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Equipment needed for live edge slab furniture?

2/11/16       
holly Member

Website: http://truwood artisans.com

Hi everyone, I have a small custom furniture manufacturing business that has a strong focus on live edge slab dining and board room tables. I have been approached to grow the business but unsure Currently I have a 36" wide belt sander, 11' stroke sander, 24" planer , a cantek line line rip saw, usual bandsaws, drill presses, saw stop table saw and Excalibur fence and just recently got an scm 10' slider table saw. (Don't know yet how much this is going to help buy can't wait to see) I only have one full time staff and one part time so I am on the floor a lot. We can produce 3 slab dining tables a week if we push it from start to finish including bases and polyurethane. We are in 3000 Sq feet and fight for space daily. I feel we have out grown the shop a long time ago just because of the sheer size of these slabs and limited storage. We fight space and limited abilities of our equipment constantly. If we wanted to increase our capabilities to let's say 25 to 30 tables a month (whether it's slabs or regular manufactured tables or a mix) what do you you think I need for the following 3 things...how many staff? What other equipment would help? How much many square feet in a shop? I feel like the equipment reps in our area don't understand the challenges of big live edge wood and as a result have been under sold on equipment in the past. I still don't know if I being told of all the equipment that is available either. I seem to be missing a piece or two of the puzzle. The equipment we have is good but we still spend a ton of time sanding stuff out with belt sanders and orbitals etc. Also struggle getting good glue joints on a 10' slab (we currently have an 8" general jointer snd the deck isn't long enough). Also a lot of our issues arise from limited blade heights for the thicknesses we are dealing with...
I'm hoping someone out there can give me a bit of advice on what you woukd do if you wanted to expand...what would your wish list be? Thanks guys!

2/11/16       #2: Equipment needed for live edge slab ...
Kevin Jenness

I would try to identify the bottlenecks in your process and pick equipment or processes to solve them in order of importance. You mention several and one of them points at another issue.

First in order of potential time savings is sanding. You don't specify your type of wide belt, but a multi-head sander would save considerable time over a single head unit. Is your present sander wide enough for your tables? If not, consider moving up in size.

Proper setup is key to cutting down on subsequent sanding, so get a good tech to help you with that. I have seen some good info on setup on the surfprep website.

Even the best widebelt won't quite get you to (what I consider) a finish-ready surface. Fortunately, you have a large stroke sander which can get you there. With a competent operator you should have little or no need for hand-held sanders on your large flat surfaces.

Making accurate edge joints is obviously critical. You should be able to do that with your new sliding saw, depending on the model, its condition and blade capacity. Is your straight line ripsaw not up to the task?

That brings up material handling- dealing with large slabs, getting them up on and off a saw is tough for a single person or even two. Do you have a forklift that can operate on your shop floor? At least you should look at adjustable height shop carts (ShopCarts). Good in and outfeed tables on the table saw, planer and widebelt would help a lot. I remember seeing a promising self-adjusting outfeed table on a widebelt on the shop-built equipment forum on this site some time ago.

Space- 3000 sq ft doesn't sound that confining for what you are doing if organized well. Have you considered different layouts? It may well be too small for the increased production you are contemplating, if so start looking at new spaces. Can you expand into adjacent space? Moving a shop is a big undertaking. Make sure it's necessary and plan it thoroughly to avoid downtime.

# of personnel? Get your process streamlined and see what you can produce with you and your current employee and go from there. If your business expands significantly you will have less time on the floor yourself. You may need a full time finisher, maybe you can get by with one full time in the shop and one mixing it up between fab and finish.

Your question about edge joints brings up a basic issue you did not mention. With an 8" jointer how do you flatten your slabs? I don't know what sizes you are working with, but you should have at least a 16" jointer. Over that size (as you are well aware) slabs are very cumbersome and perhaps better handled with a CNC router or similar non-feed through surfacer.

2/11/16       #3: Equipment needed for live edge slab ...
rich c.

My first thought is you are going to need one hell of a good wood dealer. 25-30 slabs a month takes a lot of long term planning and a fantastic supply chain. Then get rid of the polyurethane and go to a catalyzed varnish finish. No comparison in drying time. Then look at a CNC for flattening the slabs and cutting long jointed edges for glue up. With the CNC you won't have to handle the slabs nearly as much. Just wondering, are you talking one piece slab tables, or a couple of slabs with fill stock in the middle. If multiple pieces, get a used 16 or 24" jointer with the same size thickness planer.

2/11/16       #4: Equipment needed for live edge slab ...
Larry

I don't know the "best" method but we surface slabs for others on our CNC router. Wedges are used to position the slab for the facing cut. Turn it over and do the other side. An edge is straight-lined using a 3/4" spiral bit giving an excellent edge finish. Minimal handling. To reduce the amount of sanding get an aggregate for the router that has a horizontal shaft so you can make the last pass with the grain. You can get a good enough finish that you don't need the widebelt and just use the stroke sander for a fine finishing pass. Lots of old stokes sanders available that have independent towers so you can position them for any part length you want. Use a rolling hydraulic table for slab transport. How are you facing the slabs now?
I sure wouldn't finish with polyurethane, way too slow. There are excellent two component finishes available. Much faster cure. If you get a router, get a heavily made one so it will withstand the wt. & bangs it will get from the slabs.
Get some cantilever arm racks for slab storage. Do all the handling with your forklift. Buy or have made a machine to rotate the slabs for the other side to be worked. You can see something similar used on automated finishing lines. Never ask a salesman for a solution unless they are experts at what you want to do (very rare!)

2/11/16       #5: Equipment needed for live edge slab ...
David R Sochar Member

That was my first thought - where are all these slabs coming from? The biggest guys in the US would have a hard time keeping up with that demand. Throw in the drying time of 3 weeks per slab, and there are a lot of people working like crazy to keep you supplied.

Care to share?

I do like everyone else's assessments. Double ditto on the polyurethane being replaced by CV - no comparison. I think the CNC would do everything but sand the things, with limited handling. The big ones I have done nearly killed us.

2/11/16       #6: Equipment needed for live edge slab ...
Paul Downs

Aside from physical equipment, you are going to need to enhance your information systems as well. There's a huge difference between handling 2 to 3 and 25 to 30 custom clients per month. How are you planning on making that many sales? Handling the transactions? Keeping track of all of the decisions that those customers are making? Figure out where each order is in your production process? Decide who gets bumped when somebody else starts screaming for delivery? Handle shipping and delivery arrangements?

If you can actually ramp up your sales that much, all power to you. I hope for your sake that it's a bit more gradual.

2/12/16       #7: Equipment needed for live edge slab ...
Tom Diel

Website: http://thomasdiel.com

My hip hurts just thinking about that volume. Really, getting it replaced in a few months and just turned 50 and have a 54"w at the center x 96"L cherry slab in the shop staring at me.
But if I were in your position; a heavy iron CNC i.e. Komo, Andi, Thermwood, 2-3 of fortlifts plenty of space, and maybe a car rotisserie or something like that from a gantry above CNC and in your finish drying room? A second or third stroke sander for flow, and quite a few Festool RO sanders set-ups w their collectors.
I think burn out on that size of product & volume would be the challenge, not to mention cash flow w/ what Paul said above. A UV finish line would be the end all for those numbers, but not sure how to handle touch-up because will be an issue.
I'll stick w the onesy twosys for now and looking to get into miniature photography but enjoy this a bit too much.
Photo of one I did a couple of years ago.


View higher quality, full size image (720 X 481)

2/12/16       #8: Equipment needed for live edge slab ...
David Buchsbaum

Website: http://atlantacloset.com

I always use Waterlox for my slab tops and know of a major solid wood countertop supplier who used it for years with excellent results.

With that many tops two or three small CNCs might be more versatile than one large one


View higher quality, full size image (2592 X 1944)

waterlox.com

2/14/16       #9: Equipment needed for live edge slab ...
Brian T

We use our 10 ' scmi slider for glue joints on the slabs if they are not going on the router to be surfaced or butterflied.
Order an extra cam clamp for the slider so you can put one at both ends of the machine. Don't waste time with the butted clamp stop that comes with the machine. It's much faster ,more accurate and safer then edging on the joiner.

I would definitely go to a CV or 2k line for finishes.

Look into a larger sander. We have a new 43'' 2 head machine and I will be upgrading to a 3 head 53'' in the next year,

We build slabs and lots of reclaimed wood tables which are basically the same thing in the end. Move the slabs and tops as little as possible. Let the machines do the work for you. Get a lift. Build lots of rolling carts the right height. The slider and sander and work benches are all roughly the same height so I made all the carts slightly shorter. One person can easily maneuver these tops with the proper setup.
Good luck.

2/15/16       #10: Equipment needed for live edge slab ...
Pat Gilbert

Cuidado, putting that many eggs in one basket rarely turns out well. IOW you may/probably will become swamped by the one customer and neglect the regular sales that you have now.


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