Replies

1. 
   JohnWW | Jul 19, 2006 10:23pm | #1

   I was in this business for a while, in a shop that employed me full time just making moldings.  Short runs of small moldings you could make with home shop sized machines. 

   If you want to make larger runs of moldings, with custom profiles for the knives, you could easily spend $50,000+ on the machines you would need to do that profitably.  In fact you could easily spend $50,000 on a single four head molding machine like I ran.

   In addition to the machines that actually cut the molding and grind the knives, you will need a table saw or a gang rip saw, a jointer, and a thickness planer, all of them on an industrial scale.  You will also need to keep a good sized inventory of wood, a few thousand board feet probably. 

   I think you need to find out what the demand is in your area for custom moldings and whether you already have established competition, which you probably do have, though you might not be aware of them.  If you do have a local shop, you should try to get a look at their operation, you might be surprised at the scale of machinery used to turn out custom moldings.

   John White, Shop Manager, Fine Woodworking Magazine

2. 
   hammer1 | Jul 20, 2006 06:06am | #2

   As John said, you need some large scale equipment to make quality and consistent molding. I've made the molding for several homes on small shop equipment. It can be labor intensive depending on the complexity of the profile. A couple of major issues are fundamental to woodworking. What you use for stock, how you store, handle and mill it. Even simple casings like 2 1/2" colonial have to be consistent, in order to fit, when installing. A quality molding should be ready for finishing, which requires good knives. Having to sharpen and re-set effects consistency and adds labor. These are some of the issues with small machines. Just as important as the accuracy of the knives is the feed. A stock feeder for table saw ripping, router table or shaper work is a great asset.

   There are all kinds of moldings. The sizes and profiles will determine what you will need to make them. I think a small machine like a Willams and Hussey would be fine for a house or two with basic shapes and sizes. There is a small molder that I thought looked interesting and may give you more production capability.

   http://www.logosolusa.com/articles/LogosolPH260_sw_april2004e.pdf

   Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
3. 
   BossCrunk | Jul 20, 2006 08:11pm | #3

   Radiused moldings are hot these days and you must have machinery that will run them efficiently.  There was a thread on this recently regarding the W&H and it can do radiused work but in my experience not the very deep profiles popular today.

   Your market is better homebuilders and they are all putting in interior archways and doorways that need the curved stuff.  Don't forget radius jamb work as well.  You'll have to be able to do it all or they'll simply fax the drawings and measurements to somebody who can.  You've got to be able to provide everything needed to trim out a rough-frame radiused doorway or window.

   We ran a fleet of Mikrons when I was in this business.  It was a lucrative business to be in and a lucrative business to sell when I was ready to change focus.

   90+ percent of the moulding we ran involved head radiuses and was for new construction - mostly custom built new homes, or really nice spec houses.

   Let me burst the router bubble right now - you are bound to get calls for profiles too deep and broad (on the curved stuff) to make using a router feasible at all.  At least, IMO.  I never cease to be amazed at the ingenuity of people to workaround machine limitations but you can't run a business that way very long.  You gotta have what you need.

   You'll need a cabinet-style tablesaw, a  jointer, and 20" planer.  You'll need as big a bandsaw as you can buy.  

    

    

   
   

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   Edited 7/20/2006 1:14 pm ET by BossCrunk

4. 
   wilkinsr | Sep 16, 2006 05:41am | #4

   Buy a shaper. Do some apprentice work. This isn't like selling real estate - if you do this stuff on a router table, you won't get to Carnegie Hall any time soon.