As is the case with most things cabinetmaking, there are multiple ways to achieve the same result. Sometimes times that's good. Sometimes it leads to analysis paralysis. I'm suffering from the later. My main goal is to scale up production by increasing efficiency. Yield is also important. In other words, I want to go from 10 doors a day to 100 (the numbers are arbitrary). A "classical" approach to creating S4S involves a miter saw, a table saw, a jointer, a planer, and a shaper or two for edge profiling. I'm sure you all have gone through the process. You can add all the fancy digital do-dads, buy the most expensive sliding table saw and pair it with some real sweet machines from SCM or Felder, but at the end of the day you're still walking back and forth from machine to machine hand feeding (ok, yes you can add power feeders!) your 400 pieces of stock.

After a brain numbing week in Vegas for AWFS my eyes have been opened to some very different possibilities! Now we're talking gang rip saws, double sided-planers, 6 head molders, cut-off saws, etc. All to make boards S4S!

How are these machines used in comparison to what I have called the "classical" process? I can vaguely see at least two routes to get from rough to ready.

Process 1 -
1) SL or gang rip to establish some "straight" edges
2) Real nice Leadermac Smartmac 6 head moulder that will joint, plane, and profile. According to sales and some extensive research, this will straighten and flatten. I'm hesitant which leads me to process two below.
3) Fancy cutoff saw with digitals and such to chop long boards in to short boards

a. Pretty sure 2 and 3 can be switched!
4) At least one shaper for coping the ends.

Process 2 -
1) Double sided planer - Cantek makes a nice 16" one which as far as I can tell is plenty big enough and from what I head will make a board dead flat. Just no straight edges.
2) SLR to create straight edge and rip face frame and rail/stile stock
3) Two shapers - one for sticking one for coping.
4) Fancy cut off saw with previously mentioned bells and whistles.

I'm sure I am missing some variables here so don't hesitate to let me know. I feel like the final answer is gonna be some combination of all of these. I can see problems with each but don't know how to evaluate. My brain is fried and I need lunch. Help!

Chris

Your lumber supplier should be able to straight line and s2s your lumber. All you would need is cut off saw and shapers for profile.

I have considered this option but for various reasons I am not convinced it's not the option for me. I want to retain control of all aspects of the operation. Thank you! I appreciate you response.

Not sure if this will be of any help but my 4 side molder has had the biggest impact on my productivity and bottom line, by far.
Good luck with new venture, Allen

Thanks for the info Alex!

What type of machinery are you running otherwise? What is the job of the molder? Roughly how many LF of cabinetry are you producing a year?

Not sharing real volumes you are trying to achieve will limit the quality of your answers.

You said you could not accept s2s with a straight edge.
But I assume you are not cutting down the trees, sawing the boards and drying them so you do have work you let others do.

On your journey to a larger volume it may be in your best interest to sub out parts of it as you grow. The need to plane rough boards yourself makes little sense unless you are going through LOTS of wood.

A "fancy" cutoff saw with a digital stop is foundational to making any volume of doors.

Chris, After reading and commenting on Sawmill Creek to you and this post, you should be mentioning you aren't making cabinets now. Your questions are here are all hypothetical. That's fine, but you are getting bogged down on fine details while you have no business plan, have not done a competitive marketing study, and you are doing this study to show some folks helping you with small business experience.

In a previous life I was the General Manager of a lumber distribution business that also specialized in producing custom mouldings/millwork you can choose to believe what I am about to share or not but these are real world examples-

1. I had a very large customer convinced paying us $.06/bf to SLR lumber was too exepnsive and they could do it cheaper. After buying the SLR (about a $40k investment) they called us up and bought their first load of lumber which we S2S'd but did not SLR. About 2 weeks later the owner of this very successful cabinet shop called me up and asked what we do with the off fall...He did not consider that in his buying equation. Long story short after one month they sold the SLR and we resumed performing that service for them.

2. You want control but you want a large increase in volume, simply put best of luck, of course it can be done, not knowing your location but in our city there were 4 different, successful distributors with $20 mil in equipment ready to do what you describe.

3. the best way to flatten boards is to start with flat boards. If you're not getting flat boards from your supplier find a new supplier.

Everything you describe can be done with certainty and could probably be done by you but I would be willing to bet there are plenty of places local to you that are already doing parts of what you describe, stick with what you are good at and make some money, you can't be all things to all people.

I sincerely appreciate everyone's response here. Certainly a lot of questions and points for me to think about. I can be another cabinet shop or I can be a cabinet shop with my own identity. Now is the time to do the reflection and figure out what that means in terms of business practices. Again, thank you all for your insight!

It all comes down to volume, there are different processes for the amount of volume you are planning to do each day, week or year? With each process comes a different set of machines needed, with those machines comes a different amount of floor space required, a different amount of employees needed, a different amount of power required, a different amount of dust collection required and a different amount of warehouse space for lifts of material, as well as completed materials. etc.
Like Rich said you need a seriously detailed business plan, everything else is dependent on it.

Scott - Yes. Exactly. What I am trying to figure is which level of each I need. If annual out put is 300 LF of cabinetry, what's the right mix from there? Will traditional hand fed machines (jointer, planer, TS, shaper, etc) do the job or will the addition of more production oriented machines (SLR, 5 head moulder, dovetail machine, etc) get the job done in a manner to meat production goals? It is quite the puzzle to put together and I assure that nothing is going anywhere until the plan is done. Thanks!!!!!

Chris,

I am not sure what you are meaning exactly when you say 300 lf of cabinets, say uppers and lowers in a kitchen for example would be 20 ft on average so that would be about 15 kitchens. That is not a lot , so you wouldn’t need a lot of production equipment or people for that. However, you need to allow for growth/expansion and you have to decide if you are going to do all aspects of the kitchen.

For example if you build your own drawer boxes, you would likely offer a few different styles with the most expensive likely being a solid wood box with dovetail joints. What equipment do you require for this process. The wholesaler can drop off a lift of rough maple, you would need to joint it, plane it, sand it and then cut to lengths and then dovetail the ends, glue it, sand it and finish it. So what do you need? You need a forklift to unload the lift, a jointer, a planer, a widebelt sander, a miter saw or up cut saw with automatic feeder and fence, a dovetail machine, a drawer clamp machine or manual clamps, a spray booth c/w make up air and fire suppression. So for every machine listed you can buy a cheap off shore one or a super expensive European/American one. Or like others mentioned you can send your drawer order to ABC drawers and they will send you the boxes built and finished.
This is just a vague description, but all aspects of a cabinet job are similar.

There are lots of folks out there doing 15 kitchens a year with a panel saw, cabinet saw, jointer, planer, smaller or cheap edgebander, band saw, drum/widebelt sander, drill press, maybe a shaper, small dust collector, miter saw and all the electric hand tools that go with it, drills , jig saw, belt sander, router, random orbit sanders, etc.
A cnc would be a nice upgrade as it can do a lot of work for you, but also a larger investment.
Everyone has their techniques and likes so this list can vary quite a bit.

There is a difference as well between residential and commercial work.

Just a little fyi, Lots of great cabinet makers and smart business people on this site, so good luck.

So one thing about fixing a bottleneck, another one will appear. As someone who provides S3S and S4S for cabinet shops, the cabinet shops no longer have to deal with scrap and all the sawdust. They can just send me a list, I run the material, they come pick it up. They can work on stuff that will turn jobs faster. They can invest money on equipment that will run all day making cabinets, I invest in the equipment to make moldings and s4s. It's a win win for everyone. A good molder, dust collection, a good chopping system all told, 200K plus. Can you justify that amount of capital investment? What do you figure a return on investment?

My 2cts..

I get material from the supplier surfaced and SLR, while I have an SLR saw and a 4 head molder its not worth the effort. We can take material straight from the pile send it through the saw, widebelt it, through the shaper pretty quickly. Like the others said the off cuts and the dust collection requirements to surface the material are big... I filled up my 4 bag 20hp collector in 45 minutes this morning running the molder.
The biggest time saving and accuracy part of making the doors for us is to do final sizing on the beam saw. we stack up the pairs and trim them at the same time. it literally saves hours from doing it on a slider. Outsource the drawers!

Timely post Chris I have the same question on S4S. I'm in a little city "Sacramento" in a little state "California" (ya know, 5th largest economy in the world blah blah blah) and can't get flat S2S to save my life. I have 2 hardwood suppliers within a reasonable distance, one doesn't do milling the other is limited on variety. 4/4 S2S1E is never flat and straight enough to start processing. I'm better off get hit & miss or rough and face joint. It's the only way I can get the level of "flat" quality I need. I'm not doing 1000's of feet so I have to deal with it. Today it was 7/8" soft maple mitered doors, last week it was 1-1/16" White Oak face frames. I'm still rocking it old school to make it work. I do SLR on a slider though, it actually works pretty good. AWFS was great as usual but high tech, high production is still not realistic for some of us small cab/furniture shops.