new equipment

this coming week I've got some good things coming up. I will be looking at some more jobs and have new contacts to pursue and jobs to bid. WE have a Kaizen event this week. I got a new shaper this week, well new to me that is. It is nothing special but hopefully a solid work horse. It was built on Cape Cod by a machinist, it has 5/16" thick cast iron walls on the cabinet. All the fence movable parts are steel or cast iron, so it should remain true and work well for many years to come. It smaller than our other two shapers, less horse power and a smaller spindle. It has a 1" and 3/4" spindle, I could easily get a 1.25" spindle made so all are tooling fits, or we can use bushings. I do have one 1" bore head so I can use all of our custom blades without problem. I am hoping to set up some more overhead lights in the shop this week. We moved around some more machinery on Monday this past week as our Kiazen event. We moved our sanding machine about 10' in one direction and greatly increased the amount of space in the finish preparation area. Which we immediately filled with the cabinets of job 99. which are really starting to look amazing, I can't wait to start our install there.

door stock

the picture below is taken from the top edge of a door. You can see clearly how the veneer is on the wide surfaces and the solid wood is on the short faces. This is how it is done throughout the industry, Although Doors of Distinction in Wisconsin still only uses solid wood for their styles and rails. the center material is some kind core, in this case it is strand lumber, I have never used this type, usually we use solid wood core such as poplar or pine, small pieces finger jointed together, I would like to try this strand lumber as I have seen some warpage in the finger jointed stock.
Also in this door one side of the veneer is thicker than the other side, I am not crazy about that, Gagan says it's no problem but I wonder about the effects of an unbalanced stick, ie the thicker veneer will absorb more moisture than the thinner side of veneer.
We didn't make this door, I just took a photo because I am interested in the strand limber core.

 

cirles vs parabolas

I was on the moda cocina web site today. they are a primarily a cabinet maker in Hyde Park, although it looks like they are making flooring and are willing to do Mill work as well. I have to say that is a very good web site, I spent alot of time there it shows that much thought went into it. they seem like a very good company with loads of skill and experience, they have a CNC machine and do thick highly polished finishes.

I attended an NKBA meeting today at the design center in Boston, it was very interesting being the first time I have been there. It is much bigger than I thought, and it looks like the business opportunities for me there are endless. I spent some of my own time looking at the cabinet makers there, all the big name guys have showrooms there. I was attending the student chapter of the NKBA meeting. that is students of the Boston Architectural College. there is another NKBA meeting that I hope to attend Oct 27th, it is a seminar focused around estimating in a bad economy, that one should be interesting.

The work kept going at the shop, Esteban is working on job 119, that is the mahogany library, he is building the panels now but not gluing them up just cutting the parts and getting ready for the glue ups, which we will start to do next. Marlo our newest hire has been working more with the finishing, sanding, priming. Gagan started working on some curved top cased openings for job 99. WE use a vacuum press for doing the laminating. We are making a elliptical top cased opening for this same job. We have made several samples of the ellipse for the client to approve. the first one was a perfect ellipse and it looks kind of stale, perfect circles and ellipses do that when you incorporate them into a design. SO we made another sample with a French curve or better known as the parabola. All the samples are up on the wall where they will be going in full scale for the client to approve one of them. DOing all the samples was is how we provide our clients with better service, we are actually trying to exceed the expectations of our clients.

new web site concept

It is Monday and that means staff meeting at KBWC. In my opinion the staff meeting is the only time that we grow as a team, it is the only time that we are all together, well that is not entirely true, there are only four of us so every day we are all together. But the staff meeting is where the finger pointing goes on. We talk about the goals of the past and present week, everyones schedule, and any supplies that we need. This meeting keeps us focused on our jobs and the many details of the jobs. It isn't a fancy meeting we hold it out in the shop at any of the work benches. this week we discussed the progress of job 99, and what remains to be done, we went over a few little things that need to be done for job 115. we are going to build a cherry counter top this week that will go in a cabinet show room. this is good for us, we are trying to get more wood counter top work. So any customers that see this wood top at this showroom will be directed to us for bidding. This is just the kind of thing I am interested in. Woodwork for the trades. In this case it's Carol Industries, they are a supplier of cabinets, windows and doors, and many other fixtures, they are located hear in Woburn and have a very impressive showroom.

I was on Dodds Woodworking web site recently and I have to say that is one of the most impressive sites I have seen by a woodworker. What made it different is that they have a video, so the viewer can sit back and watch, no clicking involved, no reading just watching. excellent work Dodds.

keeping our platform wide

below is a photo of some Shoji doors that Gagan made, beautiful work Gagan. this work was done for FH Perry, one of our most prestigious clients. Below that is a very nice cabinet, single piece we were fortune it enough that when the toe kick was not there we could angle it through a double door.