[mccafferty]

I have been using a 4'x4' CNC router for several years to assist in making musical instruments ( www.mccaffertydulcimers.com ). I use Rhino and VisualMill Pro for CAD/CAM. In my lifetime, I have aslo done a good bit of cabinet and furniture making, but not really with the CNC.

For small shops with a router table (not a 5 axis machining center) what is the most valuable areas to use a router table. I can see maybe carving doors,... but there's not a lot of that in typical cabinets. For raised panel doors, it's just too easy to use a couple of good shapers or even buy them outside. For panel sizing, it's also too easy to just use a panel saw. It may sound as a bit of a niave question, but I am just curious how a small shop uses one to improve productivity or create a competetive edge.

For me, I can see some use for a user friendly, purpose built, CNC mortise and tennon machine. Also maybe dovetails for drawers. This type of feature creates at least a perceived increase in value to a cabinet or piece of furniture. A typical router table doesn't work well on the ends or even edges of long boards. A few years back, I built a horizontal mortiser that already has 1" linear ball slides,... and would be straightforward to convert to CNC. I plan to do that this year as much for the fact that it would be fun as much as increaseing productivity. Especially now that there are inexpensive software applications such as Mach3 that allow to develop purpose built screens.

I think if I ever built a CNC Router from scratch that I would make the table fairly tall and besides haveing a horizontal table, I would have a gantry that would come out over the front of the machine and have a vertical table on the front of the machine to work on at least shorter rails, board edges,...

I was just wondering if some folks that build non-production quantities of cabinets and furniture might share their applications for a router.

[aminear]

I have used my CNC router for dovetailing, it is about 3 1/2 foot off the floor which is a pretty large drawer. Once you install guides for squaring the stock and write your g-code it makes a dovetail jig seem like a relic from the past.

[mccafferty]

are you hanging the drawer side off the front of the table? If so, did your router come that way or did you modify it?

[woodman08]

I have had my machine now for about a year and i have used it in the furniture building in a small way (carvings,drawer cuts out and some intricate part cutting)But for the most part it takes long to get the idea into the software then to the cnc.(great for 3d plaques)
If its a one or two piece job its not worth it,if you were going to do a lot run then the setup time would pay for itself.
Right now i'm going to cut out electric guitar bodies i have spent about 4-5 hrs in the design to produce the code.
If i make 2 then a simple bandsaw and table router would be quicker (not as precise)
So in conclusion if you're making a quantity of a product then yes its an asset.
Its challenging and thats why i keep pushing it ,maybe through time it will become a tool like the hand router --pull it out get a bit and do the job.

woodman

[mccafferty]

OK, that's pretty much my findings and thoughts. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Once a year, I turn about 250 sheets of baltic birch into about 7000 parts for a guy. For that, I have set quick change vacuum jigs,.... and it is a very profitable 3 week event. One-off stuff is more challenging to make it work out.

For the musical instruments I make, although I only build 4-8 at a time, they are designs that I build over and over. So, all the parts have their own special vacuum fixture that fits into registration pins on the machine so setup is very quick. I can mix and match some of the parts and do a bit of custom inlay, and the customer feels they are getting a one-of-a-kind custom instrument yet I'm not doing a lot of custom effort. After investing the time in the fixtures, the CNC approack works very well for this and there is essentially no "fit adjustment" required when it's time to glue up the instrument. I don't really need a bigger shop, but am getting to the point of needing more wall surface to hang fixtures

As I mentioned in the first post, I am slowly working on a CNC mortise and tennon machine. I plan to develop application specific screens for it to try to make it efficeint to set up mortises and matching tenons at the machine. It should be a fun project. Mach3 should allow that. My commercial machine uses custom code and QNX operating system. It's not something I can get in and mess with.

[ger21]

With the right software and if your machine is set up with a way to locate your parts, a lot of one-off parts can be done faster on a CNC. Rabits and dadoes are one example. I can draw the toolpaths in AutoCAD and have my g-code for a dado faster than I can put a dado blade on a table saw. The biggest hurdle with a small router is changing tools, which will eat a lot of time, and holding parts down.

[mccafferty]

Good point

[aminear]

Mccafferty,

Answer to your question, yes I hang the board off the front side.
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/ind...ic,3368.0.html this is a link to pictures on Machsupport forum. It has plenty of travel over the edge so I have a lot of room to cut there. Works great!

[mccafferty]

Sweet!

[FSRDoug]

I have been using my router in furniture making and small cabinet jobs and I have found it very useful. Once I learned the software I could design and cut all cabinet parts in about the same time but with much greater accuracy and I didn't have to manhandle sheet goods on a table saw.
For custom furniture the design work is often the most time consuming but once the design is finished I have a 3d design to show the client and often I can make changes on the spot and then go straight to the machine. I don't know how I got along without CNC before.

Doug

[meet4amjad]

Hi!
Its a nice experience to manufacture cabinets on CNC Router.
We can use nesting to minimize the wastage of material to produce different
parts by single board.
Bye...