It’s easy to build big wooden furniture if you have a massive industrial CNC router, but few of us are so lucky. However, you can still build sizable stuff with a smaller router if you know what you’re doing. [Aribabox] shares some useful tricks and techniques for building large workshop cabinets on smaller machines.
The key to doing this well is modularity. [Aribabox] shows off how to build excellent workshop drawers in pieces using a stackable design. Rather than having to cut out one huge side panel to cover the whole stack of drawers, each drawer can have its own side panel that easily fits on a smaller router. They can then be stacked into a stout assembly that still does its job perfectly well. Assuming your CNC router is trued up properly, you can whip up a lot of furniture quickly, just assembling everything with screws. You’ll still be able to work faster and make bigger things easier on a big machine, but a small machine can do a lot more than you think.
[Aribabox] supplies design files for a cost if you’re eager to replicate their work. If that doesn’t suit you, you can always just use the video as inspiration to work on your own modular furniture designs instead. We’ve featured other modular furniture designs before, too, that rely on 3D printed and lasercut components.
[Thanks to Hassi for the tip!}
do you think it’s possible to do a kitchen this way?
why not? if optics is important you can always cover it or fill in the ridges and paint it.
He also had kitchen build video, not modular like this, but maybe worth to take a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A1wRaMdRg8
I know nothing about woodworking so I’m curious, is there any benefit to making things this way instead of buying planks and doing it the standard way with saws etc
Besides the speed of course, this seems super quick and repeatable, you can probably make really complicated stuff if you design it beforehand.
Using plywood vs. planks does have benefits in being more dimensionally stable. Drawers made from plain wood would either require larger gaps or more thought into the design or they would be prone to getting stuck as humidity changes.
As for using CNC – just speed and repeatability. One could also argue it’s less likely to chop your fingers, and if you have an enclosed CNC, less dust to breathe.
To make this even faster, you can stack a few sheets of plywood and cut them at once. Though it requires air tube to blow the chips out of the deeper cuts.
Generally, no. For simple shapes, such as rectangular doors / panels, it’s much faster to rip wood on a saw than to fiddle with CAD / CAM, deal with fixturing, and then make 100x slower cuts with endmills that also wear much more quickly than a saw blade would.
I think this is one of the most significant trappings of folks who buy a CNC mill for woodworking. It works if you want to carve intricate reliefs or something like that, but it’s just not the right tool for the job for large furniture. Wood expands and contracts and there’s no use for sub-millimeter precision and it helps to let go of that.
IKEA makes their furniture with CNC, but the sheet material is first cut with CNC circular saws, then held down with pneumatics and locator pins, and then the holes for dowels, fasteners and hinges are CNC drilled.
Almost no sidemilling is required.
This is an intricate shape, CNC is fun if you need the modularity. If you just want a normal worktop-height cabinet, get a circular saw with a guide and cut a whole cabinet side (more stable) in about a minute, including set-up.
And make a few simple jigs so you can make the drawer sides and fronts quickly, repeatedly. Or even better, get a cheap contractor’s saw (table saw).
Using scraps. Not what happens in the video, but I got a lot of 15mm scraps around.
no right or wrong way, as long as you’re happy with the results
The traditional way to do drawer fronts is with dovetails. If you do a dovetail drawer front entirely by hand it probably takes four hours per drawer. (That’s about how long it takes me, I’m not a pro but I do at least a couple a year.) You can use a dovetail jig and a router, and that reduces the time it takes down to maybe thirty minutes but generally you end up with dovetails that look machine-made: they’re evenly spaced and evenly sized. People who are all fancy want visibly handmade dovetails, where, say, the top and bottom ones are wide and the middle one is narrow. One interesting thing about doing this via CNC rather than through a commercial jig is that you can make any weird dovetail spacing pattern you want, set it up parametrically, and have each drawer size with a custom set of matched dovetails, front and rear, and the amount of time it takes you is how long it takes to stack up the blanks in the mill system. 20 drawers that are the same size takes no longer to cut than one, so then it’s just the assembly time.
Manufactured sheet materials are very stable, they are a consistent size, strength and they don’t warp. Using sheets also generally makes the final product lighter, and therefore easier to move and transport.
Very neat. I did similar at a much smaller scale for stackable lasercut boxes. Only real difference was the ‘stacking notch’ in the sides – I put the indent on the lower edge.
CNC is amazing for doing something else while the machine is working away. Yes, a table saw is by far the best for fast, straight, clean rips – but a cnc will happily cut tabs, hinge pockets, pre drill or mark holes – as well as cut long, decently straight edges. All while you’re assembling the last thing it made.
Is just me that I cringe at the empty playwood sides that may/will absorb water and start to swallow?
Also, no wood glue? The flexing of the wood will enlarge the holes and everything will auto disassemble at some point. Mostly when you need that piece of furniture, thank you mr. Murphy.
You can buy engineered wood sheets that’s laminated and water repellent from the factory. It doesn’t change the technique at all and I’m guessing that for his purposes this material choice was good enough.
Have you worked with wood in controlled climates, like indoors?
I have never had a screw loosen from not coating plywood.
You can buy plywood that is made with water resistant wood glue. When you then use an oil/wax combination to treat the surface, your parts will last for many years of indoor use. You can renew the oil/wax layer after a few years.
The professional oil/wax combos for this are made out of Tung oil, beeswax and some solvents. You can probably take these ingredients and mix it yourself if you want.
Just made a batch of 25 drawers for my workshop. Set up the fence on a table saw to rip an MDF sheet into strips for the front and sides. Move the fence a bit to make slightly narrower strips for the back. Drop the blade a bit to cut rebates in the front and sides for drawer base. Cut wider strips for the drawer fronts. Rip some 3/16″ MDF sheet for drawer bases.
Set up a stop on the drop saw and adjust as required to cut sides, back, front, drawer fronts.
Drill countersunk holes in sides to attach fronts and backs. Glue, screw, and clamp. Slide base into slot and pin to back.
Drill holes in drawer fronts for handle fixing. Drill holes in front to fix through to drawer front.
Done.
Could do it on CNC, and actually would be better on a laser. But neither are necessary with conventional tools.