skip to Main Content
Thinking Big
Small woodworking outfit Scott Davis Cabinetmakers runs like a high-production shop with Cabinet Vision
Scott Davis Cabinetmakers may be a small woodworking business, but it certainly doesn’t act like one.
The company, based in Barnet, Vermont, opened its doors in 1999 and handles primarily high-end residential cabinetry and millwork for kitchens and baths.
Designed and built by the man himself, Scott Davis, with the help of one shop employee, the company’s projects also include custom casework and furniture. While about 85 percent of its work is devoted to custom kitchens, designs for everything from kitchen hutches to breakfast nooks — and even a humidor for guitars — have come to fruition under the watchful, detail-oriented eyes of Davis and his team.
In 2012, the same year that he purchased his first flat-table CNC router, Davis bought the Cabinet Vision design-to-manufacturing solution, by Vero Software, to fully maximize the new machinery. While Davis had previously used a different software for design purposes, the solution didn’t fulfill all of the shop’s needs.
“With Cabinet Vision, you build the kitchen in your office before it hits the shop, which allows you to see potential problems that you might not have noticed,” Davis says.
To begin a job in Cabinet Vision, Davis uses the software to create a drawing of the room in which he will build. Using the dimensions of the room, he recreates the living space for accuracy in design and manufacturing, and to showcase the look and feel of the final project for his clients.
From there, Davis can edit his design, create custom features, manage materials, generate G-code, and more.
“I think the best thing about Cabinet Vision is that you can go from design to creating G-code all in one place,” Davis says. “There’s a lot more detail with Cabinet Vision than with my previous software.”
With Cabinet Vision fully implemented, Davis quickly realized that his new solution included capabilities above and beyond the accurate generation of G-code for his router.
“When you put the whole package together, it’s like having another person in the shop … Everything that we make is so custom, and Cabinet Vision is so customizable, that the flexibility of the software lends itself to a high-end atmosphere.”
Scott Davis, Owner
Designed to tackle every aspect of the design and manufacturing process, Cabinet Vision delivers photo-realistic renderings that help woodworkers showcase and explain their projects to clients.
It also provides programmers with lists of design features from which to choose as they go about the process of creating custom designs, and allows them to create their own features, which can be applied again and again.
“When you put the whole package together, it’s like having another person in the shop,” says the affable Davis. “You don’t want to make it so that the software is replacing people, but we aren’t a high-production shop. Everything that we make is so custom, and Cabinet Vision is so customizable, that the flexibility of the software lends itself to a high-end atmosphere.”
Cabinet Vision also maximizes and manages materials, generates cutlists, and delivers full project costing directly from the design, which reduces labor costs and error.
“I can produce good, accurate cutlists and give them to an employee now,” Davis says. “It frees me up to do other things that may be more important because I can more easily pass that responsibility along. It’s really helped having Cabinet Vision produce all my cutlists because I can give them to my employees and not have to worry about it.”
Cabinet Vision also enables users to customize their working methods. Cabinet Vision User Created Standards, or UCSs, are automated processes that are written by users or Cabinet Vision staff, and can be applied during the programming process to save time. UCSs are typically created for repeated tasks that require identical processes.
For Davis, the ability to easily tweak his custom designs in Cabinet Vision paves the way for greater creativity and flexibility.
“Once you produce the layout that the customer is after, you can get into every cabinet individually and make it the way you want to,” he says. “Simply having the ability to adjust any part makes it a lot easier.”
Davis has used his creativity and Cabinet Vision to save money and produce superior products by making solid wood dovetail drawer boxes with his flat-table router.
“A lot of people are using Baltic birch or half-inch plywood to make drawer boxes, but sometimes we have customers who don’t want plywood drawer boxes,” Davis explains.
To make his drawer boxes from solid wood, Davis glues planks of wood together to create 19-inch panels. He then runs the panels through his planer until they have been shaved down to half an inch in thickness.
Using Cabinet Vision in combination with the homemade panels, Davis nests all of the dovetail parts needed to create his drawers. The use of the solution’s nesting functionality ensures that Davis is maximizing his custom material.
“It’s an easier and more cost efficient process, and it adds value to the products that we are making for our customers.”
Overall, Davis says, Cabinet Vision has helped him to create significant gains in efficiency, and to create unique products for his customers.
About the Company
Name: Scott Davis Cabinetmakers
Business: Primarily high-end residential cabinetry and millwork for kitchens and baths
Website: scottdaviscabinetmakers.com
Benefits Achieved
- Gained ease in ability to create high-end custom products
- Increased ability to delegate work to staff
- Nesting functionality helps with the creation of custom dovetail drawers
Comments
“When you put the whole package together, it’s like having another person in the shop … Everything that we make is so custom, and Cabinet Vision is so customizable, that the flexibility of the software lends itself to a high-end atmosphere.”
Scott Davis, Owner