How to send a cabinet to a CNC shop
An outsourced nesting shop does not want your G-code. It wants geometry: one layered DXF per part with the holes, grooves and pockets on named layers, plus a parts list with sizes, quantities and edgebanding. They nest it, toolpath it and post it on their own machine.
What the shop actually does with your files
Their CAM imports each part, maps your layers to their tools, nests every part of one material onto their sheet, and writes one program per sheet. That program runs in phases: all the drilling grouped by bit, then the grooves and pockets, then the outlines that cut the parts free — small parts last or held by an onion skin, because a loose part on a vacuum bed moves. The operator labels each piece as it comes off, which is why every part needs a unique ID.
Nothing in that sequence wants machine code from you. Send geometry and you can send the same package to a Homag shop and a Biesse shop and get the same cabinet.
The package
| File | What it carries |
|---|---|
parts.csv | One row per physical part: ID, cabinet, material, thickness, finished and cut sizes, banding per edge, operation counts |
parts/<id>_A.dxf | The part seen from its inside face — outline plus every operation on a named layer |
parts/<id>_B.dxf | Only when the other face carries work, drawn mirrored. Each of these costs the shop a flip |
sheets/*.dxf | Your nest, for reference. They will re-nest; that is fine and usually better |
README.txt | Units, layer conventions, part coordinate frames, and every warning raised |
Layer names like DRILL_V_5_12 (5mm vertical drill, 12 deep), GROOVE_8.2_8 andPOCKET_12.8 are a convention, not a standard — ask for theirs and rename to match. It is a mapping table, not a rewrite.
Four questions to ask before the first job
1. Do you bore horizontally?
This decides your whole connector system. Yes: Minifix and dowels are open to you. No: use a face-only connector — Cabineo, or dowel-and-screw — which is what nesting machines were designed around anyway.
2. What sheet sizes do you stock, and do you band?
Their stock sizes drive the nest and therefore the price. Whether they band decides finished versus cut sizes, and who deducts the tape.
3. What is your minimum part size?
Small parts are hard to hold on a vacuum bed. Most shops have a threshold below which a part goes on the saw instead, or gets tabbed. A 50mm kickboard strip is the usual offender.
4. Send me a sample DXF you like
Faster than any spec conversation. One file tells you their layer names, their units and their expectations in a minute.
What to check before you cut a whole kitchen
Open a few parts in any free CAD viewer — LibreCAD, QCAD, FreeCAD — and measure a hinge cup and a groove against what you expect. Import one into a CAM trial (Vectric, Fusion) and watch the toolpath preview. Then cut one cabinet. Board thickness is never exactly 18mm, cam depths vary by brand, and groove clearance is something you learn by fitting a back panel, not by reading a datasheet.