Like most cabinet door manufacturers, we developed computer programs to generate cut-lists for the components used in our cabinet doors. Our program was formatted to print component sizes using fractions instead of decimal. This is because woodworkers understand a fraction like 12 7/16, but 12.4375 is not a language that comes natural to most woodworkers.

The fractions, while being well suited to the markings on a tape measure, were susceptible to being transposed by workers. The 12 7/16 would sometimes be transposed into 12 3/16 or 12 9/16. When this happened the component was cut to the wrong length, impacting flow in the production line and increasing waste. Another drawback to the inch-fraction tape measures was the graduations at 1/16-inch. This 1/16-inch increment is actually 62-thousandths of an inch, which is just not accurate enough to guarantee a finished size-tolerance acceptable to today’s Custom Cabinet Makers.

Even using the English decimal system and typing 12.4375 into the computer caused some problems. The tendency exists for workers to be less cautious as they type past the decimal point and with the English system we need accuracy to the third decimal point to hit a 5-thousandths tolerance. With the metric system and entering the size in millimeters, only one position past the decimal point is needed to hit the 5-thousandths tolerance. The conversion of 12.4375 into millimeters yields 12.4370. This removed the significance to the right of the decimal point and reduced our cutting error rate by over 70%.

The solution to the problem was switching our cut-lists from inches over to the metric system where all sizes are listed in millimeters. The conversion is simply 1-inch equals 25.4 millimeters.

The real payoff was the total elimination of fractions being transposed. While 12 7/16 often morphed into something else, the metric equivalent of 315.91 is very seldom entered wrong.

With the introduction of the “Tiger Stop” Automatic Stop/Gauge (www.tigerstop.com), we are able to simply enter the component size as 315.91 mm and the CNC Tiger Stop moves the stop/gauge to the proper distance to make the cut. We have installed Tiger Stops on all our Table Saws, all our Radial saws, all our up-cut saws, and several other machines.

These CNC Fence/stops have paid for themselves by the reduction in cutting errors alone, and the resulting increases in accuracy have helped us make what was already a very good cabinet door, even better.

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