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Outsourcing a flat-pack MDF product, what should I expect to pay?

8/13/26       
Jacob Tanur Member

Website: http://www.modernradiatorcovers.com

I design and sell custom radiator and PTAC covers direct to homeowners and I am moving from one-off local fabrication to outsourcing production. I could use a sanity check from people who actually run the machines.

The part is a knock-down cover, four flat panels per unit, 3/4in MDF or Medex. A front, two mirrored sides, and a lay-on top. Through-tenon tabs into mortises, 15mm blind cam bores at 34mm setout, 8mm dowel bolts into the panel edges. Ships flat, customer assembles with a screwdriver. Every order is a different size, largest panel about 50 x 24in.

Three questions:

One of the two fronts has eighteen machined through-slots, and the slot interiors have to be sanded, sealed and coated the same as the faces. Every shop I have spoken to treats that as the expensive part and none of them will price it separately. Is that reasonable, or am I asking for the wrong thing? Roughly what should slot-interior finishing add per panel?
Threading a dowel bolt into an MDF edge feels like the weak point of the whole assembly. Are threaded inserts worth the extra operation at this scale, or is a straight bolt into 3/4in MDF fine if the customer does not overtighten?
Blind cam bores at 12.5mm deep in 19mm stock. Is that a routine nested-router operation, or does it want a dedicated boring machine to be economical?

I am also looking for a shop that can cut and finish this on a repeat monthly basis, so if you do this kind of work I would be glad to hear from you. I have DXFs and a dimensioned drawing set.

Jacob Tanur, Modern Radiator Covers, Brooklyn NY


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