hey guys. family custom shop 46 yrs old 20 guys. we are moving for the first time...so i have a chance to redo shop flows.

we ran 2 spray rooms primed in one , fed all cabinets through it , carry them in, prime, sand outside in shop, bring back in prime again, bring out, sand again, then bring them to second spray room and top coat. i let the guys create this setup as i was so busy in other parts of the business.

what i do not like after finally looking at the process is so much handling of the cabinets, in , out etc..and they are big for the most part being custom.

in the old days when we were founded we would spray a cabinet sealer (no painting back then) sand it in place, then top coat it. no moving it in , out ie: handling multiple times.

so finally i want to for the new building go back to basics and do this:

bring in 3-6 cabinets, prime them on the horses, sand them in place, reprime, sand, then top coat. so essentially you are focusing on 3-6 cabinets for a long time ..but i'm thinking i save on handling and get them to the next department sooner than trying to spray the entire kitchen at once.

thoughts?

Hello !
It is very important to sand far away from the spray booth, to do not contaminate the environment.
You could use rails to move the furniture one side to another.
Good Luck

Put the cabinets on carts, not sawhorses. Handling is easy.

I second carts.... particularly old school cotton mill carts... find them in close out auctions

I use 3 1/2" casters on a 2x4 laid sideways covered with 3/4" MDF. I have mostly 2x4 carts but one 2x3 and three 2x5 carts for bigger cabs. I believe I currently have 16 carts and at times I need a couple more.

It's more about flow. When we added on to our finish building, I made a circular flow to our process. Cabinets come in the finish area on the south. Booth is in the NE corner, has a side door to a drying room in the center so you can keep spraying while other stuff is drying. Then out of the drying room to the shop area on the south for sanding, then back in the booth for 2nd coat (etc), drying room, then on the northwest is a final assembly area. From there it is ready to ship and gets put in the shipping area to load in the trailers. Each room can be shut off from the other rooms by large sliding doors. We put everything on carts so it's easy to move from one space to the next. One person (with backup sanding help as needed) can keep the system full all day.

thanks guys for the replies.

watching cabinets get primed then handled only to be brought in and out even on carts (my cabinets range from 24" to 130" in length) drives me nutz.

i will try to finish a group of cabinets in place. and see how it goes as far as quality and productivity. i will be also switching to full water based and they claim it does not attract dust like the previous solvent based material.

You will spend more time cleaning the spray both between coats as you would rolling the cabinets in and out.

Regardless of size, once a cabinet is placed on the carts, moving them is a one man operation.

There are other good reasons for having the carts on wheels for other operations as well.

Adam and others;

i get the dust and contamination concern.
with a powerful fan i am expecting blowing off the cabinets in between coats to have all dust eliminated. in fact i believe blowing a sanded cabinet off in the spray room will mean a cleaner cabinet than doing it in another room of my shop and as it transports back in that it gets dirty or damaged on its way back in.

i find my people once a set of primed cabinets are carted off there is little concern to the speed of sanding these things. then the carting is a excruciating thing to watch in itself.

my belief is instead of looking at 15 primed cabinets in various levels of preparation far from done because you are attacking 15-20 cabinets at once while my hardware department guys are waiting even on one cabinet to be finished; i can have 4 cabinets that were focused on not handled 3x to be sent finished to the next department with far less lag in between shop flow. i look forward to honestly seeing how this idea works and will post.

When I'm spraying more than a couple of pieces I get to go in circles. Meaning that by the time I'm done spraying I can start over again with the first piece because it's dry enough for scuffing and the next coat of finish.

You need to find out what that timing is and that is the amount of cabinets that need to be sprayed before you start the circle again.

In your case, like mine, you build cabinets that vary in size greatly. So it might have some advantage to have a countdown clock in the sprayroom that indicates the first cabinet is dry and the circle should start over again.

That way you are spraying the minimum amount of cabinets and keeping everyone busy at the same time. Then your hardware guys will have things to do.

Frank.
There is a very good reason why most of the comments you are getting from professional finishers is contrary to your proposed solution. I would spend more time listening to these guys and less time convincing yourself that leaving a cabinet in one place until its finished is the way to go.
It seems to me that something your not taking into consideration is the dry time.
If you prime a set (lets call it 6) cabinets - you then have to wait for the primer to dry 30mins to an hour. Now this may be ok in your book - but in that time i could have sprayed almost 4 more sets while that first set was drying.
If you are moving to a new building and have the ability to change your layout - consider the following setup - it will give you that "one piece flow" your looking for but will not stop.

View higher quality, full size image (830 X 655)

I understand that the above layout is not ideal for all situations. But the concept of having the parts move through different zones with areas between to allow for flash/dry/cure should give you a different way to look at things as far as setting up your new room.

another thought. if your guys in the hardware department dont have anything to do because they are waiting on your bottleneck to finish the cabinets -- maybe you should cross train those guys and they can go help scuff the primer to advance the finishing department. Always attack the bottleneck.