Good morning all, currently I am subbing out my fabrication but I want to bring it in house. I've done a lot of research and visited different shops with different saws. I'm curious to get you all's professional opinion on what saw you would recommend for a small shop. I would like CNC digital capabilities.
Ease of use on the programing side is a huge plus as turnover is high around here.
Price is obviously a factor but I will pay a little more for scalability and ease of use.
Speed is not really an issue. We don't do a ton sqft per week.
Basically, what would you professionals recommend if you were starting out fabricating in house for the first time.
CNC Table Saw Recomendations
Superior Stone Co.
Enterprise, AL
Enterprise, AL
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crobb
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Re: CNC Table Saw Recomendations
Most guys will start with a rail saw and hand router due to investment. Many guys are very profitable with those basic tools. Others will start with a good used bridge saw and line machine. Doing manual templating. It all depends on the labor and the skillset of the labor you have available.
Machines can and can't be scalable. Labor is the easiest to scale in my personal opinion, if you don't have work, send them home and just work overtime when the work is there. You will have to make that equipment payment whether you are cutting one vanity or ten slabs. If you aren't doing a ton of SF and you aren't making decent margins; you can easily lose money over investing in equipment. You could buy a fabcenter style CNC, basically, a CNC router with a CNC saw attached. Cut slab, clean table, load pods, and pieces and run them on the CNC. Tooling cost, making sure you have enough water and a good compressor will also need to be considered as well as digital templating equipment.
Only you can determine what your current margins are and what you can afford to spend on labor and machines. We can all advise on what we would do but we all have different overhead. All of us had to sit back, take a look at the prices we are selling at, breaking that down to SF produced per week and seeing real costs associated with production. Do not forget to take in to account the admin costs associated with selling the product. Calculate your costs, add material (dont forget about material waste factoring) and your desired margin = profit.
If you are serious about this, go ahead and become a member of the SFA The membership fee is really low to gain access to the member section. A lot of this has been discussed many times over.
Machines can and can't be scalable. Labor is the easiest to scale in my personal opinion, if you don't have work, send them home and just work overtime when the work is there. You will have to make that equipment payment whether you are cutting one vanity or ten slabs. If you aren't doing a ton of SF and you aren't making decent margins; you can easily lose money over investing in equipment. You could buy a fabcenter style CNC, basically, a CNC router with a CNC saw attached. Cut slab, clean table, load pods, and pieces and run them on the CNC. Tooling cost, making sure you have enough water and a good compressor will also need to be considered as well as digital templating equipment.
Only you can determine what your current margins are and what you can afford to spend on labor and machines. We can all advise on what we would do but we all have different overhead. All of us had to sit back, take a look at the prices we are selling at, breaking that down to SF produced per week and seeing real costs associated with production. Do not forget to take in to account the admin costs associated with selling the product. Calculate your costs, add material (dont forget about material waste factoring) and your desired margin = profit.
If you are serious about this, go ahead and become a member of the SFA The membership fee is really low to gain access to the member section. A lot of this has been discussed many times over.
