Most of my upcoming projects are going to be mainly plywood, so that is why I was thinking a tool such as this would be very useful to help me get the most out of each sheet.
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!
I have had their Silver Edition for several years now. I use it on almost every project and find it extremely helpful not just for sheet goods, but lumber as well. Of course, sheet goods is where it really shines. I've recently been inputting my lumber inventory, a bit at a time. It makes it very easy then to get quantities and layouts quickly. I highly recommend it. For the one-time price of $89, it's pretty hard to NOT be able to justify it.
"I've cut the dang thing three times and it's STILL too darn short"
Name withheld to protect the guilty
Stew Hagerty
Using Doug's link to cutlist I was able to download the executable using Chrome. Foxfire, for some reason (perhaps my settings ) could not down load it.
To use, you enter data by left clicking and from drop down list select what wish to do to an entry ( modify, move, dup etc). You are then presented with window to enter information, really slick. It will calculate different fits to lay out different selections for the cutlist.
I was using just one 4 x 8 sheet, but while changing number came up once with 15 different views. I was impressed and it is free. It did everything I needed.
Thanks again Doug for link.
Bob
Yes, the folks commenting about secondary parts including drawer components are absolutely correct. I'm sorry I forgot about that.
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
Wanted to add a follow up to this thread. I finally bought the Silver version of Cutlist Plus fx and got a chance to use it on a project this weekend. Wish I would have bought it sooner to be honest. It worked out awesome! And I loved being able to view the project I had laid out in on my iPad with their iOS viewer. That was really cool. I also really like how the program lets you keep inventory of what materials, and hardware you have in stock and how it shows a BOM for the project so you know how much the project will cost you. Very cool program and very well thought out and executed.
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!
Im with Justin. Sitting at the saw, or sending a guy to the saw, with a list to basically mindlessly breakdown parts (none of which will be wrong due to an on-the-fly calculation error) just makes everything so much more simple. We use CLP for costing on sheetgoods but sheet parts are nested and optimized on the CNC. CLP is super handy especially for large shops with sheet optimization, controlling inventory of drops, etc.. I wouldnt live with out it. I could, but wouldnt.
I agree it's simpler, but does it make better cabinet makers?
When I started, we had cultists for everything. I didn't know why I cut a part a certain way, I just did it. The computer wasn't always right either, it probably had about half a percent failure rate. 1:200 isn't bad though. Between setting a stop or fence wrong, or not doing my calculations correctly, that's a better record than I have. But you can still set a fence or stop incorrectly taking the math out.
I'm not saying the way I do it works for everyone, but it made me really good at cut out and really good at math. Not even math, just knowing that A-B-C=X
When cutting out face frame stock, my software gives adequate dimensioning where there's not much to figure out.
BTW- I do love hearing how other shops tick. Everybody has their own way, and it's fascinating to me.
We're all also really set in our ways and deluded into thinking that our way ours this best with what we have to work with.
The different priorities as to what to pour money into to reduce bottlenecks, and what different people focus on is equally fascinating. None of us are doing it right, that I'll bet on.
For me: CLP is the starting point for all my off-cuts and sheet goods. Solid stock: I just use the TigerStop and biggest to smallest method. It has the upgrade to input the size of the board to the nearest defect, but I'm not paying $2k for a thermal printer to get the labels printed with that method. Pencil and marking off a sheet works just fine for a 2 man shop.
I have the mental ability to correct/adjust on the fly if a sheet is "weird" or I don't recognize a dimension (but I'm the guy designing from the ground up and integrating all my reports from cabinet vision to CLP). My helper will only cut what the sheet says. He can see 2 steps in front of him, but not 10-20. If you hand us both the same cutlist sheet we'll break it down totally different - doesn't matter if the sheet is set for prefer "rip", "cross", "standard" or "max cutoff".
Most of what I like about the program is being able to input and use up all my off-cuts. Before every job I'll write down and input every off-cut per type of material I can use for that particular job. Anything that is toe, nailer, stretcher or "unseen" material is left out of the program. We cut those up like face frame material after ripping the needed lineal footage.
No doubt! I change or learn something every job.The different priorities as to what to pour money into to reduce bottlenecks, and what different people focus on is equally fascinating. None of us are doing it right, that I'll bet on.
-Lud
Martin, you're wrong ....., we're all doing it right .
I personally will never get the right pieces out of lumber and plywood using a cutlist when I have to consider colour, grain direction and other features I want to include or avoid.
For BB plywood drawers and other secondary or to be painted sheet good projects I use 'Sketch Cut Lite' (free version) for Android and I'm quite happy with it. I can print out the cutlist and label the pieces as I cut them, saves me a lot of time and money.
As an amateur woodworker, I find Cutlist invaluable. It took a while to enter all of the raw materials, especially cutoffs; however, now it saves me a lot of money and trips by identifying cutoffs that I have on hand that fill my needs and that I would likely overlook otherwise. I appreciate many of the other features, but they have been pretty well covered here already.
Here's a tip that I found helpful in expediting the off-cut entry (if you use imperial): memorize the decimal value of the fraction. For CLP, you only need to enter the fraction in decimal value to the 100th and it will correctly input the value(.06 for 1/16). I taped a cheat sheet on my laptop for the values I had trouble remembering. If your keyboard has a 10-key, this makes things a lot faster (at least it did for me).
-Lud
Couldnt agree more. Its rare to get even the best employees to engage at a level anywhere near that of the business owner. Beyond that, even when I am cutting myself I still make random math errors, forget about an interference or some reason why I am running this one part different than the way I have run it hundreds of times before. The software is virtually never wrong. I am wrong quite often.
I will admit that once you get fully integrated with cutlisting out of software you (I know I do) can begin to get a little soft or less sharp than you were. That said, the scenario you mentioned of 1000's of parts, and a large percentage of them being unique, use to land me with a hefty pile of scraps, waste, mis-cuts, and so on. With the software its just about seamless.