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Start-Up Cabinet Shop Equipment Needs
Question
Forum Responses
I have:
I have about 3000 sq ft, which is actually two 1500 sq ft bays side by side with a divider wall. One side is used for milling and the other is for storage of wood, finished product and spray room.
I have 2400 sq ft. I build plywood and melamine boxes, outsource my doors and finishing and mouldings. I own a slider, boring machine, bander, 2 hinge borers, drillpress, edgesander, air and electric tools, and a pocket hole machine. Total investment around 150K. I have an old forklift truck as well. I have 1400 sf feet full size sliding table saw( 3200mm) edge bander wide belt sander edge sander full size stroke sander face frame table pocket hole machine CNC, 5' x 10' full size large lathe (8' long) 3 auto hinge machines radial arm saw chop saw 2 drill presses dust collector shaper with power feed There is no room to spare. Two machines are on casters. Sometimes I park a couple of motorcycles in the shop, too. It all fits, but I dream of 3000 sq feet.
I have what I call a great shop. Some people have told me they would give their right arm for it, and some people would laugh at it. If I were starting a shop from scratch and knew what I know today, I would get a decent vertical slider, A good edge bander, and a good line borer. I would not buy the fist shaper, jointer or planer. I would buy good doors for less than 30.00 each, use all pre-finished sheet goods, and have a very small spray room just for the doors, and build kitchens and bath cabinets only. A simple streamlined operation that worked for professional builders, and sell some to DIYers for a retail price. I am a one man shop that builds cabinets, furniture and exterior/interior doors. My shop is 1600 sq ft with 300 sq ft of it being a small spray room. My tools consist of: 5HP 20" planer
You probably want to take a close look at your mission statement, and if you haven't got one, make one. Do you want to build cabinets only? Or furniture only? Or have a general woodworking shop (cabinets, furniture, and whatever else is made of wood)? The statement "I would not buy the first shaper, jointer or planer..." is quite telling. I think it comes down to defining your work in two categories - sheet stock and solid lumber. If you are going to build cabinets only, and limit yourself to frameless, you probably don't need *any* solid lumber machines - jointers, planers, shapers, etc. Heck, you probably don't even need a table saw or band saw. If furniture only, you don't need an edgebander, panel saw, line borer and so on (and these are expensive machines). If you plan a mix, you need to determine where the bulk of the work is - if only occasional cabinetry, you could probably do without some of the specialized sheet good machines, like edgebander, etc. If you can, let your work determine to what extent you need machines in either camp. Would you like to add information to this article? Interested in writing or submitting an article? Have a question about this article? Have you reviewed the related Knowledge Base areas below? 
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