Cabinet door building wood help

[drodda]

This is for the cabinet door (Non-mdf) guys out there. How do you find good quality wood to build straight doors from. What is the net in the wood you are using. We are losing way too much of our wood to the scrap pile and I am trying to see if my expectations are just too high or if my current suppliers are sending me less than adequate wood to build the doors out of. Is there a secret word that I have not found yet to get the good (read non-wavy) wide boards.

This has been a frustration for some time now as if the boards come in warped then all the climate control in the world will not keep them straight till I use them.

Cherry, Maple, hickory, and walnut are the worst at this.

Any help from the vetrans out there would be appreciated.

-D

[terryd]

Dave, The short answer is we make planks from sticks The only part on our 5 pc doors that would be a single pc is the rails and styles since they rarely exceed 3 inches. For panels we cut all our staves to 2" the match the up for colour and grain then glue them up. Walnut drives us apesh*t everytime a customer specs it. Due to wild colour and grain variations I usually figure to waste 50% of what we buy. Everything else we average about 20% scrap. We also build our doors 1/8" to 1/4" oversize to allow from squaring and triming. The only reason we obtain the yield we do is because my doors finish out at 7/8" thick from 4/4 material. For paint grade doors its poplar rails and stiles with MDF panels. MDF does't quite have the toughness for the rails and stiles to survive a commercial or kitchen environment. Any other specific questions please email me and I will try to respond. After Tens of thousand of 5 pc. doors under my belt and as much as I hate building them I have to to maintain the quality levels my customers expect. Doors have always been a break even proposition that allows me to sell the rest at a profit.

TerryD

[beacon14]

I outsource my raised panel doors and let the supplier deal with all those problems, but Terry's response is on the money - on any solid wood project it's not unusual to start with twice the square footage and end up with a nice finished product and a large pile of small scraps.

That said there are different grades of lumber and if you are familiar with the grading system you can specify the top grades when it will help - FAS (Firsts and Seconds) usually have one clear face although it does vary by species. Your supplier should be able to tell you what's available and how to specify it. Also for quality work I always buy roughsawn lumber, cut parts slightly oversize, then joint one face before planing to final thickness.

[Gary Campbell]

Dave,
Ditto on what Terry says above. Waste percentages vary with wood species and supplier. Teak and mahogany average 150% buy to use ratio and we just did a job from walnut that was 300%. We actually tossed 2/3 of the lumber we bought due to architect/owner specs. Even after all of that, I still wasn't as happy with the color and grain as the owner was. You can see the walnut doors on our website: www.islamoradawoodworks.com (http://www.islamoradawoodworks.com) gallery/doors
We purchased over 1100 bdft of 4/4 walnut to make 350 sqft of doors.
Gary

[drodda]

What kind of tolerance are people allowing in bow on a 30" tall door? I am having issues trying to get a piece of straight and flat wood to cut the stile from. This is causing the door to not be flat but have a bow or warp in it.

-D

[Gary Campbell]

Dave..
Some of the doors we did were over six feet tall. Tolerance.... under 1/32" (we epoxied aluminum into the edges and left them in the air clamp overnite)and still had to toss a few.
its been 60 days and no movement ....yet
Gary

[drodda]

I have tried the outsourcing and found that the unfinished doors that were delivered required hours of finish sanding to remove the sanding swirls in the cherry.

[Gary Campbell]

Dave...
If you can wait a few days for the UPS guy.. then check out this source.
http://www.artistryinwood.net/
Very little sanding....ever!
GC

[drodda]

Thanks Gary for the link. I appreciate all the information that was quickly posted. Good to hear that I am not the only one facing these issues.

[dray]

I dont do many all wood doors, but my shop neighbor does all mahogany doors..

Some of them he makes "engineered" mahogany.

He uses 1/4" (on all outside surfaces) laminated to misc scrap and they are really, really nice doors, he does exterrior bypass doors that stack 4-5 deep completely weatherproof opening a 30' opening into a pocket..

Really nice stuff and the engineered when a customer calls for it saves him 60% on materials.

[bleeth]

No swirls, almost no sanding, perfect sizing:
http://www.customdoorsanddrawers.com/

Stile and rails priced competatively-mitres a bit expensive. All frame rails fingered and doweled-hence the up-pricing. Their guarentee is ironclad. In my area they have a local distributer who gives free delivery and I also pay no freight.

[drodda]

What are your preferences for shaper cutters? I have been using the grizzly ones that I ordered when I bought my shaper however I would like to try another brand to see if they work better?

[Gary Campbell]

Dave...
I cant really help you on that one... we have 2 shapers with feeders, but dont really do any large production runs. We use Grizzly, Amana, Rockler and Delta... Usually buy a profile set for a job... then next customer wants a different profile. We have drawers full of them.. all used on one job. In this kind of use I havnt noticed any that stand out over the rest.
Gary

[drodda]

Oh sure brag about your feeders will you????

I do not do any production runs as I use the shaper to build raised panel cabinet bases for my game tables. I am currently building a custom wet bar in the basement and am trying to get better at the doors. For some reason I can produce a better product from my router table than from my shaper so I am looking for answers. I spent the better part of the day chasing a very small error in the spindle to the table top being perpendicular. I am getting too much chipping on the inside of the stiles for my liking.


This forum is great as it allows us to brainstorm about many things that would take way more time to diagnose on your own with trial and error.

Thanks,
-D

[Gary Campbell]

Dave..
What diameter spindle on your shaper?
GC

[drodda]

I have the 3/4" spindle in now but also have the 1/2" and 1" if needed.

[woodgod]

Dave,
We make 100's of 5 piece doors and use exclusivly Freeborn insert tooling. I have never been dissapointed with their product or service. I discovered years ago to stay with the same manufacture on my cutters as that way diameters and cutting heights are the same thereby saving set up time when changing profiles. By the way I never put a new shaper into service without a power feeder also, Its the best safty guard you can buy and gives a constant feed rate for longer cutter life. Is your chipping on the pattern cut or the cope cut?

[drodda]

James,

Having a hard time investing as much as I paid for my Shaper in an accessory. Especially since I don't know how to set it up or use a feeder also. What size is required for doing doors? I have the g1026 3hp grizzly shaper. I have spent countless hours trying to research the feeders and have always walked away confused more each time. Will the cheaper 1/8hp or 1/4 hp feeder work for this application?

The chipping is on the round bead that shows above the panel on the doors.

[beacon14]

The feeder will allow you to make a climb cut which will minimize tearout.

[henrik_o]

Dave,

Don't look at it as an accessory, look at it as an investment giving you a new machine. It really does make that much of a difference.

Getting a power feeder for our first shaper was the first investment I made when I took over the business, and I can say without hesitation that as of today it remains the best investment I've made if you look at results v. price.

It doesn't matter if it's a production run or just a couple of 1m mouldings -- setting up the feeder adds a minute of setup time, and then you get a perfect and consistent cut as long as your steels are sharp and you set it up right (speed of spindle v. feed etc).

Yes, there is a learning curve, speeds and settings as per above and also positioning to not get 'bumps' in the start/end of pieces, but you'll figure it out quickly enough by just trying it on some scrap parts.

[woodgod]

Ditto what Henrik said about the power feeder. I consider a feeder part of the shaper. to overcome the bumps on short peices I use track feeders instead of the three roll feeders. my three roll feeders are the 1 hp from Delta and for track feeders I converted three rool type with a kit sold by some outfit out of Bend Oregon. My shapers are 7.5 hp Delta of which I have 6 and one is a 7.5 Grizzly.

[Gary Campbell]

Dave...
I would like to strongly agree with the words of David, Henrik and James above. In our small shop we use the small Delta feeders and in my opinion, feeding the stock is the least inportant operation they carry out. They hold the material down, they hold it against the fence, they allow you to mill in either direction. And most of all, they make it all but impossible to stick your hand in the cutting tool.
Gary

[hyrum_r]

On our Grizzly 5hp shaper, we have a 1 hp feeder. We make lots of doors using the Grizzly cutters. Their 5 wing raised panel cutters do a beautiful job. We always climb cut the profile in the stiles as this eliminates any tearout problems there. I'd say a 3/4 or 1hp feeder would be what you want for doors.

Any time we don't use the feeder, we have a sled or some type of jig to clamp down the piece. I would never put a shaper into operation without a power feeder. I happen to know a guy that's missing all the fingers on his right hand due to a shaper accident. He was feeding a small panel by hand and it shattered on him. Shaking his palm makes you think twice about safety.

[wberminio]

I used to fabricate all my cabinet doors
Now I outsource all my doors and drawers.The extra money it cost is greatly offset by the time saved
to buy lumber,setup ......
If there is a warped door or defect-it replaced free
I used to want to do it all- "play god"
I was able to cut employees and focus on other work.

By the way I have a grizzly 3hp shaper that has sat for years
For mouldings I use W&H machine it's great!

[woodgod]

I have questioned my decision to make my own doors since the day I started. The money it took to get set up would have put a shopbot in my shop 4 years ago. but now that the learning curve is behind me its not so bad. Every time I get disgusted and do the numbers it always comes up to additional profit on my bottom line so I grit my teethe and keep making doors!

[billp]

Years ago I was in the shop of a very talented,experienced, and established cabinet maker. While I was there another equally talented woodworker stopped by to visit. When they shook hands only six fingers were involved.....
Even the best people, with the best intentions, have accidents, and shapers are notorious for having nasty temperaments and attitudes....
Stock feeders cost much less in the long run than surgery.....

[daski]

We have a trick to eliminate tear out. We route our material then joint off anything that is chipped out then re run it throught the router. Rather than hogging off a whole lot you are just cutting 1/16" of profile. Once you have a perfectly shaped part rip it to final width on the saw. It's a little more work, but faster than making a new part because it was badly chipped. To make life easy we put the jointer on one side and the router table on the other. We now have a shaper and a basic delta feeder. They are dead easy to figure out. we still us the same process and are always happy with the results

[bcammack]

That's genius, IMO, Dave.

[daski]

The added benefit is that if the wood has tension in it when you initially rip it or shape it you can joint the board straight before final sizing.