Moseying around Mosers--Photos of Thomas Moser's "shop"

[shoottmx]

Open house today in Auburn, Maine at Thomas Moser's 90,000 sq. ft. furniture factory was impressive to say the least. I was amazed at the size of the facility, the incredible amount of equipment (more jointers than I have EVER seen) and the amount of automation used in producing intricate componets. Also shocked that there is only one item in their entire catalog that employs hand cut dovetails. Off to the tour:

Tom Moser was there to greet us and to compare chin growth with (left to right)--Tom, Dave (chair craftsman), Ken (WW buddy)

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A small portion of the wood inventory:

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One of the inline rip saws and the first couple of many jointers

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Carousel panel clamping system 

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Huge CNC router that produces many of the complex shapes that go into the furniture. Rob Emery is one of the programmers and runs the machine as well as being our tour guide extraordinaire.

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Pattern shaper--

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Wide belt sanders--the Timesaver in the background has three heads, a spiral carbide planer head and two sanding belts.

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[shoottmx]

This is the table that has hand cut sliding dovetails on the legs.

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Paul builds the laminated backs for the continuous arm chairs, hand forms them with Stanley Surforms and Shinto rasps then sand on pneumatic drum sanders.

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After sanding he drills the spindle holes BY SIGHT. He places the new arm on a chair, lines up the drill and drills til the point of the drill just breaks thru. Once all holes are done part way thru, he flips the back over, places a spindle in each predirlled hole then, again lines up by eye and drills from the back side to connect the holes. This is done to eliminate breakout when the drill bit breaks thru.

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More shots from around the shop:

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[shoottmx]

This room is full of stacks of sequential sheets of veneer. The cart is loaded with walnut!! Holy smokes!

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Couple more pics:

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Hope you enjoyed the tour,

g

[DaveR1]

Excellent! Thank you for that. Glad you enjoyed the tour.

[Cian]

Great pics! Thats a bucket list trip for myself too. Thanks for sharing. 

[AgGEM]

Those continuous back glue - laminated pictures are interesting. The jig looks quite complicated. I have been thinking about how to do just that for a spell.

[johndi]

Wow, that's cool to see.
Thanks for posting that.

[mdhills]

Thanks for sharing.
What is their milling process?

[shoottmx]

Those continuous back glue - laminated pictures are interesting. The jig looks quite complicated. I have been thinking about how to do just that for a spell.

Ag,
It's not obvious in the pic but the laminations are clamped with a heavy nylon web strap tensioned with air cylinders. Sorry I don't have a better picture.

g

[shoottmx]

There are about 60 crafts people employed in the shop building furniture, 40 or so more in the Auburn facility in sales, design, bean counting and management. About 50 more sales folks in Moser showrooms across the country.

g