Suggestions for production plywood cutting required.

Try Automation Devices in Mt. Belview, TX ( 281-383-3403 ) Lon builds custom machinery to customer specs and does an excellent job. Good luck. BTW - what part of the country are you planning to locate in?

Depending on specic requirements you could look at shop-bot.

| Hello All, | | I'm costing putting together a company to manufacture house panels | and am looking for tool suggestions for cutting plywood & particle | board in various configurations in a production type atmosphere | (ie. preferably automated). Any suggestions on where to start my | research would be greatly appreciated.

I'd suggest you start by narrowing the problem:

It's fairly difficult to provide a meaningful answer without that information.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

hey Mo- how much does a saw weigh?

Thanks for the response.

I'm in the preliminaries of putting together the game plan but here's what I have:

standard 4'x8' sheets

initially no until I can prove the market and am up and running and more experienced with which tools justify their cost

again - too early to tell

how long is a piece of string? I was looking at initial start-up of between $50k - $100k to include everything. I'd prefer something a little more labour intensive at the start and then upgrade at a later date.

My last business was a stainless shop and I made the mistake of following my ex-partner's suggestions on what tools to purchase, we bought all new equipment which most of we barely used or could have purchases on the used market for 25% .... but we still made very nice breweries. So am trying to get a feel for what is out there (prior to sticking my foot in my mouth) and what each level of automation costs/ production output.

Regards,

Darryl

yeah yeah - how longs a piece of string?

| Thanks for the response. | | I'm in the preliminaries of putting together the game plan but | here's what I have: | | [1] How big are the house panels and what materials in what sizes | and || shapes are you wanting to cut? | | standard 4'x8' sheets | || [2] Do you want to automate just the cutting - or do you want || assembly, too? | | initially no until I can prove the market and am up and | running and more experienced with which tools justify their cost | || [3] What is your panel per day/hour/minute/second target? | | again - too early to tell | || [4] How much are you _willing_ to spend? :-) | | how long is a piece of string? I was looking at initial | start-up of between $50k - $100k to include everything. I'd prefer | something a little more labour intensive at the start and then | upgrade at a later date. | | My last business was a stainless shop and I made the mistake of | following my ex-partner's suggestions on what tools to purchase, we | bought all new equipment which most of we barely used or could have | purchases on the used market for 25% .... but we still made very | nice breweries. So am trying to get a feel for what is out there | (prior to sticking my foot in my mouth) and what each level of | automation costs/ production output.

Darryl...

You might take a close look at used ShopBot CNC routers. I've seen 'em offered for as low as US$2K (once) and a number of times in the $6K ballpark. The PRT-96 standard machine can handle 4x8 sheet stock and can handle internal cut-outs.

Having taken that close look, it might pay you to lurk at the CNCZone forum and learn how to build your own machine - it's not as difficult as you'd probably imagine. I think you could probably design and build a combination saw/router CNC machine for an amount around $2500 if you shop carefully. OTS motor controllers make it relatively easy to use inexpensive control software (I'm not sure if there's freeware available; but it'd be worth looking for.)

Typically, you'd create a DXF (drawing) file and feed that (or a converted version of that) to your control software, which would then control the cutting to produce what you'd drawn. No magic required; and relatively little cash needed.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA