns/etc.. Any machine set up to make one cut was used to make that cut 30 or 60 times before moving one. Parts on carts to move easily from machine to machine to bench. Once all the parts had been produced assembly was left to college kids to put together the cabinet they would use. Assembly took 20 minutes or so if you had a friend help you. Once you had a cabinet you took it down to the finishing room where you rolled on a minimum 2 coats of polyurethane. I'd only said "yes" to the job because I knew I could make 30 in roughly one week worth of part production. Also because I'd already been thinking of small changes to my design that would simplify mass production. We had no CNC at that time. Now we have a 5'x10' Multicam CNC and the fab lab crew has been asked to make 30 modern desk sets from BB plywood and 1" square steel tube. There is a stack of 18mm BB plywood right next to the CNC, so I know it is their intent to use the CNC to cut all the BB parts. I've seen the CNC operator working on the job to tweak feed speed and pass depth and bit used so a 4x8 sheet spends as little time getting cut as possible. These are all rectangles, but each also has pockets and holes that get cut along with the rectangular perimeter. I doubt there was any consideration spent on making these parts with other tools. 4D Artie, p_toad, Gene Howe and 2 others 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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