Grain Match on multiple adjacent cabinets?

[TonyGiunta]

I was wonderering if this is possible. I know the Group Parts feature seems to want to do this for a single selected cabinet. Lets say I have a base section of cabinets all of which the dr/dwr front grain runs 90 or horizontally. And I know the cabinets in this elevation are within an 8' length. Since all the fronts combined are within the material size (4x8) can I get them to be pulled out of a single sheet so that the grain will match across the cabinets? If not in the software, can this be done at the machine? (I don't have one)

Thanks.

[Brad McIntosh]

Tony,

Control Nesting has added Grain Matching to the EXCEL FILES function. (Not exactly sure at what version it was introduced, but fr sure any CN release this year should be good to go.) I am not sure if the details about it have been added to the more recent HELP files or not. The attacted document is what I have given to some of our clients. Maybe it will be helpful to you.

[TonyGiunta]

Thanks Brad for the response and PDF. I don't have, at the machine CNC experience, but obviously an experienced machine operator would undersatnd this better. In short though I understand the concept and that you say it can be done. I have attached a jpg as an example of the cabinets I am trying to apply this to.

My next question would be: If I were to send this out to a Production Sharing shop, would I do anything different in my basic eCabinet programming and how best to communicate/prep to hand over for minimal exposure to outcome error and time consumption ($) for the Production Sharing Shop?

Again Thanks

[TonyGiunta]

Forgot to ask. How would this affect, if at all, pull hole borings or any other additional part editor cuts on the dr/dwr fronts?

[Brad McIntosh]

Tony,

Unfortunately, the combinations that you have illustrated in your image cannot be combined into one single grain matched entity. As noted in the PDF document, the "T" confirmation and similar layouts cannot be produced as it requires unmatched parting cuts with the outline tool. (And an 1/2" outline tool does not equate to a 1/8" gap.)

Perhaps your best bet would be to grain match large rectangles that represent the overall door/drawer area for each cabinet and then part each appropriately with a saw and an 1/8" blade.

[Daniel Odom]

You could group doors within cabinets then nest each cabinet one at a time, nesting each consecutive cabinet into the off fall of the previous cab that was cut out; that's how I'd do it anyway.

[TonyGiunta]

Ouch. I figured there would be some work around for this without taking manual cutting approach. Would it work if you could afford to lose 1/2"+ between the cuts? The material I was intending for this would be 3/4 TFM and thought this would be a nice design feature to add. This feature would be competitive to the high end hand selecting grain matching done by some custom shops using real wood veneers.

Knowing what you do about the CNC end, is this doable on the software side to apply grain matching across multiple cabinets given the material size constraint? Do you see any other CNC based work around?

Thanks.

[Rick Deskins]

You can only group door/drawers on a single cabinet. If you are cutting the three cabinets only, you can group the door/drawer on each individual cabinet, then you write two twds. First, filter out all the door/drawers and write a twd. Then, change the filter to include only door/drawers and write a twd. This will give you all the grouped door/drawer stacks in one nest and should fit on one sheet.

[TonyGiunta]

Thanks Daniel. I get the concept. I guess you would just need to make sure that the left most cabinet fronts are being cut from the left most side of the sheet material OR vice versa for right most cabinet. Is that the way it would cut from a sheet anyway?

Thanks Rick. Pardon my ignorance. TWD? If there are many more cabinets to do would I then create separate batch for the three cabinets that I want the fronts match? How much extra labor/time is this for the PS shop? Is this a feature that could be programmed into eCabinets if demand wasa there?

[Daren LaBranche]

I was wondering if there's been any development on this since the last post? Is it now possible to grain match nest multiple cabinets of a job?

Thanks

[Rick Deskins]

If you create an assembly of multiple cabinets in the cabinet editor and align them side by side, you can create an assembly grain match group (Right click and choose assembly group parts). The group still has to fit on a sheet.

[Daren LaBranche]

Thanks Rick, that's good news. I look forward to trying this.

[TonyGiunta]

Thanks Rick

[Daren LaBranche]

So, back in April when you told me about this Rick, I tried it and took a look at the nest diagrams and everything looked fine. So I bid the job as if I could sequence the fronts.

But now I'm actually trying to create and send a TWD file to my ShopBot link for cutting and it doesn't seem to give a darn what the EC nest diagram showed - the SBL is nesting them how it wants. How do I get the nest layout I desire from EC into the SBL for cutting?

Thanks

[Daren LaBranche]

Actually, only some of the fronts appear in the SBL nest. Here's a few pics to show you what I'm seeing.

1) The 3 cabinets saved as an assembly in EC (with grouped parts/fronts).

2) The EC nest diagram correctly nests the fronts of the assembly.

3) But only 4 fronts are nested in the SBL.

Any help would be appreciated, I'm supposed to start cutting tomorrow.