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Thread: Anyone Using Cutlist Plus Software?

  1. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by Martin Wasner View Post
    I agree it's simpler, but does it make better cabinet makers?
    I completely understand the merits of your point, honest and truly I do. Sadly, I havent had an individual in the shop in many many years (perhaps ever) that would land in the "cabinetmaker" realm in my eyes or even their own and I dont have unreasonably high standards. If i had, I would've likely given them my business by now and been sitting back in a shop/advisory position (hopefully on the shop floor getting dusty every day) taking a percentage lol.

    Even my best people over the years are just not interested in anything regarding why I/we do what we do. Its about money, paycheck, profits, and forget about the notion of 7 day weeks and evenings at home working on the books or takeoffs and designs. Itst not going to happen. The notion of "do what you love, and the money will happen on its own" is unfortunately either martian, or toxic, to them.

    When I worked alone I did a lot more design on the fly because as Justin says, I am working 15, 20, or 30 steps down the line while Im making each cut. I joke with my guys (and girls) now when they talk about how I make things look so easy that its not because Im anything special, its because Ive probably build every kitchen, batch of millwork, piece of furniture, a hundred or two hundred times, in full detail, in my head laying in bed at night long before Ive forked the first board/sheet onto the racks. They just arent going to get in on that level. Most anyone who is, are not employee types. Rather they are fellow shop owners that I compare stories with.

  2. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Bolton View Post
    I joke with my guys (and girls) now when they talk about how I make things look so easy that its not because Im anything special, its because Ive probably build every kitchen, batch of millwork, piece of furniture, a hundred or two hundred times, in full detail, in my head laying in bed at night long before Ive forked the first board/sheet onto the racks.
    I have a mantra. I replay a couple zillion times an hour, and I tell the workforce the same thing.

    "What am I doing? Why am I doing it?"

    Those two simple questions when stepping up to bat for anything in the shop solves a lot of problems. Or at least exposes potential problems and a solution is reached before it ever rears its ugly head.

    Whenever questioned about why certain processes are executed the way they are, it's pretty simple. "I've screwed up everything you can possibly screw up in here, likely more than once. You have the benefit of being taught, I had to learn it."

  3. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Bolton View Post
    I completely understand the merits of your point, honest and truly I do. Sadly, I havent had an individual in the shop in many many years (perhaps ever) that would land in the "cabinetmaker" realm in my eyes or even their own and I dont have unreasonably high standards. If i had, I would've likely given them my business by now and been sitting back in a shop/advisory position (hopefully on the shop floor getting dusty every day) taking a percentage lol.

    Even my best people over the years are just not interested in anything regarding why I/we do what we do. Its about money, paycheck, profits, and forget about the notion of 7 day weeks and evenings at home working on the books or takeoffs and designs. Itst not going to happen. The notion of "do what you love, and the money will happen on its own" is unfortunately either martian, or toxic, to them.

    When I worked alone I did a lot more design on the fly because as Justin says, I am working 15, 20, or 30 steps down the line while Im making each cut. I joke with my guys (and girls) now when they talk about how I make things look so easy that its not because Im anything special, its because Ive probably build every kitchen, batch of millwork, piece of furniture, a hundred or two hundred times, in full detail, in my head laying in bed at night long before Ive forked the first board/sheet onto the racks. They just arent going to get in on that level. Most anyone who is, are not employee types. Rather they are fellow shop owners that I compare stories with.
    My help says he wants to do this for the rest of his life. He's almost 22. I won't tell him that he most assuredly will not be a cabinet maker for the rest of his life. He doesn't get it - even after two years. I built 1 set of cabinets as an apprentice, assisted in the next two cabinet builds by hand drawing the whole jobs, then started my own company after a two year hiatus to fight in Iraq (with so many mistakes I'm surprised I'm not bankrupt). I'm not trying to be self-aggrandizing. I'm just exposing the difference in doing something because you love it and doing it because you think you do. My help does absolutely NOTHING in his off time to better his knowledge or skill set. This stuff consumes me. Luckily for me, I'm a dork and love computers - so integrating those skills into cabinetry was an easy step. My last hand drawn set was in Dec 2012 and I had to rebuild a corner upper. The only rebuilds I have now are because of customer changes or I forgot to measure a damned can light in the ceiling.


    Quote Originally Posted by Martin Wasner View Post
    "I've screwed up everything you can possibly screw up in here, likely more than once. You have the benefit of being taught, I had to learn it."
    We've paid for more than a few college educations in mistakes. I have a degree, but can't imagine myself doing anything else - let along working for someone I'll most likely judge to be a slothy-mouth breather. Yes, I'm judgmental.
    -Lud

  4. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by Justin Ludwig View Post
    My help does absolutely NOTHING in his off time to better his knowledge or skill set. This stuff consumes me. Luckily for me, I'm a dork and love computers - so integrating those skills into cabinetry was an easy step. My last hand drawn set was in Dec 2012 and I had to rebuild a corner upper. The only rebuilds I have now are because of customer changes or I forgot to measure a damned can light in the ceiling.
    That was my point about likely anyone who is like me (us) and lives, eats, sleeps the stuff, and has a stack of product catalogs and trade magazines for "down time reading" is more than likely going to break out on their own or be there to begin with. I too have had employees that just love the business to death (at the level they are engaged). Supply take home reading material (likely never gets read) and even have in-shop class time on occasion but, and I cant say I blame them I guess, it all ends at the end of the work day. I can say that I do have one person now that comes in and has clearly worked on product ideas and put thought into the business at night. She is one of the better ones we've had.

    Its a long slog. To keep it OT, with all this, if I didnt have printed cut-lists, Id be dead. I remember one guy, we built a 750K home worth of millwork (cabs, trim, molding). There were 140 cabinet doors in the job, all shop built. Job ended, 3 weeks later another kitchen starts, cant remember the cabinet door process lol. Cut lists and written procedure are unfortunately very important.

  5. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by Justin Ludwig View Post
    My help says he wants to do this for the rest of his life.
    Had to look it up. One of my all time favorites

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4RLfVxTGH4

  6. #51
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    Love me some TED.
    -Lud

  7. #52
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    Boston, MA
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    I just purchased the Silver Edition after evaluating with the free trial. I think it's good software - for me, as a hobbyist, minimizing my purchases of expensive wood justifies the cost. I like the materials database, though I think there are some odd quirks in the interface.
    Compared to alternatives it's easier to use, more polished, more powerful. I like that you can keep track of your stock and decrease it for each project.
    Some of the UI decisions are a bit awkward or unwieldy or unintuitive - but nothing that's a deal breaker.

    I was put off by one decision they made in their pricing model. The Silver Edition is aimed at the hobbyist, while the Gold edition ($250) is aimed at professionals - more complex projects, copies with minor changes for customers, the ability to merge projects, creating customer proposals, a pricing tool, multi-user features, and CAD integration. For a business to pay an additional $160 to get all those capabilities seems quite reasonable.
    The problem is they've chosen to put edge banding in the Gold Edition. As a hobbyist, no matter how helpful that feature might be, there is no way I could justify that price jump just to add on Edge Banding. It's kind of a bizarre pricing model. I wrote to them about this and their response was simply "we consider this an advanced feature" - but they would not discuss that they've bundled one material planning feature with a whole set of capabilities aimed at professional shops.
    It's not unreasonable to charge a bit more for additional features - but the idea that a non-professional would jump to $250 from $90 to get one single capability defies logic. I'd be willing to pay a bit more for the feature. But an additional $160? That's just silly.

    All that said, of all the alternatives I evaluated , the $90 silver edition feels like a reasonable expense for pretty high quality software. But don't expect help with Edge Banding unless you have money to burn.

  8. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Jasper View Post
    I just purchased the Silver Edition after evaluating with the free trial. I think it's good software - for me, as a hobbyist, minimizing my purchases of expensive wood justifies the cost. I like the materials database, though I think there are some odd quirks in the interface.
    Compared to alternatives it's easier to use, more polished, more powerful. I like that you can keep track of your stock and decrease it for each project.
    Some of the UI decisions are a bit awkward or unwieldy or unintuitive - but nothing that's a deal breaker.

    I was put off by one decision they made in their pricing model. The Silver Edition is aimed at the hobbyist, while the Gold edition ($250) is aimed at professionals - more complex projects, copies with minor changes for customers, the ability to merge projects, creating customer proposals, a pricing tool, multi-user features, and CAD integration. For a business to pay an additional $160 to get all those capabilities seems quite reasonable.
    The problem is they've chosen to put edge banding in the Gold Edition. As a hobbyist, no matter how helpful that feature might be, there is no way I could justify that price jump just to add on Edge Banding. It's kind of a bizarre pricing model. I wrote to them about this and their response was simply "we consider this an advanced feature" - but they would not discuss that they've bundled one material planning feature with a whole set of capabilities aimed at professional shops.
    It's not unreasonable to charge a bit more for additional features - but the idea that a non-professional would jump to $250 from $90 to get one single capability defies logic. I'd be willing to pay a bit more for the feature. But an additional $160? That's just silly.

    All that said, of all the alternatives I evaluated , the $90 silver edition feels like a reasonable expense for pretty high quality software. But don't expect help with Edge Banding unless you have money to burn.
    Yes the lacking of edge banding support in the Silver version really is a downfall of the suite. Its not like hobbyists dont work with edge banding. I really think they left it out as an annoyance to tempt the hobbyist Silver owners to drop way more money to upgrade.
    If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!

  9. #54
    Silver Edition here, too. Been using it for years. Indispensible for me on a cab project. I make two parts lists, one for rough cuts and one for final cuts.

    On a project with a lot of dimension lumber, its very useable for estimating materials. In projects with natural finish, lumber selection causes me to pretty much toss a cutting layout.

  10. #55
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    Just a short update after using CutList Plus Silver for a couple years.
    The software still does what it does well.
    However, there have been virtually no updates in the two years since I purchased, and my impression based on the few interactions I've had is that there probably won't be. Suggestions have been met with little interest. They don't even pretend to want to hear what their customer would like to see in the future.

    I noted just this week that there is an obvious missing capability with regard to off cuts.
    The program can optimize cut plans to maximize off cut sizes or ignore that. it can also be told to use up off-cutss in your inventory before using other materials.
    Despite this, when a project leaves a significant off-cut, it is not entered into stock. I just did a project that left half a sheet of plywood. I assumed CutList Plus would just enter that half sheet into my inventory - but it doesn't. Support confirmed you have to do that manually.
    That fact that the feature isn't there isn't the end of the world - but their response made it clear that this is just how it is. It might make sense, but they didn't even mention adding it to a feature list for improvements.

    So my advice - if you purchase this software, assume that you're getting exactly what you see now. Do not have any expectation of any future improvements, certainly not in the non-professional version. Development does not seem to be ongoing.

  11. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Jasper View Post
    Just a short update after using CutList Plus Silver for a couple years.
    The software still does what it does well.
    However, there have been virtually no updates in the two years since I purchased, and my impression based on the few interactions I've had is that there probably won't be. Suggestions have been met with little interest. They don't even pretend to want to hear what their customer would like to see in the future.

    I noted just this week that there is an obvious missing capability with regard to off cuts.
    The program can optimize cut plans to maximize off cut sizes or ignore that. it can also be told to use up off-cutss in your inventory before using other materials.
    Despite this, when a project leaves a significant off-cut, it is not entered into stock. I just did a project that left half a sheet of plywood. I assumed CutList Plus would just enter that half sheet into my inventory - but it doesn't. Support confirmed you have to do that manually.
    That fact that the feature isn't there isn't the end of the world - but their response made it clear that this is just how it is. It might make sense, but they didn't even mention adding it to a feature list for improvements.

    So my advice - if you purchase this software, assume that you're getting exactly what you see now. Do not have any expectation of any future improvements, certainly not in the non-professional version. Development does not seem to be ongoing.
    Yea I dont think there is a "team" of people working on this software and there has been little to nothing added over the last couple of years. Its a shame really as it's not exactly a cheap bit of software.
    If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!

  12. #57
    I've been using Cutlist for many years and I agree. It does what it says it will do very well. While there have been few updates, the customer service has been quickly responsive when I've had a problem (switching computers). I can't imagine doing a project of any significance without it. As to cost, given the amount I've saved on some costly pieces of wood, it has paid for itself many, many times over. So, on balance, I still highly recommend it.

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