Starting the woodshop over in 2023 - what equipment you'd start with. 

Very inspiring. This is my journey starting out in 2023. For the past 3 years I've been buying tools to be able to start a woodworking business. I've done woodworking many years ago then I switched to trucking. Trucking really wore me off, but on the other hand it allowed me to buy all the necessary tools to start what I always loved, woodworking. I bought all the industrial tools I thought I would need, from SawStop table saw, jointer, planer, shaper, dust extractor, bandsaw, drum sander, router tables, HVLP sprayer to all the small hand tools like Domino jointer, 3M and Ekasand palm sanders, track saw, tons of hand drills, few routers(I hate changing drill and router bits when working, so I prefer to have 5 hand drills lined up, or 3 routers each with a different bit on it), tons of clamps, pretty much every tool out there that has industrial qualities to it. I spent probably around 55k on all these and at the end of last year I ordered a brand new ShopSabre CNC, around 83k with 12 tool autochanger, automatic lining pins, automatic tool height, etc, which will be delivered in April and right now I'm in a process of ordering a Homag Edgeteq S-200 FC with scraping, rounding, buffing capabilities, which will run about 68k. So all together until now a little over 205k. I haven't produced or sold any product to any customer yet. I wanted to start this business differently than anything I've done before. I put all the investment before, so when I start I don't have any overhead besides a commercial space lease, electricity and some software subscriptions. This way I feel I'll have time to do the right marketing and to aquire the right customers I'm looking for. Hopefully in few years I can progress to a full scale Homag shop like yours.

I've been working out of my garage for the last few years. Now moving to a leased space 5x the size... And getting a larger CNC and an edge bander (I'd call it an entry level production machine)... All in all, a modest setup. I enjoy hearing/seeing stories and advice from owners who are farther along on this same road. Please make a video or series talking more about your beginnings, lessons learned, challenges in getting to the next level, etc. There's a lot of content out there showing where folks "arrived" but what I find more useful is how they got there and learning from them. Keep up the great work, guys!

It would be fantastic if you guys would show us how you handle the office processes for jobs from beginning to end... including managing in-coming job specs & details, creating various design packages for the shop / streamlined the project management & customer management, etc, - to teach us the full scope of job flow through the office!! ~ ~ ~ Also, how you guys handle & process in-coming jobs issues through the office processes. In order to run your amazing production line to capacity, you guys must have first developed & refined the lean flow of jobs through all the office functions to a fair degree. **It would be huge if you could do a whole series on the types of issues** - for many of us, the lack of smooth flow through the office causes more losses than inefficiencies in the shop - the we cannot scale-up production. A lot of us would be eternally grateful for the education!! Thank you so much for all you guys have already shared so generously - It is much appreciated !!

Having been in the Joinery and Production since I was 16, giving consideration to machinery and plant having spent a lot of these years as Managing factories I would ask the following for my planning. You would need to clarify if it is lone worker or envisage having staff which is not mentioned in the video or how big you want to start. If you were starting up you would need to find floor space to meet your needs along with banking and organising suppliers with procurement and accounting ability. A budget would need planned or arranged with a bank if not lucky to have available investment covering for Machinery, along with Extraction, Compressed Air needs along with waste management, then install and fixing access and egress along with manual handling materials access and egress. If you handball materials delivery both ways, would you need forklift but manually is feasible to keep cost down but can place burden on the single post operator. Then we get on to the handling of work pieces as they progress from station to station, they need to travel and must be planned to how this will occur. Then we get back to machinery I would not start with a flat bed CNC I would go with the upright CNC as it bores and can cut cabinets and worktops to meet a one person loading. Sawing panels could be given over to the CNC but for versatility I would go Panel Saw so can complete wood and panel cuts giving consideration to size of sheets you want to handle, probably going for a 500 saw blade. Edge bander would be a must and return feed would be a good option but cost would come into it. Curve edge banding would need thought off and you can do by portable power tool for small scale production. Assembly would need thought out and starting a shop I would take it you have hand tools and portable power tools to carryout it out along with fitting if your planning one stop service. So machinery would mean a realistic budget if new or second hand, and would be in the region of 200k to 400k if proceeding like explained with larger machinery. You can buy in machined solid wood materials as required but going this route you would need to consider storing your working stock which goes for finished products and van to deliver or pickup. Thought to storing the vehicle as insurances for workshop, liability and van must be thought off. I am currently loading a new a Joinery Workshop middle size and considering the middle or top range manufacturers this would be in the range of 100k to 200k not considering tooling but using present tooling and adding new blades and heads. So how small you start or living within your means is a must as mentioned at the start of my piece.

Happy new years fellas

Why didnt I think of that , truck and trailer ! Great idea ,work and van just thought no more of it ! Cheers guys 👍

Dont forget a big boy dust collector. You'll need it for sure with the cnc and bander.

I really appreciate you sharing this insight with us. What are your thoughts on other brands like Biesse? There seem to be quite a few of those on the used market, but maybe that has a reason. It does seem like it could make more sense to get a used "big brand" machine over starting out with a new ShobSabre or Laguna. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks for the video guys. I think it’s worth considering that for most of us there’s probably a step before all this which is building a super efficient cabinet business with a more modest investment in order to build up to financing the 100k + machines. A good quality panel saw, edge bander with pre milling and some small machines and most importantly a well thought out flow and standardised processes can all be done for

Wow its amaizing factory . I like the n500 , its my next machine in my workshop , if you have imos ix , you can make every think on it

Hi, Great videos. A lot of info. For the N 500- have you tried cutting anything taller than 60mm? That’s the height restriction I believe from the auto sweep. Thanks

Very valuable content, thank you. If you were only doing standard cabinet jobs (less custom) and having your panels cut to size at a third party, would drilltech v-310 a good first machine to buy?

Would you still go with Homag or try a cheaper option like Felder.

Do you have any ideas of installing conveyor rollers from a cabinet assembly station to a cabinet upfitting station so you could eliminate employees having to lift big cabinets off the building tables to the floor? Cabinets get built then put in a CABTEQ S-200 to square cabinet together. Then after coming out of the CABTEQ the cabinet is lifted back to the build table, shelves are installed, cleats are put on the bottom. Then the step we are trying to eliminate, builder has to move heavy cabinet to the floor and use a dolly to move to next build station which is upfitting (hardware, hinges, handles, and drawers built). We are looking for any ideas to install conveyor rollers to connect these 2 stations.

How much did the CNC cost?

The CNC with load and unload isn’t really a entry level machine for starting out