Part Labeling Tips
Advice on how to label cabinet parts for assembly on a very large production order. April 30, 2009
Question
We have a large blue-print matched veneer casework project upcoming - approximately 1,200 cabinets. What is an efficient way to label parts prior and during finishing? We typically have labels for Plam casework but on veneer we fight the tacky residue on the backside of veneer doors. It’s very time consuming removing stickers and residue. We also have the imprint stamps but it looks unprofessional even when hidden. Once we bore for hinges we can label in the cup. Our process is flat table nested router for processing, sand, flat line finish, bore hinge cups and assemble. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Forum Responses
(Finishing Forum)
From contributor A:
Do you hinge bore before finishing or after? We often use 3M blue masking tape and a permanent marker. It leaves little to no residue. Use the tape until you get to the cup bores then remark the cups. 1,200 cabinet is a huge project. What's it for?
From the original questioner:
We typically want to pre-finish the doors prior to boring the cups. This eliminates "pooling" in the cup bore. We do pop the 8mm hinge holes on the Router and use these as reference later when boring the 35mm off-line with
Blum machines. We use a bar-code/labeling printer and with this many parts I hate to try and use tape and hand write.
I was hoping for some miracle solution that someone may offer up.
From contributor R:
Can you use a steel stamp set and mark the number in the hinge hole or stamp in on the very edge of the bottom of the door? You can buy steel stamp sets in a variety of sizes and even if you were to do a paint job, you can always read the stamped.
From contributor R:
How about pre-boring the hinges and placing your sticker in the hole. Then make up some plugs to stick loosely in the holes while running through the flat line. These could be taken out and re-used.
From contributor C:
Buy a rubber stamp (numbers) and use a UV ink to stamp the back sides, it will show up when fluoresced under black light but will not ever be visible to the end client. This way you can pick where you want to stamp each piece - make sure it’s the kind of stamp that the numbers can be changed on by rotating - five rows is good for what you'll be doing.
