Hit 500 shaker doors in a single job and learned a hard lesson about consistency

Last month I finished a custom kitchen with 500 shaker doors, all edge glued and sanded by hand. I thought my process was solid until the client noticed the rail gaps varied by 1/16th of an inch on three doors. That tiny number taught me to check every single joint with a feeler gauge, not just spot check. I spent an extra 10 hours fixing those three doors and it wrecked my profit margin on that job. Has anyone else hit a big number like that and found a hidden weak point in their workflow?

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the_abby1mo ago

Man, 500 shaker doors is no joke, I totally feel your pain on that one. That 1/16th gap thing is brutal because it's just enough to be visible but small enough to think you're getting away with it until the client spots it. I've been there with a big cabinet run where I skipped checking my dado depths on every single piece, and it cost me two full days of rework on six drawer fronts that didn't sit flush. It's amazing how one tiny shortcut in your process can snowball into hours of fixing, and yeah, it absolutely kills your profit when you're not charging for that time. Have you thought about building in a "QC day" for big jobs, or do you just rely on checking as you go now?