Making Cabinet Doors - Machinery

[footinturf]

Hello, First time poster, long time reader

I am a kitchen cabinet maker, and I am thinking of starting to make my own hardwood five piece cabinet doors. I currently subcontract the doors, but no longer want to do this (I have a couple of reasons).

To enable me to do this I have to purchase quite a bit of kit. The following is what I am considering:

Wadkin PAR four side planer
Spindle moulder with sliding table
Band saw
Cross cut/radial arm saw
Wide belt sander
Associated clamps and extraction

I will be buying all second hand machinery.

I hope that some of you would be able to enlighten me with your knowledge of making cabinet doors, and advise me if the above shoping list is lacking something or is overkill. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jasonB]

You may want to add a surface planer to that as if the wood is too bent going in it will still come out of your 4 sider bent.

Assuming you are using profile & scribe joints you should not need much more, maybe a mid range jig borer for doing the door hinges and several cutter blocks for teh glue joints on the panels as well as teh profile & scribe ones, for the volume you seem to be talking then TCT knives would be best. And a Power feed on teh spindle would help

Jason

 

[FatFreddysCat]

Just my two pennorth, but the PAR four sider, whilst nice, is really a two man machine and is overkill unless your volumes are very large. A good planer thicknesser would probably do until you need the volume of something such as a PAR.

Why do you need a bandsaw, I wonder? Ripping straight pieces is far better done on something like a conventional rip saw such as a Sedgwick LK or Wadkin BSW. If you are doing a lot of arched top panels then maybe you'll need a bandsaw, however for smaller volumes a good quality jigsaw (and I'm sure you have one for installs) will suffice for roughing out.

One thing which seems to be missing is a compressor with the necessary spraying equipment, unless you already have these.

I assume that you already have a sliding table panel or table saw, but another to consider is jointing, especially if you intend to manufacture face frames. I'd say that for that purpose you might be better off buying-in pre-profiled stock from a timber merchant rather than machining your own from scratch simply because a four sider is a much more efficient way of producing the required mouldings (and in any case there are 3 mouldings normally required for beaded face frames). Jointing is then the issue and I'd say that Fixos or the Domino are both good approaches to consider

Lastly have you considered the cost and types of spindle tooling you'll require?

Good luck with your venture!

 

[ProShop]

Welcome to the slippery slope of woodworking machinery

I'm intrigued by the need for a 4 sider ?. Plus a 4 sider needs some serious extraction. You'll need to add a planer to straighten the timber first before using a 4 sider.

You don't mention any tooling for these machines. Pro machine tooling is expensive, often more than the cost of the machine/s.

If you want a spindle with slider you'll need one with the slider as close to the cutting head for making the scribe as you can get.

You don't mention which type of wide belt your looking at ?. Drum, Pad etc.

Also I don't see a boring machine on the list, unless you have one.

I assume you have a panel saw.

Hope this helps for starters

 

[FatFreddysCat]

As a point of clarification, ProShop, the Wadkin PAR comes with a pre-straightener table and fence about 1.3 metres long (see here), so I'd question the need for a jointer on volume production. I agree that four sider without a pre-straightener can be a bit of a problem, but thankfully they are few and far between these days

 

[footinturf]

I'm of the thinking that the wadkin par four sided planer is a bit safer than a jointer. I would like to think that I could allow a less experienced employee to size stock, and have a more experienced person set the machine.

Also the Price of this type of planer is only a couple of k dearer than a good industrial planer/thicknesser, and probably not much more than the price of a planer/jointer and thicknesser separately. I do understand that extraction will also cost more, and that could be the actual killer.

I think the gains in terms of time will be significant though, well at least thats what i think, but I am speaking as a person with no first hand experience of four sided planers.

I'm glad that the issue of the sliding carriage having to be close to the spindle was brought up. I had been looking at spindles that had sliding carriages up to ten inches from the spindle. This would not suit the cutting of the tenon on the shorter rails.

I understand that the spindle tooling is expensive. I will probably buy just a couple of cutter blocks and change the knives, just as a start point and move on from there.

 

[footinturf]

Forgot to answer a few

I was going to use the bandsaw just to rip the stock overwidth in preparation for the par. I already have a large panel saw, a 3m sliding lazzari, and thought that the bandsaw would be a good addition and variation for my workshop. In time I will prob invest in a rip saw.

I already have a compressor and spray equipment, but the compressor needs an upgrade. I have been holding off on the upgrade because some of the older widebelts need a lot of air. Thought I'd kill two birds with the one stone.

As for the face frames I think I might just keep it simple at the start, ie. no profile. I was thinking dowels, but dominos sound like a better solution.

Thanks for the replies

 

[crazylilting]

I've worked at several several cabinet door companies in canada. One had a three headed spindle moulder on a big table that had three independent fences. You could put the moulding heads in for the door and raised panel for the order and walk around the machine doing each without any further set up. It was brilliant. I've not seen a machine like it since.

I also worked at one place that had about six independent machines. Clamping and gluing is one of the most important aspects of production work. Some research would be a good first step.

I make my own doors with two spindle moulders one with a sliding table. I don't have a wide surface sander or a proper clamping station as of yet but am working my way up to this. and would like a tenoner which i'm keeping an eye out for.

As for the four sided planer I don't see the need unless you are making hundreds of doors a day which would make it viable. IMO

 

[ProShop]

Thanks for the linky to the four sider FFC. When I saw the Op post with ref to 4 sider, I was thinking a 4 headed planer #-o . I see also why you mention it's a 2 man machine as it's especially what we call up here a 2 sider.

I understand that the spindle tooling is expensive. I will probably buy just a couple of cutter blocks and change the knives, just as a start point and move on from there.

If your going to be making a fair few doors which it sounds like you are, imho you'll need some dedicated TCT rail & style cutters blocks, as euro or other changable knifes blocks will be spending more time going to the sharpeners than on the machine working, especially in hardwoods.

 

[footinturf]

There is a company near London I have seen on the net, selling a three spindle moulder for making cabinet doors. I think the brand was Ritter USA. Looked good, but I don't think I could stretch the aul finances that far.

 

[crazylilting]

So we probably won't see one of those on ebay any time soon will we...

 

[BradNaylor]

My timber supplier machines PAR timber for several local high-end kitchen manufacturers. They have obviously all decided that it is more economical to buy in PAR stock than to do it themselves.

I tend to agree. A planer/thicknesser makes sense for machining special sizes but the bulk of your requirements could be outsourced and the need for a 4-sider eliminated.

Instead I would look at automated pneumatic clamping with a radio-frequency facility to dry the glue instantly. Clamping is the bottle-neck and that way production could really be speeded up.

Cheers
Brad