Dan Shapiro's Blog

Glowforge CEO, Wharton Research Fellow, Robot Turtles creator, Proud Dad

eCabinet Systems, part II

eCabinet Systems is an interesting ongoing project. I’ve been spending all my free time working with it instead of real woodworking. As I get further into the 350+ page tutorial (!) I’m impressed by the flexibility of the system. It does still have bad problems with crash-prone-ness, but saving frequently solves most of that.
Right now the one big problem I have with it is a stupid question: what the heck do you do with all the exposed plywood edges? I’m designing all this nifty stuff with sheet goods, see. And you take something like a shelf… nice pretty shelf, cherry on both sides. But what about the part that’s *facing* you? It’s raw plywood! So do I edgeband, put solid wood edging on it, what? The system doesn’t seem to offer a lot of high level options for this problem, or at least I haven’t found them yet. I don’t see them calculating linear feet of veneer I need to order, for example, or providing an option to route a tenon so I can slide some grooved solid stock over it. Still puzzled on the best way around this one…


(net-net, eCabinets is still getting a thumbs up from me, but the real proof is when I produce my first cabinet with it)

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