Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

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Joe Dusel
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Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Joe Dusel »

I'm having a job milled where I am putting in lots of outsourced solid maple dovetailed drawer boxes, so of course I need the hardware holes and drawer box sizes. In order to do this I have to make up a generic drawer box using "NO-CUT" materials. As you folks with CNCs I'm sure already know, this can be a pain in the butski for those milling the job. It would be REALLY nice to have a check box for Outsourced Drawer Boxes in the Cabinet Editor so that all of the holes are drilled for the slide selected, the drawer box sizes show up in the cut list and most importantly the drawer box materials don't end up in the nest or the TWD file.

If this is important to you please speak up so that Thermwood hears this.

If I am just being a bonehead let me know that as well.

Joe
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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Gary Campbell »

Joe...
Agree on both.. 8)

I do exactly what you said. Make a draw box of Solid Maple NOCUT. The first even had the dovetails included, but Kerry set me straight on that. I do use it as a "build in house" with proper dado depths to return accurate front, back, sides and bottom sizes to the cutlist. Before making the TWD I filter out the NOCUT materials. They will appear, but not be selected in the Link when I go to cut.

It seems that drawers are one of the items that slow down eCabs. It would make sense not to require that they are in a drawer cabinet unless you are actually going to cut them. Having an option to apply the hole pattern without a physical draw box in place would make me happy and take care of 90% of my requirements. The other 10% I would have to deal with the reduced refresh speeds.

Just kidding about agreeing with the bonehead!
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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Joe Dusel »

Well, you are right. I was a bonehead for not bringing this up years ago.

Joe
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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Gary Puckett »

I disagree I out source all my drawers, I always use blum tandem drawer slides( they have got to be the easiest slide in the world to apply ) my supplier puts in the rear notch and pin hole. I make tyhe correct settings for the drawer box, place it in the cabinet bam it's done. Point my arrow on the drawer it tells me the size I make the call were done.

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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by BEN HOLM »

I out source all my drawers too and don't use a CNC (yet) but I agree that it would be nice if we did not have the drawer box's on the cut list and in the material list. I like to print out everything and order from there and it does not work on the drawers because you cant get an easy Hight x width x depth to order off of. And its a pain to go through and hold your mouse over every drawer and write it down on a large job.
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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Kerry Fullington »

Ben,

Export your cut list to Excel and click on the Drawer Boxes Listing tab and you will get the size listing that you want.
drawers.jpg
drawers.jpg (155.22 KiB) Viewed 11124 times
I have used a macro to clean up the file names and sort the list but the point is you can get your outsourced drawer box sizes here.

Kerry
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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Gary Campbell »

Kerry, Gary...
IF I take Joe's suggestion as I think he wrote it, and selected outsource for the draw boxes, wouldnt the draw box sizes show up just fine in the Buy List? I interpreted his suggestion as looking for an option to eliminate the rendering and machining calculations that go along with draw boxes, while allowing application of harware patterns and output of the 3 simple numbers that define a draw box.

If we are going to outsource any component we only need 3 dimensions and a spec to purchase. Why calculate the vast numbers of joints & sizes for draw boxes or outsourced doors for that matter, unless they are needed?
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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Joe Dusel »

That is exactly what I meant Gary. When outsourcing drawer boxes we just need the hardware holes drilled and the W x H x D dimensions put in the Buy List. We need an Alternate Source check box in the Cabinet Editor to allow us to do this. Currently the software is carrying way too much baggage with it. That's why everything slows to a crawl with any big job.

I just want this to be the best and easiest to use cabinet design software available. Am I asking too much? 8)

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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Kerry Fullington »

Gary, Joe,

I agree that there needs to be a setting for outsourced drawer boxes so that you can price them and not have the materials show up on the cut list when you are not building drawers. I just wanted to let Ben know that you can get a list of drawer sizes.
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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Donald Thomson »

Does anyone know if Thermwood put this on the wish list for one of the future releases? The ability to outsource/alternate source drawer boxes like we can with doors and drawers fronts would be GREAT to have.

I've found that it costs me more to make drawer boxes using blind tenon joinery on 5/8" BB then it costs to purchase dovetailed solid maple boxes, with eased edges, notched and drilled for blumotion slides and finished. So needless to say, to save myself a lot of time and the customer some money I am now outsourcing. Just having the W"xH"xD" is all we need like in alternate sourced doors and drawers. I can plug theses numbers into my estimating spreadsheet and each drawerbox cost is automatically calculated. Great time saver. And like other folks have said, boy would it speed up eCabs not having to do all the drawer box calculations each time your click the mouse button.

Please, Please, Thermwood????? :D :D
Sincerely,

Don Thomson
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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Tim Massa »

Yeah,

I would agree with that suggestion as I'm outsourcing most of my drawers now. That would be a huge help.

Tim
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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Kerry Fullington »

Don, Tim,

Export your cutlist to Excel and that information is under the Drawer Boxes Listing tab.
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Re: Drawer Box Pains... Suggestion

Post by Donald Thomson »

Thanks Kerry,

This is exactly what I do already. I've got a spreadsheet that I can plug these numbers in to and it will give me an estimate for each drawer box. I do the same thing with doors and drawer faces. I just use the latest sq. ft. pricing from my vendor and viola, accurate estimate.
Sincerely,

Don Thomson
Diamond Lake Custom Woodworks, LLC
509-671-6230
Newport, WA
http://www.dlwoodworks.com
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