100% wood waste factor

[Jerome Hanby]

I don't swap around wood species very often. I like maple and walnut. Add to the situation that I'm a long drive from my hardwood supplier and I generally buy whatever I can afford at the time. Looked at from a project stand point, I probably come close to buying 100% more than required.

[Tom Rick]

Take a contract to for a 6" wood disk.
Cut it out of a board and you will have to charge the client for twice the wood in the disk.

Or "100% waste"

Waste varies a great deal depending on the shape of the elements in the produced piece, how many are made, and the available stock from which it is made.

[David Prince]

100% waste would mean all of it. If half is poor, then it is 50%.

This would be an impossible purchase because if they could only guarantee up to 100% then they could hypothetically send you the worst crap they have that could basically give you nothing to work with.

If it is 50% then at least half of it would be usable.

If you buy 100 bf and up to 100% of it is bad, then 100 bf would be bad and you would have nothing except for something to keep your wood stove going.

Some waste is expected, but up to 100% is extreme.

[Rod Sheridan]

30% is very low for any project.

I start with a basic waste rate of 50% for any solid wood project, and add from there.

Consider that I have a rough board 1" thick, 6" wide, and 96 inches long, which is 4 board feet.

I joint, plane, rip and crosscut so that I have a 3/4" X 5" X 84" finished size piece. A very common sort of dimensioning for a woodworker.

The completed piece is 2.19 board feet, or 55% of the original wood. I've had a waste factor of 45%.

If I just joint and plane the original board without any cutting 25% has gone into the cyclone.

If you need good grain matching, or large clear pieces, it's not difficult to have to buy 3 times as much wood as you need, after all, in the above example I had to buy almost twice as much wood as I needed.

Regards, Rod.

[Will Overton]

Isn't there some 'rule of thumb' about how much waste is acceptable based on the grade of wood? I though I read somewhere that you should see less waste with higher grade/price.

[Alan Lightstone]

I'm 100% certain that he's half right.

[Ruhi Arslan]

Sure, you have to account for waste, but it sounds like they're just trying to get you to buy twice the amount of wood you need.

Twice as much is nothing compared to what Boards and Beams NJ wanted me to buy. 350% more than I would need. I wanted 8/4 maple boards four inch wide and about 90" long. I intended to get boards at least 8" wide so I could rip them to get two pieces. He had boards 11-12' long and 7-7.5" wide.

[John Nesmith]

A play on words. It depends on whether the "reference point" is the quantity of wood productively used, or the amount of wood purchased.

If you waste as much wood as you productively use, then one could legitimately say 100%.

Sounds like marketing ka-ka to me though. I'd describe that as 50% wastage!

Precisely.

[Frank Drew]

I really hate waste so I've always tended to keep any decent sized offcut in an attractive timber, thinking I could at least get a nice drawer front out of it; that itself, though, creates a real problem with clutter, and it's a dilemma I never solved.

[Jacob Mac]

Ya, their math is wrong. But I think they are trying to get at the right idea.
Grain matching can be hard to get right so you probably want a lot of wood to help make it easier. I certainly did a poor job of it in my last project. If you always work with a certain wood, you are probably better off buying it in larger quantities so you can get a better price anyway.

But I have never been able to get over the trust factor and order wood online.

[Jim King]

This is a little off topic but this shows my waste in producing perfect boards for export.

[Lee Schierer]

Wow, I must really be doing something wrong. I calculate my needs and order maybe 5-10% more material. I use an optimization program to figure out how to best use the actual stock I get, so scrap pieces are generally very short.

It also sounds to me like someone writing the ad slept through math classes and doesn't understand percent. I hear commercials all the time that "I can save up to 20% or more".

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I typically order 10-20% more.

And if the moon is right.....the gremlins are happy...if I measure 3 times and cut once......and don't forget what the measurement I got was before I mark it and cut it.....that amount will suffice.......but sometimes....

[Rod Sheridan]

Wow, I must really be doing something wrong. I calculate my needs and order maybe 5-10% more material. I use an optimization program to figure out how to best use the actual stock I get, so scrap pieces are generally very short.

It also sounds to me like someone writing the ad slept through math classes and doesn't understand percent. I hear commercials all the time that "I can save up to 20% or more".

I agree Lee, I waste 10 to 15% for trimming/scrap.

Add another 25% for jointing and planing however.

Perhaps you are ordering your material planed to thickness?

Regards, Rod.

[Paul Johnstone]

30
If I just joint and plane the original board without any cutting 25% has gone into the cyclone.
.

I guess I don't count that as waste. It's an assumption that 4/4 will be about 3/4" when you are done planing.

To me, waste is that last 13" off a board that I can't use, a knotty area that was cut out, a board so warped that it's no worth joining, etc.