Do Pros use rough sawn boards for Kitchen cabinet builds?

[Bill Space]

Just have to ask this question!

I am turning some boards that came from an ash tree on the property into dimensioned boards for a kitchen I am building in my “hobby house”. This is on the property next door which I bought just before retiring. I bought it for the land and to ensure we would not have to deal with an undesirable neighbor during our remaining years (decades hopefully ). So there is no rush to get the house finished. I basically gutted the place and except for the basic frame everything inside is new, or will be.

Anyway, I have concluded it must be impractical for a pro to mill his own lumber to be used in making cabinets, unless possibly if it is a high end (read very expensive) installation. Just seems like it would be much more efficient time wise to buy demensioned lumber and “just get it done”.

Curious to hear how close I am to hitting the target with this conclusion.

Bill

[johnny means]

You would be wrong there. Keep in mind that using s4s only means that you paid someone else to do the milling. There really is no way to eliminate that cost. Many shops do farm out certain operations, everything from milling to drawer and door building. Some shops even farm out cabinet part production. But this is more about choosing what you want to concentrate on or have the ability to do and less about actual profitability. In my experience, the big manufacturers pretty much have a lock on semi custom and operate very lean. So all that's left for the little guy is the total custom end of the market.

[Andrew Joiner]

I was a self employed pro from 1971 to 1994. Made mostly store fixtures and office furniture. The first 4 years I used S2S and jointed edges. After that I only bought S3S. The upcharge over rough was tiny. I was in a big city and ordered from 3 wholesale yards that delivered for free. 95% of it was flat and straight. Lumber that I rejected was rare, but the yards would pick it up for free and give me full credit.
For me it was way faster and cheaper to order S3S.

[Bill Space]

Some years ago I bought what is called here surfaced two sides, one straight edge. I think this is what Andrew is referring to as S3S.

Time difference between what I am doing now and using that s2s one straight edge stuff is huge. For me anyway.

This is what drove my question. Just seems like there would be more money to be made building and installing cabinets than milling lumber. Don’t really know, hence the question.

[bill tindall]

For 35 years we sold rough, KD, graded lumber to local cabinet shops. Some tiny shops lacked a planer and we sold the lumber surfaced on the faces to them.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Depends on the cabinets in my shop, usually I order with a straight edge and S2S for all things paint grade and lower quality. If it's more expensive, I like to do all the milling. I rarely build whole kitchens though, generally just a custom cabinet built to match what they have, built ins, or customizing something one of the big companies made. The guys who exclusively do cabinets for a living probably have a different approach.

[Andrew Seemann]

I'm not a pro, but anytime I need more than about 100 bd ft of something, I just have the yard do a S2S & SL1E (surface 2 sides plus a straight line rip), and have it delivered. It isn't worth my time to drive 50 mies round trip, pick out lumber, and then stand in front of the jointer and planer for a couple hours. Plus there is the wear and tear on my knives (and body). Whatever they use doesn't leave any snipe, and the surface finish isn't too bad. Sometimes I might have them do a 7/8ths hit and miss if I want to do the final planing for some reason. I have even had them rip to width if I needed enough of something and was in a time crunch, like when I redid all the trim on the first floor of my old house.

If I were a pro, I would definitely have them do it for me. To me, jointing and thicknessing wood is the most drudgerous part of woodworking, and it would be the first thing I would outsource.

[Andrew Joiner]

It isn't worth my time to drive 50 mies round trip, pick out lumber, and then stand in front of the jointer and planer for a couple hours. Plus there is the wear and tear on my knives (and body).

Right Andrew. Even if I would've gotten rough hardwood for free it would cost more than paying for S3S hardwood.
To drive any distance, sort, load, and unload. Then face joint, plane, edge joint with hand feeding long stock thru the jointer. The costs for labor and maintenance on the machines would add up.

[Mel Fulks]

I have had to use pre- dressed at times ,as an employee. Think glue joints are best done with wood that is not twisted.
I like useing my skill to dress material. Sometimes the real reason the wood is bought dressed is management will not
demand that workers cut down on breaks and improve skills.

[Larry Edgerton]

Depends on the cabinets in my shop, usually I order with a straight edge and S2S for all things paint grade and lower quality. If it's more expensive, I like to do all the milling. I rarely build whole kitchens though, generally just a custom cabinet built to match what they have, built ins, or customizing something one of the big companies made. The guys who exclusively do cabinets for a living probably have a different approach.

Kinda where I am at. I do whole kitchens but they are usually over the top or I would not get them. If I was Martin, I would do it his way.

About 70% the time I order s2s rough planed to 15/16. Then it is clean, or relatively so and save on planer inserts. With stubborn woods like Jatoba I want it in the rough so I can sneak up on the final size myself. I do not find any of my suppliers planers are as good as mine so I prefer to plane it myself just before I produce the parts, leaving it at 15/16 until I am ready to use it. Chips are not a factor, I blow them outside and clean up with a tractor.

Define Pro. Some would say I am not a pro because I don't have a big enough gross, others would think Martins operation is small, and some who make custom furniture may not look at it the same way as most.

[Andrew Joiner]

Define Pro. Some would say I am not a pro because I don't have a big enough gross, others would think Martins operation is small, and some who make custom furniture may not look at it the same way as most.

Good idea Larry.
To me me it's anyone who gets paid. Within that there's full time pro and part time pro. Some may work "under the table" and not claim income. I was a full time tax paying cabinetmaker with a side job as a landlord.

[Mark Bolton]

I agree with the pro definition being if its your living. Size/scale isnt really a factor.

Its always true that every job is different but the surfacing lumber thing seems to me to always come down to the type of work you do, and the margins in the work you do. Unless you have a good profit margin in your day to day work, or your have a massive shop with on-board and in-house sharpening, massive investment in dust collection, which = volume as opposed to margin,there is no way you can surface material in your shop and be profitable as opposed to buying it in dressed at some level. Anyone who has stood in front of a single sided planer for 1MBF of material realizing all the while that when they are through the pile they are a long ways from done will gladly hand you the $0.17 a foot it costs to bring it in where you want it. Same with straight lining if you dont have an SLR. There is no way you can be profitable surfacing your own material unless your doing boutique work.

Our supplier runs a massive two sided planer that takes dead rough to any thickness we ask in a single pass. All the chips are never handled, they are blown into a hopper and then fed into the boilers that feed the dry kilns. There is no bins, hoppers, tractor trailers to empty and move. Zero. They consider their planer a "roughing" planer with on-board sharpening the material is usable right out of the pack. Even bringing it in skipped at 15/16 is a waste for us when we are working with 4/4 because we've got to take it to size, knicks in the knives, resharp, hauling chips, emptying drums, blowing out filters.

On high end work with grain matching/sorting/color, interior and exterior doors, thats not your typical "cabinet shop" that other than panel glue ups is working with relatively small parts. For the high end work it makes some sense though even there I'd be letting the big boys take off every bit of material I could and bringing it in with just enough to leave me room. Handling chips is by far the biggest time suck in the shop for me.

[Martin Wasner]

We buy S2S. In a production environment, if you don't have a moulder or double sided planer surfacing everything, it takes too long in my opinion.

We have a rip saw, so I don't see the need to buy it with a clean edge. When we didn't, I always ordered S3S.

Then there's the sawdust. Tough to deal with in a small shop when emptying the collector isn't automatic.

[Richard Coers]

I ran my shop from '87-95. I started ordering rough sawn, then a couple years in I would order it hit or miss to 15/16" off a strat-o-planer. The mill I was ordering from, would send me rough sawn 4/4 that could be almost 1 1/4" thick. It took a lot of effort to get it to 7/8 or 13/16.

[Wayne Lomman]

If it is cabinet joinery, purchasing straightline gauged timber is OK provided you have a good supplier. Buy it from a big box store and you are in deep trouble.

If it is precision work as in chair making and the like, it is not worth paying the mill to dress it as sizes are odd, you have to select every piece for figure and colour etc so rough sawn is best.

As with most things, it is not a one size fits all answer. The best solution is worked out when estimating the job so that you allow the correct times and resources. If it is line ball on cost, I always take on the labour myself. Why not keep busy? Subcontracting is for stuff you either don't want to do or can't do and I would rather pay myself than a subbie. But then I am perfectly happy standing at a machine for days, especially when I can look out over the farm and beyond to the World Heritage reserves of Western Tasmania. Cheers