Adjustable Shelf Holes Wish

[Forrest Chapman]

This is what my ends look like. No way to confuse bottom with top.

[Jason Susnjara]

Hi Michael,

I am unsure how this will affect the hinge holes. Generally with system holes, hinge holes, slide holes, and adj shelf holes use the two rows of holes generated. This won't be available until sometime after V6.

thanks,

[Gene Davis]

This \"wish list\" request is one of those that should be relegated to the \"not such a good idea\" bin.

Furthermore, the thread has sidetracked into a discussion of how the software might address True32-like \"system hole\" design. Probably another \"not such a good idea.\"

George's wish is that the shelfpin hole groups, presumably only for cabinets with adjustable shelves only (wallcabs, mostly) be mirrored about a horizontal center axis, so that L and R cab sides can be reversible, and therefore idiot-proof.

His concept would have to also address hinge preps and door machining, door reveals, etc., and would turn into a bigger can of worms that one would want.

The need for such idiot proofing of cab sides only exists when one has a construction method where deck and top joinery and construction parameters are identical. Few build their cabs this way.

It seems far better to idiot proof cab assembly by designing joinery differently, or using the part editor to place an inobtrusive bored hole somewhere to indicate T or B, as suggested here.

As for the system hole need, why in the world would the software need to address that niche of the cab parts market? Has not that all been obsoleted by CNC router technology?

Should the software have complex options for addressing all possible means of making parts beyond Thermwood CNC and basic straightline saw shop operations? If so, why?

[Michael Yeargain]

I think Gene hit the nail on the head.

My opinion is... This software has nearly unlimited capabilities. Why introduce an option that will confuse some people. Myself included. The system 32 does not seem to fit the software. The programmers can develop a directory of system 32 cabinets separate from the custom users directory. I would like to remind you that we have been told a few times that some of our suggestions will not be put on the wish list, because this is custom software. However, there are other topics that need attention albeit without the thread jacking.

All of this being said it makes me wonder; Why introduce the system 32 in the first place? Some things just need to be made idiot proof by getting rid of the idiots. While others are unavoidable. I am very much an advocate for making the left and right wall cabinet ends interchangeable. But for the time being, just make the top or bottom construction methods different. That will solve that problem until such a time.

Again my opinion.

[Georgi Baltov]

Now, where the hell did you go with your posts and all your thoughts on my simple wish. All that I need is a check box that says \"center shelf holes\"/\"center shelf\". You blew it out adding stuff and then criticizing me for adding dumb wishes. I dont know how you build but I know how many problems I've had. Every one here says the software has unlimited capabilities. It is not a bad software but I've had so many cabinets that I couldnt built. You use the software for rendering a lot. You can flip and adjust and add parts to the cabinet to make it work for the layout. After all those modifications you get a cabinet that looks exactly the way you wantedf it. Now go and try to cut that cabinet and put all hardware holes inside and then talk to me. It has lots of work in eCabinets to make it as flexible as other software on the market. It has good features and the thermwood team is working great to add even more but dont tell me it's perfect the way it is right now.

[Georgi Baltov]

For futire it'll be great if you can add display panel in a cabinet, associate it and create some kind of joint with the cabinet. Blind dado, full dado and so on. Make the strecher part editable. Everything that goes in a cabinet should be editable. This is the idea of custom. Curves need to be addressed. Try to cover the front of a curved cabiner. I can give you an example. Send you pictures and drawings of stuff that you can try and build and see how long it takes. You can make it look properly but building it will be hell.

As far as I am concerned for sure there are good and bad ideas but I dont care about your opinion I am here to give suggestions. If my idea is going to be incorporated that's a decision that the thermwood ecab programmers will make. Dont give me opinions what is smart and stupid. Everyones case is custom and has a reason to ask.

[Gene Davis]

Georgi, may we presume that you want the shelf hole group centering done for wall cabinets only?

May we also presume that your wish is driven solely for the purpose of having idiot-proof assembly in the shop, with L and R sides interchangeable?

Additionally, may we presume that you ask the CNC program to bore your hinge hardware holes in cabinet sides?

One more assumption: may we presume that your hinge hardware holes are at somewhere near a 37mm front edge offset, and that hinge plates holes are separate from shelf pin holes? In other words, your first row of shelf pin holes is offset more or less than the 37mm offset of your hinge plate holes?

Oooooopppppsssss! One more, and this one is as key as the rest. May we presume either a.) that your top and bottom door reveals for these cabinets are always equal, or b.) that you are satisfied with having \"unbalanced\" (and therefore NOT idiot-proof) doors, ones for which the hinge prep centering offsets, top to bottom, are NOT equal???

Because unless I am missing something, this is the only way one can design a top/bottom flippable wallcab, and it only works when it is a two-door (paired and butted) cabinet. An idiot can successfully build a one-door cabinet, but an idiot INSTALLER can sure get it wrong, at least half the time. He'll screw it to the wall L when it should go R.

Will you please respond to this in some detail, so I can understand whether your need is focused on JUST ONE WALL CAB TYPE, that of a paired butt-door cab, or something beyond this.

Because I cannot see how this can apply to any type of basecab, unless it is one with no drawers, has all adjustable shelves, and a full top. And that is a rare one indeed.

Finally, let me qualify myself. I don't own a Thermwood machine, but I do outsource my parts cutting via production sharing. I don't use the software for rendering nice pictures, but for designing real cabinets that can readily be built. I am new to this software, and have only a few jobs done with it so far, but I am not new to building what I design. I am an engineer with many years of complex product design and development experience. As for furniturebuilding and cabinetmaking, I began doing that as a serious hobbyist way back in 1972, and have been getting paid to do it for almost ten years now.

[Georgi Baltov]

Gene,

now we have a nice conversation going. I will answer all of your questions one by one.

1) In wall units I assume you mean upper units. I guess my wish would find best application in upper units but also in lower units if lets say they are storage units like in a coppy area or something like that. We do a lot of commercial orders and we have some of these cabinets with no drawers on the base cabinets. My main idea is exactly to have an idiot proof cabinet assembly where L anr R gables are the same.

2) If I use it for base cabinets I do bore for the hinges. I only mark them in fact. The cabinet maker later screws them. We do not use the 5mm screw to attach the hinge plates to the cabinet.

3) The hinge plates are indeed separate from the shelf holes. Usually the shelf holes stand 2.5\" off the front edge of the cabinet. And the hinge holes are at 1.375\".

4) In most cases the top door reveal for bottom cabinet is 0.125\" but ig varies and can go to about 0.5\" really is the most we do. Because I only mark the hinge holes it is not fatal to flip the gable and put it on the wrong side. You can seam fill the holes if you have done that mistake. But you need a new gable if your shelf holes are wrong. And because in most cases it's just 0.125\" gap on top the holes are covered by the hinge plate even if you have fliped the gable.

5) And yes, we do build a full top. Some people think it's a waste of material but we think that it's stronger and looks better. Our clients also agree.

6) Also we build all our cabinets out of plywood. Something that is rarely used by other companies. My point was that if eCabinets is supposed to help custom furniture building then it should be a bit more flexible. You blew it out and turned it into \"idiot post\".

The fact is that everyone makes mistakes and I am trying to help the cabinet makers by simplifying their job. It's a big preasure in the shop and we are really busy and you miss some details. It was a very, extremely simple wish (wont you agree?) that just could have been answered by \"yes, we will look into it and see how hard it is to implement - if it's hard we wont do it otherwise it's going to get added\".

I know that you can measure and find the bottom/top of the gable. We always build them centered and I guess the cabinet makers assumed that now that we have a CNC we will keep doing it and when it's just 0.75\" difference their eye didnt catch it right away.

Wherever we decide to use it and whoever and whatever the cabinet and the reason it's just a wish and a good option do add. Nothing more. No other aspect of the topic really matter

[Gene Davis]

So, Georgi, you're the engineer in the office, and not the guy out managing the shop floor, right? You detail them with the software, but you don't build them? Do I have it right?

I gotta say this. You are flying blind here, buddy. You are asking for a button-tab in the software that will center your shelf pin holes vertically, simply so that cabinet sides (\"gables\") are interchangeable L and R. For only one type of wallcab, and only one type of basecab.

You are willing to let the folks on the floor build them wrong, and then fart around redrilling holes for the hinge plates, because they got them wrong.

All this in the name of part interchangeability, and for only one wall cabinet type, and one seldom-used base cabinet type.

And the way this will all work for the floor folks is this, if I have it right. Slap them together whichever way you want . . . you cannot go wrong.

Wrong! You CAN get it wrong, and you'll find out when you go to fit the doors to the cabs. If you mistook L for R, you'll need to a.) redrill for the hinge plates, all four of them, and b.) patch the unused holes that can be seen. Simple, right?

What kind of shop wants to operate like that?

You really need to get out of your software cocoon and go and study some principles of manufacturing flow, instead.

You must have plenty of basecab \"gables\" (where does that come from? I am a housebuilder, too, and don't see the transfer of meaning.) where the floor folks MUST distinguish R from L.

There are a dozen easy things you could to in eCabs right now to make your R and L wallcab sides easily recognizable when picking for assembly, and I am sure your floor people would appreciate your creativity for doing it. Save them the trouble of feeling stupid and wasting the company's money redrilling for those hinge plates.

In Bill Clinton's first run at the presidency, James Carville, his campaign manager, kept the focus on the right thing by writing on the war room's white board, in big colored letters, \"It's the economy, stupid.\"

For you, it is a shop floor thing. \"It's the FLOW, stupid.\" Make it happen with better parts detailing, and some instructive communication. Don't expect the software to do everything.

And Georgi, please don't take offense of my use of the word \"stupid.\" I am not calling you stupid. I am simply using the word, as Mr Carville did with Mr Clinton (who is not stupid, either), to get you to focus on the right thing.

[DanEpps]

Unless I'm missing something, adding an adjustable shelf already centers the holes--as long as you have the same even number of holes \"up\" and \"down.\"

Here's what I do when adding multiple adjustable shelves. I determine how many total shelf holes I need (must be an odd number to work) and subtract 1. Then I divide the remaining number by 2 to get an equal number of \"up\" and \"down\" holes.

After adding the first shelf I adjust the top opening to make it smaller by half the thickness of the shelf. Then I go back into construction settings and uncheck the box for \"Apply Shelf Holes\" and add the remaining shelves.

This results in multiple adjustable shelves and the holes are centered in the case. They will remain centered unless you move the original shelf from its location.

[Michael S Murray]

Hi Guys,
Wanted to add my two cents to this, I have extensive experience in both ways.

I started out using e-cabs software with panel saws and line boring equipment. During this period, if you go back and look at my posts, you will find I was on the 32mm line boring bandwagon and I gurantee you had more than one post about it. Trying to design in e-cABS for 32 mm balanced panels and all that go with it is not a lot of fun and is a lot of frustration.I will also add that when I was using panel saws and line boring, I thought the 32mm system by whatever name you would like to call it was the cats ass, thought anybody that did not use it was an IDIOT!!

Well, now I have a router and even if the software ran 32mm system with perfection i would not consider going back to it. Now when I look in to one of my old cabinets or some one elses 32mm system hole cabinets, I just think what a MESS and a whole lot of wasted time drilling holes that will never be used and dont look very attractive.

AS far as idiot proofing, are you using labels, mine say deck, top, left side, right side. If that is not enough, offset your joinery so they wont fisically fit.

AS far as the developers spending time on 32mm system holes, I would also vote to spend the time on something else, there are many other areas that need attention, such as strechers and drawer box editors.

I say this as some one who has cut and assembled a lot of cabinets, a lot of different ways, both residential and commercial.

I would agree that it would be nice to have a central area to talk about future software developments, that way everyone could weigh in and discuss the plus or minus of different ideas. I am sure all our needs are very different and we all have slightly different priorities

[Gene Davis]

Thanks to you, Dan, Georgi now has the solution he needs. And the software does it right out of the can.

Does this prove out in practice, on the shop floor, checking for up-down mirroring, using measuring instruments or jigs, to check?

Will it work for him if he resizes his seed cab by changing height of cab? I don't think so, but I don't have access to my eCabs program to test it.

I still stand by my position, however, that he needs to work on manufacturing flow, and not parts interchangeability for wallcab sides.

Furthermore, I prefer that wallcabs with multiple shelves have as few extra holes as may be needed, for future shelf repositioning. My customers don't like to see rows of shelf pin holes top to bottom, particularly on wallcabs with glass doors and interior lighting.

[Michael S Murray]

Hey Dan, the shelf is centered, not the holes, that is what throws the 32mm system holes off if you were trying to truly design balance panels.

[DanEpps]

Hey Dan, the shelf is centered, not the holes, that is what throws the 32mm system holes off if you were trying to truly design balance panels.

That's why you subtract 1/2 the thickness of the shelf. The shelf sits on top of the center hole. By subtracting 1/2 the thickness you effectively move the shelf so it is centered over the top of the hole. I suppose it would actually be more precise to also subtract 1/2 the hole diameter so the center of the shelf is over the center of the hole.

Of course the actual shelf isn't displayed over the enter of the hole, this just offsets the hole locations by that amount.

Will it work for him if he resizes his seed cab by changing height of cab?

Not without adjusting the opening above the shlef that "owns" the holes.

Bear in mind that all joinery is "owned" by a cabinet part. Changing that part changes the location of the joinery, or holes in the case.

[Gene Davis]

But Mike, Dan fixes that by doing the extra operation of offsetting the shelf by half its thickness.

Now he's got an array of holes, reaching from up high, going to down low, and the center holes in the array are on the cab side's midway beltline. Not exactly, though, as he points out with his \"half the hole diameter\" comment, but close enough for Georgi.

To me, it is still an example of what the software can do for you in a workaround. But I maintain it is still the entirely wrong solution for what Georgi wants to accomplish on the shop floor.

And thanks for throwing water on the 32mm drill-it-full-of-holes thing. With CNC and routers, it seems SOooooo last week.