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Debate: Do you use CNC for door panels or stick with traditional shaper cutters?
Last week at a shop tour in St. Louis, the owner said I was wasting time hand-raising panels on the shaper, but his CNC doors had zero character - so which side are you on and why?
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spencer98123d ago
Man, you nailed it. I ran into the same thing at a cabinet shop open house in Nashville. The guy was bragging about his CNC doors being done in 3 minutes but they all looked like molded plastic. I raised a set of cathedral panels on an old Powermatic shaper with a classic cutterhead and you could actually see the grain popping. The CNC stuff just flattens everything out.
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nancyj1123d ago
Gotta push back a little on this one, @spencer981. At a shop I visited near Chattanooga, they had their CNC dialed in like I never seen before. They ran cherry drawer fronts with a raised panel program and the grain still had that deep look because they took time with the sanding and finish. The machine just gets the shape perfect every time, no tearout or chatter marks like you get with a shaper if you rush it or leave it too long. Plus you can bang out a full kitchen in a day and let the hand work shine on the final details rather than fighting a old machine all week.
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Lean towards the shaper every time for raised panels. Seen too many CNC jobs where the grain looks washed out and dead. The machine does save time but you lose that handcrafted feel that makes woodworking worth doing. Would rather spend the extra hour dialing in a shaper setup than staring at flat plastic looking doors all day. What kind of cutterhead profile do you run for your cathedral panels?
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