Tips to work quickly

[sammy.se]

Hi all,

I'm sure like many if you, my to do list is bigger than my time (as a hobbyist DIYer).

I can make good cabinets, but it takes me an age. I've got to a point when 'done' is better than 'perfect'.

My question to.you all is:
How do you speed up you work? Cabinets and the like?

Ideas that come to mind for me are:
Using pins to hold door frames instead of clamps, screws in carcases, stapling backs instead of rebating etc etc

Would.love to hear how you all optimize for speed vs proper work.

My slowest aspect is cutting.
I have a good tracksaw but no fancy squares or parallel guides. Have people found that cutting is an important part of speeding up?

 

[MarkAW]

If you're making multiples, then doing the same cuts at the same time, jigs, templates all speed things up, as does practice.

Don't rush!

Rushing is when the accidents happen. Focus on being efficient rather than fast. Fast will then come.

 

[Bingy man]

Hi there- I,m about as quick as a tortoise with all the work I do . I cover many trades but never rush . The key to getting the job done is to think ahead and plan your tasks. Accurate measurements and checking before you make the first cut . I enjoy my work and get great satisfaction from both the finished job and the happy customers I’ve worked for . Rushing and forcing yourself to work quickly is a recipe for mistakes and as the above post says ( accidents) am I perfect - no , will I make minor errors-yes , can I disguise or hide these minor issues- hell yes . So plan ahead, get all your tools ready , be organised and work smarter not harder .

 

[Bingy man]

Oh and invest in some quality marking tools and guides -they will last you a lifetime if looked after and will help you get it right 1st time ..

 

[Jacob]

Main thing is to mark from a rod and not to miss a mark. The rod is the final finished working drawing and no measuring required thereafter. Seems tedious but once done you are on auto pilot and can just churn your way though the components and everything will fit (in theory!) whether you are making just one, or dozens of copies.

 

[recipio]

Oh and invest in some quality marking tools and guides -they will last you a lifetime if looked after and will help you get it right 1st time ..

Absolutely. Invest in a Mitutoyo vernier. You can actually trust the readings. Otherwise break the job down into steps and write it down. Fatigue is the main cause of mistakes.

 

[thetyreman]

some kind of drawing or plan is a must, work everything out in advance, then work through the cutting list, jigs and patterns can also help if you're batch producing or have say 10 of exactly the same boards to cut. I have found that rushing too much is often when mistakes happen.

 

[stuckinthemud]

Don’t make mistakes. Fixing mistakes costs time. Every true craftsman I ever worked with looked like they were going slow, they weren’t, they were not rushing. Rushing leads to mistakes, mistakes cost time.

 

[Bingy man]

Absolutely. Invest in a Mitutoyo vernier. You can actually trust the readings. Otherwise break the job down into steps and write it down. Fatigue is the main cause of mistakes.

Agreed -one of the best tools I own. I checked mine against the different grades of cigarette rollings papers expecting the mitutoyo to not register any difference but it does . Makes my life so much easier and accurate.

 

[sammy.se]

Thanks all for your replies - great point about rushing, I won't do that and risk accidents!!

I need to get better at batching and planning

 

[Adam W.]

Savour the moment - we are only alive for a short time and dead for a long one.

If you are working on your own projects, perhaps a change in approach is required. If you feel the need to speed up and "get things moving along", perhaps becoming more effective instead of faster is an approach that could be useful.

You can become more effective by using fewer tools, jigs and whatnot, not planing four faces, having primary and secondary surfaces etc, etc.

Also ditch the vernier, it's woodworking, not precision engineering after all.

 

[johnnyb]

what saves me time on cabinets is making them perfect. if a cab isn't perfect it makes my job much harder. by perfect I mean square and level. Once that's locked in using the back as a brace then doors drawers etc can be thrown in and trimmed on a saw. it's normal workshop practice to size out of square stuff on the planer(into the end grain.

 

[Jacob]

what saves me time on cabinets is making them perfect. if a cab isn't perfect it makes my job much harder. by perfect I mean square and level. Once that's locked in using the back as a brace then doors drawers etc can be thrown in and trimmed on a saw. it's normal workshop practice to size out of square stuff on the planer(into the end grain.

If you use the back as a "brace" any movement will show at the front instead, and doors/drawers may stick. It's traditional to make backs as a very loose fit, to avoid this. May be rough sawn boards, T&G, or made up panels, but always a loose fit in a rebate with a few nails

 

[Spectric]

To make the task faster you need space, if you are working in a small space then you can never become as quick as you could with room to work. Then you need to plan, make everything in batches so you only set something up once and then perform that task. With cabinets made from sheet goods the best way to handle the cutting has to be the sliding mitre saw which will need a lot of space so next best is the tracksaw but again easier if you have some room to work on full sheets inside and not having to reduce the full sheets down outside first before final cutting inside. The cutting may be an area you could make some improvements

but no fancy squares or parallel guides.

If you are having to mark and align every cut then this is time consuming, parallel guides will allow you to cut full sheets down to size easily and a rail square is great for cutting the smaller pieces to size, an MFT style cutting bench is also useful and you don't need one full of holes. When I make a cabinet I use a panel and frame approach as I like the more traditional chunky look which means the panels do not have to be super square.

 

[Jolyon]

Always put your tools down in the same place. Once you stop using them it's easy to forget them, but if you force yourself to do this you save a lot of time looking for them.

 

[TRITON]

You need a boss who holds the purse strings tightly and says 'OH FOR FK SAKE' a lot. Followed by 'NO YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY MORE MONEY'.

 

[johnnyb]

or in most cases mdf or ply for the backs. solid timber backs went out with noah! at the prices timber is at solid timber fronts are looking shaky!