My Dad is majority owner and president of Maplecraft Doors in St. Catharines, Ontario. I wasn’t going to share, because a little creative googling and anyone can figure out my exact identity, but whatever.
Anyways, I never had much to do with it – Dad (and Mom) bought into it after I moved out. I’ve been spending time there lately, though, helping Dad mill his own flooring after hours.
I snapped some photos last night, and I’ll amalgamate them into a little tour. But bear in mind that I’m more or less a tourist, too! I’m not going to be able to give an adequate description of the entire process.
Edit: I’m going to resize them all.
Edited 3/4/2008 8:57 am ET by Biff_Loman
Edited 3/4/2008 9:56 am ET by Biff_Loman
Replies
Here we go! The tour begins.
Btw, if anyone can tell me how to post my attached photos IN my message, I'd appreciate it. I'll gladly go back and insert them. . . I think this is too much to ask of Rez. ;-)
Here's the cube van again:
Inventory! MCD makes nothing but solid wood cabinet doors, so this is all 'select' hardwoods. In this area, the wood is sorted into AA, A, B, and paint grade. Sorry it's so dark. I couldn't figure out how to turn the camera flash off. The rest of the photos are lit much better.
This is the 'Opticut' saw. I think that's a play on words with 'optimum' and 'optical,' because it uses an electronic eye to cut out knots. . . optimally. This is the first process applied to the wood.
Here's one of two Weinig moulders. They each have four heads: two for the edges, and two for the faces. Functionally, they are identical, but if I understand correctly, one is used for milling lumber to precise dimensions, and they swap heads out of the other for shaping profiles.
I got the impression that the shop was a very safe place in comparison with a job site.
I have no idea what this is, but it's in the moulding area. So I'm going to guess that it's either a rough sander or a thickness planer. It looks similar to other sanding machines in the shop.
The wood is sorted into stock for panels and for rails and stiles. Here are some panels that have already been glued up.The panels are sorted according to species and rough dimensions. They later make their way to the panel saw for precise cutting.
Here's the panel saw: an Altendorf sliding table saw. This one I have used this one to cut gables and shelves for cabinets. It's electronically controlled. Just punch in your dimension in millimeters and the fence or stops move on their own.Doesn't mean it's easy to figure out, though! Each of these machines has a learning curve, which is one of the reasons I don't use the shop for personal projects. I wanted to use the Altendorf another time, but some setting was wrong and I couldn't get it to work, so I gave up.
Rails, stiles and raised panels are shaped in - wait for it - the shaping department! There's a whole array of shapers here, around forty. The idea is to cut down on swapping heads; they're not all in use at once.There's a bewildering variety of shapers. Many of them are familiar - just a bad-azz router table - but a couple of them stumped me, and I couldn't quite grasp how they're used.Anyways: shaper heads!
Shapers:
The biggest 'shaper' of them all: the CNC router. Production time on this machine is so valuable that Dad won't use it for his personal projects. It'll be a cold day in hell before I get a crack at this. ;-)The CNC machine makes cathedral-style door panels to any dimension, and can cut out curved mullions and do all kinds of tricks.
This one stumped me at first, but I think it's a wheel-puller on steroids, for taking cutters off their shafts.
Edited 3/4/2008 9:46 am ET by Biff_Loman
It's not all high-tech. It's a custom shop, so skilled employees are a key asset. There's a lot of small-scale fine wood-working going on parallel to the hundreds of shaker doors that are made each day.The door in photo 1486: each one of those requires about 4 hours of hand-work AFTER the pieces have been made by the CNC. The router table in 1497 is a bet of a let-down after the CNC. ;-)
This air compressor powers the humidification system for the 42 000 ft^2 shop. The whole place is 45% relative humidity, if I remember correctly.The production air compressor is significantly larger; I'll post of a shot of that later on.
If you strain your eyes, you can see one of the panel presses in the back left corner.
I should have posted this earlier! There are three of these saws; they're used to cut up stock prior to being shaped. Again, the stop is electronically controlled.The blade shoots up from below the table. They call them 'safety saws.' Lots of precautions are taken to avoid injury at this place. Just don't get pinched by the stop. ;-)
Edited 3/4/2008 10:18 am ET by Biff_Loman
Here's a small double-ended shaper. There are a few of these. I counted three, but I think another was hiding somewhere.
And the BIG double-ended shaper. This machine can open to 9' wide. Incredible capacity - we used this to put the T&G on the ends of Dad's flooring. Not user-friendly. This is a another great example of why I don't use these machines during off-hours. The machine's concept is simple, but it's a challenge to get them working correctly, even if you've got all the safety lock-outs figured out. You always have to impose on the employees who use these every day - and who are not enthusiastic about you messing up their workstation.Edit: The primary purpose of this machine is to take doors that - to my eyes - are already perfectly square, and make them square to +/- 0.5 mm.Edited 3/4/2008 10:28 am ET by Biff_Loman
Edited 3/4/2008 11:12 am ET by Biff_Loman
I wasn't able to get a lot of shots of assembly. By the end of the day, all the doors are set up and already stacked on carts.Paint-grade wood gets turned into rails and stiles for doors, but usually not panels. Panels for paint-grade doors are typically MDF, like this one.
Edited 3/4/2008 11:06 am ET by Biff_Loman
Here's one of three sanding machines. This one's a finish sander. I'm not sure what grit this one uses, but I know the 'rough' sander uses 160 grit. This one is finer. Stock coming out of this sander is ready to be sprayed by the customer.
This is a typical order of doors and drawer-fronts. I think it's waiting to be rolled over to shipping.
They also produce quite a lot of wainscotting.
I'm not 100% certain what a typical day's output is. I know that 1000 doors is a good busy day, but something like 800 is more normal.So even though the error rate is low, there's no shortage of damaged or mis-built doors. Sad stories are sold to the public for peanuts. I've included a shot of this room because it illustrates the variety of doors produced.
Here's the air compressor room! The heat and noise in here is incredible. I skipped the earplugs, to quickly snap these shots, and I was out in a flash.It seems like everything in the place is either controlled or powered by air.
Check out the switch for the dust collection system. That is. . . just a switch.
That's it. I had to get to work, so I didn't really get all of it, but I think I captured the important points. You can't really see from one end to the other; the entrances between the rooms aren't aligned. So I got as long a shot as I could.My camera makes it look dark and creepy, but it's well-lit. I need to figure out the flash.Anyways - I hope you enjoyed this!
Edited 3/4/2008 12:09 pm ET by Biff_Loman
You know, five minutes ago, I thought I new a my fair share about woodworking.
I now know that I don't know jack.
But seriously, thanks for sharing. That was perfect.
That was great, thanks. "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Invictus, by Henley.
Very cool tour thanks for that. A buddy of mine has a woodshop in Brooklyn and a couple of years ago he flew up to Toronto to pick-up a used V-jointer for a mere $150K.
Here i thought having a half-dozen routers was deep clover...LOL!Thanks for the tour. I had looked up the website yesterday. ;^)
Here i thought having a half-dozen routers was deep clover...
LOL....me too.
Now I'm left wondering how I'm gonna fit all that stuff in my garage.
Better yet....get it past the wife.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Pp, Qq
Thanks for the pics. When you get a chance could you take a close up pic of the tooling. Looks like they have a lot of insert tooling and I am curious what brands they use.
Um. . . you'll have to be more specific. You want the brands of the cutters? Or all the shapers and so forth? There has to be half a dozen different manufacturers represented.
Edited 3/4/2008 6:22 pm ET by Biff_Loman
Yes and yes with close up pics of shaper cutters.
there's no shortage of damaged or mis-built doors
View Image
Damn man I see some projects waiting to happen there! Wish your place was closer. Maybe see if Rez wants to take a trip to Canada!
Cool thread, I've ran a few of those machines like the 4 head Weinig and the Altendorf sliding table saw, currently have a Robland but same principle, and I thought I'd ran some serious shapers but I see that I have been playing with toys! Some of those things that you pictured are completely Canadian to me.
Thanks for sharing and why the hell are you not taking advantage of this opportunity to take over for the old man when he's ready to call it quits!
Doug
Take over from Dad? Mass stress. . . There's actually a family farm, too: 30 acres of grapes. But that's farmed by an employee, now.If anything, I'd buy that. Like 1000x times less interpersonal stress. Not enough to make anyone rich, though, but whatever. Cheaper, too; less capital to scrape up.I dunno. Dad's a natural leader, very extroverted, always in positions of responsibility, extremely driven. I have much different set of strengths. . . not sure I'd ever be fit to play ringmaster in that circus.
30 acres of grapes That be a lot of grapes!
I thought you were headed to the electrical apprenticeship program? Did you make that move or rethink it?
Doug
The discarded doors - yeah! They're best for paint-grade projects, because you can hunt for style and disregard species. But if you have a small project and only need a couple doors: yeah, there's some beautiful, perfectly good product there.
Who would have thought they're my supplier. Great products.
Do you know how are the panels glued up? Is there any automation involved with the gluing or clamping or all hand work?
I thought I had a good shot of one of the presses, but I don't. It's hard to describe.There are a series of six pneumatic clamps arranged in a rotary fashion, like a water wheel. A worker lays the stock into the clamp, with glue, and the clamp shuts via air pressure. It then rotates down and presents the next clamp to the worker. I think they use an aliphatic resin glue. Whatever it is, it requires very little clamping time. I think the machine is designed so that the worker can continually remove panels that have set, and replace them with stock to be glued.I. . . may not have that all perfectly correct, but I hope you get the idea.
Edited 3/4/2008 9:55 am ET by Biff_Loman
I think you are talking about these:http://www.jamesltaylor.com/products/edge_gluing/default.asp
Same concept, yeah. Thanks!I'll post the photo I have, but it doesn't really capture it.
Edited 3/4/2008 10:12 am ET by Biff_Loman
I used to travel to St Catherines. Loved that city!
Bill
Links to copying pictures
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=99861.25
I this what you are looking for.
Pictures that are copied to the post are hard on the dial up folks.
Rich
Maybe I'll just stick with what I'm doing, then, for the sake of those on 56k. I've got a lot of pictures.
Biff, very cool. You're helping me put together a Christmas wish list!
You're doing a great job of resizing. And with this many photos, I appreciate the fact that you're not imbedding them. My dial-up connection is at a meager 9.6 kbs today. The best ever is 26.
Allen
That was/is really really cool.
Ten days later. . . Hey, you're welcome! This'll serve as a bump, in case someone missed this who might be interested.