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Making table tops / wooden panels more efficiently

1/29/17       
Paul Brown

Hi,
About a year ago I started a furniture making business which centers around making simple pine table tops (basic panels - just about 5x s4s pine planks glued together), which are then finished with a number of stains and combined with various leg/frame styles that we manufacture.

Currently we use a planer/thicknesser (though getting a four sided planer soon), then a hand-held glue roller to apply glue, and then about 4 bar clamps per table top (clamps over and under to keep them flat while drying).
We can make about 10 table tops per day this way (pretty much limited by rack space to hold the tops while the glue sets), but I'm looking to increase production significantly and this all seems very inefficient.
Question - can anyone recommend machinery/process to make this glue up/clamping more efficient? Or is it more normal / recommended to buy in pre-made furniture panels?

All the clamp handling seems ridiculously labourious, and is a complete bottleneck, especially given how efficient the four sided planers and wide belt sanders are. I've been looking on these forums and elsewhere for months for a solution, but other than having a custom machine built I just haven't made any headway.

Thanks

1/29/17       #2: Making table tops / wooden panels m ...
rich c.

10 tops a day? Wow, should be able to easily do 10 an hour. Depends on what significant means on your increase in production. Look for rotary or panel clamps. I'd thought it would easy to find used ones, but call James L. Taylor otherwise. Should also be a real easy piece to outsource. Have it bid with a minimum width of stock allowed and even thickness sanded if you want. You could increase production overnight that way.

http://www.jamesltaylor.com/rotary_door_clamps

1/29/17       #3: Making table tops / wooden panels m ...
Paul Brown

Thanks for the quick response.

It's about 10+ table tops an hour we'd be aiming for. I've seen those rotary panel clamps before but I'm in the UK and they don't seem to be very common at all over here - I didn't realise they offered significant time savings, I assumed that once the clamps were full with panels you'd have to wait a bit for the glue to set (which is what we've been having to do with our wall mounted rack and standard bar clamps, hence only ~10 panels a day).

I think the outsourcing route including thickness sanding is a good idea, our workshop is only 1200 sq ft and we do a lot of metal work as well so the reduced sawdust will be a great saving for fire safety cleanup time..

1/30/17       #4: Making table tops / wooden panels m ...
Mark B Member

You could look into an RF glue clamp. You'd have the tops in the clamp for perhaps a minute or two. Like at the beginning of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIiyI_0LdP4

1/30/17       #5: Making table tops / wooden panels m ...
Mark B Member

Agree with rich though. You should be knocking out way more than 10 tops a day even with conventional clamps. Maybe leaving them in the clamps too long?

1/31/17       #6: Making table tops / wooden panels m ...
Paul Brown

Thanks for that link, I ended up watching that series of videos to see what their panel making process is like - mine is no way as streamlined / efficient yet. I haven't seen that kind of RF clamp before, looks like it would be a great time saver.
The fact that you both agree that 10 panels / day is too slow is actually reassuring - I'm struggling to keep up with orders at the moment so I'm hoping that when my process improves to > 10/day it'll be a lot less stressful.

I made enquiries into outsourcing the panels, and I found a supplier who can offer the fully made panels for pretty much exactly the same price as my rough sawn wood costs (these panels being the same species, thickness, and also sanded so they're flat and ready for stain) (!).
I should get delivery of some of these later this week, and my fingers are crossed that they'll be what I'm looking for. If that's the case, then instead of needing e.g. chop saw, 4s planer, glue, clamps/RF heater, thickness sander, a couple of guys to operate them, etc. then I'll just need a table saw to cut to size and an edge sander, saving tons of money, time, hassle, space etc., and increasing my productivity by a huge amount.

On the back of this anticipated revelation I'm hoping to outsource a lot more of the process, still pretty slow with the metal fabrication part though, but at least having pre-made panels reduces the fire hazard as well and allows for more continuous metalworking.
If only there was a woodweb equivalent for metal fabrication...

1/31/17       #7: Making table tops / wooden panels m ...
Pete D

Paul,

There is... www.practicalmachinist.com

I build furniture using steel and wood as well and use both sites regularly. Lot of guys across the pond in the UK on the machinist forum too. That forum is much larger than woodweb and for most questions you'll get a lot more responses and opinions.

2/16/17       #8: Making table tops / wooden panels m ...
Paul Brown

Thanks again, I've had a look through the practical machinist website and picked up some ways I can do things quicker.

Update: I got some of the pre-made panels and they're great, exactly what I was hoping for.
I've spent the last few weeks trying to sort out my processes prior to re-opening and was feeling really optimistic, but I broke my hip on monday so I have to revisit them yet again. Thanks again.


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