Curious how you one or two man shops cut down your sheet stock. Do you use your table saw, a panel saw, a track saw, or a regular circular saw with a guide fence? I use my track saw to rough out, and finish up with the table saw.

Festool track saw once and done. Trim and square 2 factory edges and go from there. I have a 9' track, which helps. I use a big (18") precision tri square against the back of the track.

Much easier on my back than wrestling full sheets onto the table saw. With a fresh blade and anti-splinter strip, cuts are as good or better than the table saw.

I have a table built around 2 powermatic 66 table saws facing each other. 14' long and 66" wide.Full of drawers down both sides. The only thing that shows through the laminated top are the blades and the inserts. Biesemeyer 60" fences on both.
Basically one in used for panels and the other is mostly dado.
I also have access to an scmi slider but rarely use it unless maybe mitering long panels. But truthfully a wixey digital angle readout is just as fast if I want to do it at the table saw. Just slap it on move the blade to 45 and go. You can put digital readouts on anything these days. just put one on my Biesemeyer.

I purchased a small used vertical panel saw, Holz-her 1403. Old but cuts square and I find it much easier than a tablesaw.
Jr

This and this

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I use a Festool track saw for most of my panel knock downs. The table saw gets use on smaller cutoffs after the sheet has been broken down.

Slider - all the way! Fork lift if running a lot of sheets, park it and just slide onto the slider...

Yes, I have a Festool - but just way too slow to square up sheets. But if you don't have the room for a slider and only cut a couple sheets a week - fine. Any more than that and time is just too valuable.

And yea, at 65 years old, I'm old school - so it'd be tough to convince me to use a CNC to cut up sheet goods. Then again, I'm only going through a couple dozen sheets a week, so no high volume.

10" Slider I have nine years on Merry Christmas to all

Just hump them on the tablesaw. Easy and faster then a tracksaw. If I need to cut a floor to ceiling side I'll cross cut it with the track saw. Just to long to do on the tablesaw. Other then that a tablesaw sled for crosscuts and the fence for length cuts.

Chris,
Several years ago I built this homemade slider table. A few on here made light of it but after several years of use now it has proven itself time and time again. I can cut 1/16" off the end of a full sheet of plywood in a heartbeat. There has been a few build my design, one of which was in Australia. I'm not saying it's the best way but it didn't cost much to build and it's dead accurate and fully adjustable. I have made a few upgrades to it since these pics were taken. It now has solid tires on it and is covered in white laminate. The fense is removable obviously.

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Mike,

It doesn't look like you were too far off in your saw design.

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Cool idea Mike!

Cabmaker that is a really cool pic. It looks like it is a miniature model!

2 full time cabinetmakers and I sell and purchase and design. 2 10'sliders and a forklift. Both saws have tiger rip fences.

Not to hijack the thread, but can any of you answer a question for me? If you had a CNC shop in your area that would cut,bore, band and even assemble the cabinet boxes for you in your local area, would you do it?

I've thought a lot lately about selling a box program toward smaller shops. I know we can put out a box a lot more efficiently than someone with a track saw or a table saw. Any many shops are outsourcing other components already. Why not boxes?

Gary,
For large jobs or when I have multiple jobs going at the same time, I have been emailing files to a CNC shop to get cut and edgebanded. It works out very well for me.
Jr

Gary, I've got a buddy that's local that does what you mention. He shrink wraps a pallet full at a time and ships them out.

Mike,

Is he selling them assembled or flat packed? This sounds a lot like what I'm talking about. I know we would focus on an easy order entry system. Hopefully right out of the clients design software and into ours

Striebig for most of it here. Typically rip the sheets in half on the Striebig, rip to size on a cabinet saw, then cross cut on the Striebig.

Two man shop.

HolzHer 1243 Vertical panel saw, for limited footprint and ease of use go with a vertical. A slider has a huge footprint in comparison and a tablesaw can't compete with either in the ease of use for the operator. If you aren't doing that many odd angles and mostly cabinet parts, go vertical. Lots of angles and weird stuff, go with a slider. I have used all types and prefer the vertical. My shop, 6-7 guys 5000 Sq Ft.

If possible, I have a local bigger shop cut sheets down into 24" (or whatever widths I need), and band it in full 8' lengths. I than just run over and pick it up and break it down from there. I have found I'm just as fast with my unisaw and a crosscut sled as a slider.

I have a 4x8 table off the back of my saw and a 4x4 off the left side.
I just set up a single roller stand in front of the saw about in the middle of the sheet.
Then I just push the sheet through the saw.

I have a Festool tracksaw and a 9' track, but it's just faster for me to run it though the tablesaw.

I would love to get a cnc someday.....

JP,

If all the things the CNC could do for you were absolutely free, how many of your other problems would still exist?

In other words, what percentage of all of your costs are associated with the things that CNC is great at? The rest of the world is in melt-down mode. There is a possibility that your current methods will more appropriately matched to your revenue if we should be in a bubble right now.

We don't have a CNC. We used to have a Brandt bander then learned we could buy buy pre-finished maple plywood ripped and edge banded for about $3 per length. Life is better without that bander.

Cabmaker brings up some valid points. We have to figure out what makes us rum more efficiently. I recently made the comment on another post that I didn't see the point of having a cnc for cutting cabinet parts because I felt like I was faster on the table saw than a cnc would be. Someone then responded that while the cnc was cutting cabinet parts that I could be doing something else and that it was like having an extra employee that knows what I know. Good point that I hadn't considered.
These things have to be thought out, to see if the investment will pay off. I used to travel an hour to buy crown then I bought a moulder and it paid for itself in no time and wouldn't want to live without it.
Years ago I had two routers set up with stile and rail cutters and a little shaper with a raised panel bit. I did two kitchens and quickly decided that it was more lucrative to outsource the doors and I did for years. I sometimes ordered a door wrong and had to wait for a remake. So I bought a big shaper and feeder to do raised panels and stuck with the same two router tables to do that occasional remake. Then if I had a vanity it was actually faster for me to make them than wait. So I decided to buy more shapers and feeders, long story short, because of the tooling it became more lucrative for me to make them in house. Having said all that, I've bought my share of tools that didn't work out the way I had planned, a few gimmicks as well. Back to the original question, the use of a track saw comes in handy for me only when the material is so big and heavy that it's cumbersome to work through the table saw. Like on 12' particle board. If you've got big enough extension tables and they are good and level then there's not much you can't do on them.

When we were smaller, it was rip it down the middle and turn it around and clean it up, then crosscut We used "Board Buddies" that allowed the less seasoned guys to stay tight to the fence.

There are 12 of us now a slider, cnc, banders, software, etc. But if I knew then what I know now....... Streibig, all the way.(we are looking at one now because we need another saw)

Good luck

Cabinetmaker, I have two employees and one slider with tiger fence was not enough when we went to three. I bought a used streibig but my guts couldn't get used to it. It did not have any digital readouts and they couldn't get used to a reference point. The same guy would rip and crosscut and cut small drawer parts as needed. We found the slider and forklift to feed easier than the vertical. Using the forklift as a feed table was faster for us. If a kitchen required 15-20 sheets, there were anywhere from 12-16 different cut patterns. We ripped all sheets from a cultist program and then crosscut and then everything went to Bander. We sold the vertical and got a Chinese knock off of am altendorf slider for 7700.00, added a new tiger rip fence and have found the flexibility of the two sliders better for our needs. I am not strong on computer skills and no two jobs are ever the same, so a CNC was not efficient .
If I had 12 guys with slot of repetitive cuts, I would probably use a vertical or get a good used beam saw. Harold.

In my current shop (5 yrs old) I have a Griggio C45, with a Tigerfence add-on. Works great for us (myself and two other employees). We also have a 5 hp, 10" table saw, so when the big saw is being used, someone else can still process other material (we do an even mix of cabinetry and solid wood furniture).

I have only tried a vertical saw a few times - wasnt for me. I worked with another 10' slider in my old shop for close to 20 years, and if you have the room, it is ideal IMO.

One thing that I find has made a HUGE improvement, is the addition of a pneumatic clamp - up by the cross fence - that is used to clamp down everything cut. Holds things tight down and to the fence, and allows the operator to worry about feeding the material and not holding it up against the fence.

We also have a Festool 55 tracksaw, and both the 50" and 100" rails. They do get used mainly for cutting stuff like cut outs, or when we do solid surfacing. I find the tracksaw, used on the large assembly table, a really good way to break down and cut solid surface sheets VS doing it on the saw. I also use the same tracks with a 1400 router, to machine the edges.

As good as the track saw is, there is no way I'd want to be without the large slider. And as much as I also like the 5 Hp 10" cabinet saw, for cutting up a large job such as a kitchen (where we might be processing 30 or so sheets) I can cut everything up in a few hours. Easy on the operator, accurate and safe. No way I'd be without it.