Hello everyone,
I have a growing cabinetry business and to this point I have avoided making my own raised panel doors by ordering them from local suppliers. On the nicer jobs where I don’t trust others to make them I have always been able to steer the client towards flat panels (plywood). Now I can’t avoid it. I have three jobs waiting for raised panel doors.
My problem is making the blank for the panel. I have a 6″ jointer, and 12″ planer. What I have done to this point is to joint and plane stock then glue it up as perfect as possible. It usually comes out nearly perfect. One light pass in the planer and the glue lines are gone. However I have several doors to build that are too wide for my planer. How can I flatten a 16″ panel WITH THE TOOLS I HAVE. If this is not reasonable should I get a hand plane of a belt sander? Remember that this is a small production enviroment. I can’t spend all day flatening 5 panels. I like the idea of the hand plane but think that the belt sander would be a lot faster.
I have intended to buy a drum sander but am worried about the frequent complaints of burning.
Thank you all fot any coments,
Mike
Replies
You know you could take your panels to a Cabinet shop that has a wide belt sander ( like a Time Saver) and get them to sand them for you. They do it all the time for people.
If you are serious about building Cabinets and Doors you will need a big sander like a Time Saver, or a Stroke Sander.
Lots of people have started out with hand held Belt Sander.I have sanded 1000's of doors with belt sander .
I myself I would not waste my money on a drum sander
Mike
To avoid buying another tool ( I know I shouldn't say such things) you could always glue up your wide panels and take them to a larger shop that has either a wide belt or a wider planer and have them done. Shouldnt cost all that much, I used to do it and never spent all that much.
Its just one way to avoid the unnecessary tool purchase, unless of course you foresee a greater need for the tool down the road.
Doug
I guess ron can type faster than I, same message though
Edited 1/15/2005 11:34 am ET by Doug@es
Hi Mike ,
I too run only a small custom production shop but, when faced with surfacing raised panel stock my savior and most likely will be yours is to take the glued up panels to a larger cabinet shop in your area and pay them to run them through a wide belt sander. In about 10 or 15 minutes they can run a handfull or two of panels more perfectly then the best of us could do any other way .And as you said it won't take all day. Here in our area the norm is usually a $20 - 25 minimum and a $1-1.50 a minute after that . So my guess for around $25 or 30 dollars perhaps plus your time spent traveling to and from and while it is being sanded the job will be done. Incororate a fee that covers your expense and break it down either per door or per job , and re coop the expense in your bid. Call around or ask you hardwood supplier if they provide this service or can give you the name of a shop in your area. You certainly could plane the panel down say 2 , 8" pieces then glue them together to create the 16" panel in question , with some belt sanding you can clean the one seam up. If only one was that wide that will work but what I have noticed depending on the wood , the planer sometimes pulls some grain and it can not be pretty. The wide belt or abrasive surfacing machines produce superior results in most cases.
I hope this will help dusty
Mike,
The real solution isn't to haul panels off to another shop as some suggest but to equip yourself to do things yourself.
A new 20 inch planer costs about $1200.00 from Grizzly and they do have a time payment program if coming up with $1200.00 is too hard.. Other solutions would be to buy older used equipment and recondition it.. the problem with that is the potential for long downtime waiting for parts and the fact that instead of generating income you are spending your time non-productively..
For the immediate solution depending on your skill level you probabley will be forced to use a belt sander followed by a random orbit sander..
mike,
Not to contradict anybody, but in a pinch I'd try a sanding block made with mdf, cork and 3M full sheets and a cleat to push on. I have smaller blocks and have stopped using all the power sanders because its faster and easier. I'd hit the glue line with a #80 scraper and maybe 5-10 strokes with 100 grit and 5-10 strokes with 180...
Mike,
If you take care to glue up carefully, you can make the panels come out with almost no misalignment along the joint and it will only take a couple of minutes with a scraper and a sanding block to get the panel ready to use.
An extra two minutes spent during the glue up will save you a ton of time later and you won't have to buy another machine.
John W.
Get real people
Building doors for kitchen cabinets -I can glue up panels dead flat but scraping & hand sanding planer marks out of hardwood panels- how many doors are in a kitchen 2 or 3 ? How long do you expect the home owner to wait ????? 4 or 5 years
I never counted just how many Panels per minute you can run through the 42 in. 3 belt Time Saver Sander but in 10 to 15 minutes I can sand a BIG job of door panels up to 320 girt. both sides . Lets see they charge $1.00 a minute darn that's $15.00 + your gas and time hauling them .
Yea maybe you right that might cut in to your profit better spend 2 weeks with a scraper and sanding block.
Sounds like you all have built lots of Kitchen Cabinets & Doors
By the way I use my Scraper to get the dried glue off the panel and my sanding block runs on air.
Ron
Edited 1/15/2005 5:02 pm ET by Ron
Hi Ron ,
AMEN to your line of thinking . I totally agree , my guess a few of the other posters are not making a living from the wood work they produce as I and I guess from your attitude you are. If you have all day and time is not a factor then it really will not matter. But if your family is depending on the income derived from making sawdust then that is a different story. I know many professional cabinet makers and honestly not one of them would finish panels with a planer. I have planed some and then run through a wide belt to save a bit of time on the clock.There is a difference n cabinet and furniture work and building a house . Both require certain degrees of skill but not the same skills. If you are doing a job for pay as we do everyday could you go to a mill and buy green wet hardwood , then just wait till it is dry and then build that job out of it ? I would starve while my cheap wood is drying , how bout you ? In summary not all advice is right for all .
dusty
Also want to second your thoughts on the wide belt method.
I also do this for a living and I can work on other stuff if on the rare occasion I have to deal with wide panels.
Doug
John,
I do take that extra time and my panels generally come out damn near perfect. In fact I could likely pass it off as done on some of my customers. I supose I could always just use a ROS to remove the lines.
To the others, I do use a local cabinet shop for large jobs. But I do a lot of entertainment centers that might only have 2 or 4 doors. I know that they don't want to mess with that. Also I loose a whole day having them do it. The shop is pretty close but they can never do it while I wait. That means two trips over a three day period all the while I ready to glue up the doors. I try to complete an average $2000 job in 5 days, including finish. When these jobs drag on I loose money. Sounds like none of yall are inpressed with drumsanders..... I was hoping that would be a tool I could use.
Mikeplease excuse my spelling.
Mike, I have worked in large shops with widebelt sanders for 20 years, and now have my own business. I bought a 26 inch woodmaster drumsander and am completely satisfied, in fact I feel I get better results than the larger sanders I was used to using. I build about one set of cabinets a month all raised panel ends and doors, probably 50 or 60 doors in each set. As previously mentioned extra care at glue-up helps a lot as drumsander cannot be used as a thickness grinder, small, light, passes and you will get excellent results. Best $2,000.00 I ever spent!!!!!! James L Miller AKA Wood Wizard
Mike...
I'm assuming that your stock is planed and jointed prior to glue up, and that though the misalignment is noticable, it's not all that bad..
Sure, a belt sander will "fix" it for you... but it'll look like chit... precision instruments they're not... As for hand planes... provided it's not more than 1-2mm you're talking about, I reckon you'd need to be doing in excess of 20 doors a day to make the trip to the other shop worthwhile...
Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
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