Hit 50 custom cabinet doors in one week and actually surprised myself

I've been running my shop solo for about three years now, and last week I decided to push myself to see how many doors I could crank out in five days. I set up my workflow different this time, pre-cut all the stiles and rails first thing Monday morning, then tackled assembly and sanding in batches. By Friday afternoon I had 50 doors stacked up ready for finish, which is about 15 more than my usual weekly average. Has anyone else here set a speed goal and ended up way ahead of what you thought you could do?

2 comments

2 Comments

tyler61428d agoMost Upvoted

That's a good point about the production line approach... most guys don't realize how much time you save when you stop switching between tasks every two doors. I tried something similar last fall with drawer boxes and found the real bottleneck was keeping my router bit sharp for the whole run. A dull bit halfway through Thursday morning killed my momentum for five hours. Did you notice any specific step that started dragging as the week went on?

linda_clark28d ago

Man, I don't know. Four or five hours from one dull bit? That sounds like a stretch to me. I've run whole kitchens with a mid-tier Freud bit and never lost more than maybe 30 minutes swapping it out. Maybe your setup is just finicky, or you're being a little dramatic about it. Thursday afternoon drag is just normal fatigue, not some catastrophic equipment failure.