I'm mostly one (occasionally two) man shop looking to upgrade my cabinet parts cutting capabilities.

The main goal I want to achieve at this moment is chip-free cutting on both sides of double side 3/4" melamine boards and the same for laminated/prefinished 3/4" plywood boards. The size of boards I use is 4'x8'.
I make frameless cabinets, and cabinet doors are also just rectangular pieces of melamine, edgebanded with PVC.

So, till now I was somehow getting along with 12" cabinet saw. If the blade is sharp and I pay attention I mostly get chip free cuts on both sides, but that costs me time and energy (and some stress - I'm always afraid what I'll see when I flip the piece I just cut), and sometimes - more often recently - the quality of melamine boards is the deciding factor regarding the chipping; it looks that some of those have some hard particles inside, which - when encounter blade tooth - do not get cut but rather ejected through the bottom side of the board, leaving some "exit wounds" along the cut. I'm not sure that's what exactly happens but it sounds like that when cutting, and because I get like one feet of chip free cut, then the chip, and after it another feet of chip free cut.

I currently go through 20-30 boards per week (I usually spend 2 days on cutting and edgebanding, the rest of the week is assembling and installation, plus some countertops), and it takes me 20 min on average to cut one board.

In the meantime, I'll try to improve my cuts with saw blade dampeners/stabilizers, although I must say I don't expect much from that.

So, I think I either need something with a scoring blade or CNC.
If it's sliding table saw, than I would like to stay under $15K (or not much above), because I expect to overgrow it in about 2 years and that's something I could afford to pay now for the benefit of chip-free and worry-free cutting for the next 2 years, even if I don't use that machine ever again after those 2 years. And if it's CNC I would need some help in figuring out what would one cost that would at least stay within my current speed (20 min or less per board on average). The CNC would also grant me some additional "free" time (compared to current situation) that I could use on edgebanding and construction boring machines while it's cutting parts without me babysitting it (hopefully).

So, I assume CNC would be better choice (at least in the long run), but with CNC it's not my needs that dictate the choice of the machine, but rather my budget, and while I think I could get decent sliding table saw for around $15K, I need help figuring out what would be the price for some entry level CNC that could at least go through 60-80 boards per week for the next few years (at least 4) without falling apart or going through excessive servicing. Because, if I go now for CNC, I would probably not be able to replace it with better one in just 2 years.

My CNC software needs would be very modest: I use some self made Excel sheets that calculate cabinet parts based on cabinets dimensions and materials used. So, basically, just something that would read the list of parts, and nest it for cutting.

I'm sure many of you have been in the similar situation and I'm hoping you would share what you've done than and what do you think of that now.

If you're for sliding table saw with scoring blade - which one you recommend and what options you consider useful?

If you're for CNC - same questions...

I would also strongly prefer new machines to the used ones.

I know lot of it depends on what I'm expecting and trying to achieve, but let's just keep it simple by saying that I'm looking to double my current production within one year by outsourcing the installation of the cabinets (so that I can concentrate on just fabricating the cabinets), and double that once more within one more additional year by getting additional help in the shop along with one of these machines.

I've also looked at some of the vertical panel saws (on Youtube videos), but it looks to me that there's to much of bending down involved in using those machines, especially when you cut smaller parts?

Sorry for the long post, I've tried to paint my situation as accurately as possible.
Thank you all for your inputs.

O.

If I could only have one saw in the shop, it would be a slider. With that said, I hate sliding tablesaws. Without a vacuum lift they are a pain in the rear to load and unload sheets, but they are super versatile.

A $15k budget isn't going to get you much for a slider if you are set on going new. I think some of the Felder saws are in that range, but I'm not impressed with the one Felder piece that we have. An acquaintance has a top of the line Felder, and I've used it a tiny bit, and it does seem decent. I'd still rather have a Altendorf, or a Martin. I'd probably lean towards the Altendorf with no real reason.

I'm not real biased on tool brands, but when it comes to panel saws, I wouldn't buy anything other than a Streibig. I bought mine in 2010 I think, and it was probably my best decisions up until getting the cnc. There isn't much bending over. Scoring isn't necessary for crosscuts as you can do a shallow climb cut as you're bringing the saw up, plunge to full depth, then complete the cut. You can do it on a rip, but it's sorta awkward. There is scoring options though. A vertical panel saw is kind of a one trick pony and pretty much useless for anything other than turning large rectangles into smaller rectangles. I think a Compact Plus like I've got is close to $30k nowadays. Colonial Saw is great to deal with the few times I've called for parts or questions as well. A really nice thing about a vertical panel saw is you can gang cut parts. Not always useful, but it's twice as fast, with no negatives, when you can do it. Things like drawer bottoms we cut manually since it's faster than the cnc because of this. We can cut up to six pieces of 1/4" material at a time.

A CNC is a large investment, and it's not magic. It takes some effort and time to learn how to use one. We're six month in with ours, and I still screw up something small and stupid on the regular. But it's well worth it. I consider myself to be pretty darn good at cutout. Using a vertical panel saw, a 16" tablesaw for ripping, a Northfield for dados, and a 50 hole Gannomat line bore I would average about 45 minutes a sheet from rack to parts leaned up ready to go. That didn't include stretchers, nailers, or shelves. Which excluding the shelves were cut on the benches during assembly. The cnc cuts a sheet for me on average in about five minutes. That includes shelf holes, all the dado's/rabbets, and holes when needed for hinge mounting. I spend another 3-5 minutes clearing parts, blowing off the spoilboard, and pulling a new sheet on. I can do 40 sheets in a 8 hour day. 40 sheets used to take me about 30 hours manually running three saws and a linebore. (all of which were right close together) The cnc is the best money I've spent yet. It isn't very useful for us in processing hardwood though. If you're doing slab fronts from sheetstock you can mill all of your hinge holes on the cnc as well.

I don't think anyone can tell you what to get for a router. I was looking at Anderson, Biesse, and Weeke. All based on the availability of technicians and parts. Shop Sabre is literally 15 minutes from my house and about 25 minutes from my shop, and I didn't go with them, though I know plenty of people that run them and are quite content. I wouldn't go with a cheap machine though. We're idiot woodworkers, not service techs. You don't want to be working on that stuff constantly.

Thank you Karl for your detailed response.

I'm not totally opposed to used machinery, I think I could go with used slider or vertical panel saw, but I'm not sure about used CNCs. My thinking is, people may be selling their good old school machinery when stepping up to CNC, but there're not many reasons to cell your CNC unless it's problematic, underpowered for the task or outdated?

99.9% of all my needs is just cutting melamine/plywood rectangulars into smaller rectangulars. For the remaining 0.01% my current cabinet saw is ok. So, maybe vertical panel saw would be ok after all.
According to your experience, which machine would be faster/easier to use to cut those parts: slider or VPS (without taking the sheet loading part into consideration; there are some "panel handling" carts that I think would help with loading the sheet onto slider without breaking my back every time)?

I'll upload some cut sheets to illustrate what I usually do, so whoever wants can have a look at what I need to cut and get some idea.
You may notice that my cut sheets are optimized in a way that i can first divide whole sheets into 2-3 smaller pieces with single cross cut that I execute on my vertical panel saw (but one that is way bellow the grade we're speaking here about (you may get an idea what it is if I tell you it has $70 handheld Makita circular saw mounted on a sliding cart that slides on two steel pipes:). Then I can easily manage those smaller pieces on my cabinet saw. I think I would be good for some time even If I could only have a regular cabinet saw with scoring blade, but I don't think there are any.

About your CNC, could you please share which one did you get, what software are you using and some estimated costs of all that?
By the way, I was always wondering what kind of cutting bits are used on CNCs, how long do they last (how many sheets) and how much they cost? Few times I've been routing manually through some melamine or laminated/plywood and it seams that those manual router bits get dull after only few feet, regardless which ones I use - cheap or expensive ones?!

Thank you,
O.

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from my experience considering the situation you are in at the moment I would strongly suggest a sliding table saw.
you can go through a lot if 4 by 8 sheets in a day.
that as what we are doing right now starting up.
and as far as a brand name what I would do is check out a cantech. they have a fully automatic sliding saw with the computerized fence and the digital crosscut stops for around 13k a very nice saw.

I'd agree there's a lot of outdated automated equipment out there, a lot not worth looking at. I got lucky, I bought my router used at an auction. I think the owner had some medical issues and was retiring. Or he was just sick of it. The machine was less than two years old and had 242 hours on it, and I paid a bit less than half of new. The auction was in the middle of nowhere, and was run by a local auction service so it didn't have the reach like IRS or Machinerymax would have. I paid $53k for the router with tax, another $6k to move it, the tech to do the startup and give it his seal of approval was another $1600. I put a dedicated dust collector on it, that was another $5k. I probably spent $500 on tooling and some more tool holders right away. The numbers are fuzzy and there's something I'm forgetting. I figured I had a bit less than $70k into it all said and done. When I was looking at new, I was budgeting $150k, which was likely a little high, but I like to lie to myself so I feel good when it costs 130.

I think the vertical panel saw is faster and easier to be accurate, even taking the loading of full sheets out of the equation. I don't have a slider in my shop, and I don't have a ton of time on a one either.
So take that for what it's worth. I think a vertical panel saw is also marginally safer, being the blade is away from you. Though I did try and take the tip of my finger off with it last fall when showing a new guy how to use a panel saw... So there's that. No stitches, just wounded pride.

I have a Weeke Vantech 480. It's pretty much their baseline machine, its a 4x8 table.

Melamine is hard on bits. Somebody else should weigh in because we don't do much melamine. I think I've read most people are getting 50-100 sheets on average out of a compression bit before chipping is problematic. With plywood, we probably ran 200 sheets before I started wondering if I should swap out the cutout bit. The bit we use for dados doesn't seem to wear as quickly. We're using Vortex, they're semi close and if I order something, it shows up the next day.

A cnc spindle doesn't compare to a hand held router. RPM is likely too high with a handheld, the feed rate is erratic, your arms aren't as stiff and stable as a gantry. You are probably using a straight bit versus a bit with some shearing action.

My cabinets are machining intensive. Even more so since I got the cnc. Partitions are dado'd into decks. As are stretchers (front and rear) on drawers, and the nailer rabbeted into ends, and notched on partitions on base cabinets. On wall cabinets the bottom deck runs to the wall, so a rabbet has to be plowed out to accept the cabinet back. Now with the cnc, my nailers are dado'd to index the partitions, as are my stretchers. That way the benches don't really need to measure much, (other than to double check the idiot in the office doing drawings, me) The stretchers that go through partitions are also dado'd and the partition is notched to accept them. I didn't dado nailers or stretchers doing it manually before, but it's fricking awesome. We even setup a joint for running partitions through decks, like when you have an opening above another, in a sort of half lap that is all notched and dado'd together. We don't bother with nails and glue on those. It'd not going anywhere once the frame and back are on, it literally can't move.

If you're doing euro, it's super simple to set everything up with blind dado's.

We're using Mozaik for the bulk of the cabinet parts. It creates the programs for the cnc, and cutlists for doors, and drawers. We don't use a cut list for face frames.
Odd ball stuff we cut in the cnc software. Woodwop. I'm very fortunate in that one of my guys has a ton of experience with it and when I get stuck on something stupid, he bails me out. I still have him double check anything I'm squeamish about. I don't want to ding up my baby. I hated Woodwop at first. But it's capable of a lot more than I am at this point. It's capable of more than my machine is as well. With a new machine, I think you get a week of training at Stiles on Woodwop and running the machine. I like that you can build variables and make anything parametric. It's nice once you have the math figured out just changing a number in a variable table to tweak it for another application.
I didn't like Mozaik at first either. I tried it four or five years ago, and wasn't impressed. I tried it again after getting the cnc and it had improved greatly. After doing a few training sessions I was pretty confident it was the correct choice for my shop.
You can do a trial subscription for three months. It comes with a couple hours of training. I highly suggest making use of the training to make a fair assessment as to whether the software is right for you or not. I really like it. I like their way of doing business, and I like that the software is constantly improving. Roger Taylor has put together solid platform that I think fits the smaller shop extremely well. Probably works well in big shops too, but running 50 guys is well outta my league and I'd be talking out my ass if I commented. Mozaik has a forum as well that is helpful.

The full CNC version costs $125 a month. Additional seats are another $25 a month. Another software company, on this planet... will rape you for each additional seat and charge you more per year than the annual Mozaik subscription just to maintain your status as current. And they'll charge you for the post processor. And want $25,000+ up front. I don't care for their way of doing things.

A cnc is a lot of money though. And it won't go real well at first. For me, it's been a godsend. We're small, and I was the only one doing cut out. It's freed up hundreds of hours a year for me personally, it has greatly simplified some odd ball tasks, and it has expanded what we are capable of. I can't say it's right or wrong for you, but it has been very right for me. I'm not selling my Streibig anytime soon either, it's too handy. I might have them tuck that thing in the coffin with me. When I went out on my own it was the one tool I desperately wanted and it took me seven years to get one.

A slider is a much less expensive option. Who knows what direction this little nightmare house of cards we call the economy is going to go. I have a Cantek dovetailer. It's not a great machine, but I think Cantek builds a product that is an excellent value. It does the job well, it's just not very refined.

I’m a CNC guy. Never had a slider but I did have 2 different beam saws. I converted my pod and rail to flat table 8 years ago. Thought I’d keep the bean saw, after the first week I had the beam saw saw and haven’t looked back. I now have a biesse rovers with autoload/unload. You don’t need that much. Those sheets you have above are a piece of cake. Drilled for line boring, hinge and dados for assembly then cut to size with no chipping, ready for banding and assembly you could easily run 25 sheets in a day with one guy. You would use a 1/2” compression bit. We get 35-70 sheets out of a new bit, we sharpen twice then dispose of them. We use cabinet vision and it’s expensive to get set up, I hear good things about Mozaic. I sold my old rover B for 20k and it still had a lot of good life in it. I wanted to keep it but didn’t have the space.

For what your doing - cutting melamine, get a slider. For your 15k budget you could get a nice used Altendorf. Better a 10 or 15 year old good used German saw than a new Asian one that you don't know if you can get parts for in 10 years from now.
That being said we had a cnc and no slider for about 18 or 19 years and then bought a used Altendorf. It has been very useful for cutting the weird and oddball stuff that runs through our shop.
We cut mostly plywood, MDF, and plastics.
We have done very little Melamine in the last 22 years so a slider as first choice for us didn't make sense, but for what you doing and your budget it probably does.

I have two sliders and half a dozen deltas and Sawstops, all have a reason and get used daily yet all of our casework is done on a CNC, MY first was a single head (Spindle) and I had to learn every work around to make cabinets with 250.00 programs like Cabinetpartspro and vectric, All of that was under 15k to start. now we have a 508 Automatic tool changer and are a larger shop as a result, two pieces of equipment solved far more problems than any others over the years,, 1) an edgebander 2) a CNC.

If I had it to do over again. I'd start with a cnc and an edge bander. You can pay for everything else with those two tools

Eventually you're going to want to get a reliable CNC. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't rush into that kind of purchase at this point. Your success with a CNC is going to be dependent on how prepared you are before you purchase one. The quality of the CNC is extremely important but so is properly integrating into your production. I say all that as someone that is currently setting up a showroom with the CNC as the center piece. I have a new slider under 15K that I was planning on listing in the classifieds next weekend. Feel free to contact me.

I'd get a vertical panel saw with scoring. Got to be a lot of them out there collecting dust.

I do most of my cutting on an older Striebig. I like it. Built like a tank and cuts very quickly and quite accurate.
I also have a Weeke pod and rail machining center, bought from a high school, 15yrs old with 18hrs on it for 3250.00 and had Stiles setup and calibrate it.
I do all my line, hardware, and assembly boring on that. Easy to program at the machine so no extra software.
I can, but very seldom do, cut oversize and route the perimeter of panels. They mostly come off the Striebig ready for edgebanding.

Thank you guys for all your inputs, they're invaluable.

I agree that CNC is most likely best thing for one/two man shop, or for small shops in general, if one can afford it, which is probably not my current situation. That's why I was talking about some "temporary" solution for like 2 years, expecting that by than I may be able to afford one without stressing myself to much, both financially and in all other ways that go with that.
Being one man shop does not leave much time for "fooling around" with new machines and software, because if I'm doing that that means there's nobody else bringing money to the table and nobody taking care of my customers, so it may be risky to make such jump at this time and in this situation.

After all your opinions I'm thinking about outsourcing cutting and edgebanding operations and see if that will work, in order to skip buying slider just as some short-time temporary fix, and try to save for CNC.

I'll give it some more thought in next few days and see what will come out of it.

Thank you all!

Well, that being said, I would appreciate your opinion on what kind of CNC you would consider as acceptable solution for one-two man shop.
When I say "acceptable" I mean the cheapest one that would work for my - above mentioned - needs, and of course one that would satisfy your criteria, as experienced users of such equipment, because I can't think of much else but "to cut 60 sheets per week without major failures". I don't think speed would mean much to me at this moment, because I have other things to do in the shop while cnc is cutting parts, so basically if it could produce parts precise enough for cabinetry business without something braking down every month, that would be it.
Also, I do not have any super long term plans for that machine, 3-5 years of decent service is ok at this moment, I'll think of next better machine after that.

Thank you

For the immediate time, the learning curve for a sliding bed saw is nothing compared to a CNC. You can immediately increase your productivity with a sliding bed saw, probably cut your time on the saw in half. I have an Altendorf that I bought 30 years ago and I have never regretted it. We have had to make repairs, parts are not free, but they are available.

Having said that, the most important tool in my shop is my CNC, without a doubt. I have an AXYZ with a 144" x 80" table. That is a large table. I bought the AXYZ in 2000, so it is 19 years old. I have had to replace parts and the learning curve was really difficult. At the age of 50, I went to school to learn AutoCAD. I had a real fear of the CNC technology. Best decision I ever made in my shop.

You mentioned counter tops. My solid surface seams are perfect. Usually I can glue them up on my table, Cutting sink cut-outs is so simple. I can go to the sink manufacturers web site and usually they will provide a DXF file for the sink we are using. I can download it, place it on my drawing. If it is a laminate top, we cut at a speed of 350 IPM so, to cut a normal double bowel kitchen sink will take about 20 seconds. If it is a solid surface top, we cut solid surface at a speed of 60 IPM and that might take three minutes to cut.

A CNC will open up so many opportunities, some days, you will just look at it working and smile to yourself. Before I bought my AXYZ, I visited some manufacturers of CNC. While at one of the manufacturers, I told the Representative showing me around that I did not know AutoCAD and that I only had one person working for me that knew AutoCAD and this person didn't have any real cabinet experience. He said to me that it is a consensus opinion that it is easier to teach a Cabinetmaker AutoCAD than it is to teach someone who knew AutoCAD cabinetmaking. Once you get a CNC, you will learn to do a lot more than just cutting cabinet parts, but that is a good start.

If I were in your position, I would probably buy the slider, but I would definitely make plans for a CNC.

Since you asked, I have a CAMaster 508 ATC. it was not my first machine and I like you had no money to spend on such an animal in one day,

The most important thing you can do is due diligence your homework on this will be what makes this successful. NO salesman can do that for you, remember he makes car payments with your money just like you do.

if you want call me on Saturday My number is on contact page of my website.

I will be glad to tell you of the 6 months i spent before seeing machines and then buying one. I got to the right people and my first 15k machine paid it self off in two months, I have always been proud of that as in the mid 2000.s guys like me were not to have CNC machines, little and mid size affordability was a thing of the future, That has all changes now and there are 3-5 mid size you can trust and a whole lot of larger expensive machines. I did not have "on phone or visiting tech" money. I had to learn it for myself, be able to work on it myself I moderate a machine forum for guys like us feel free to check it out.

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