Thread: Cutting plan software

A piece of paper and a pencil along with a calculator just to make sure the measurements add up. You can draw the best way to cut the sheet with out too many corners that waste material.

Thats the way I've done it for 25 years in my job. I also find that it is quicker than the computer too, once you get used to it.

Robert

I do most of my complex designs in AutoCAD LT (the cheaper version, but thoroughly adequate). Make each piece as a contiguous "block," and shift around to fit the sheet (plywood, aluminium, etc.). Sometimes even draw a piece of large scrap on hand to use as the parent sheet. Optimising software, including my brainware, may assume a completely free-form cutter, such as a jig saw. This doesn't work very well for linear cutters such as a table saw, circular saw, cutoff wheel in a right-hand grinder, or tin snips. In this case, it helps to draw the linear cuts themselves so as to avoid cutting through a future piece not yet cut.

Joe

Originally Posted by joe greiner

I do most of my complex designs in AutoCAD LT (the cheaper version, but thoroughly adequate). Make each piece as a contiguous "block," and shift around to fit the sheet (plywood, aluminium, etc.). Sometimes even draw a piece of large scrap on hand to use as the parent sheet. Optimising software, including my brainware, may assume a completely free-form cutter, such as a jig saw. This doesn't work very well for linear cutters such as a table saw, circular saw, cutoff wheel in a right-hand grinder, or tin snips. In this case, it helps to draw the linear cuts themselves so as to avoid cutting through a future piece not yet cut.

Joe

Have you tried googling optimizing software? Some of those programs let you draw the part and then optimize it all in one. Biesse works is one. Don't think there's any free stuff out there but you may get lucky.

You could also try drawing scaled sized parts on the computer or on graph paper and then fitting them in an area drawn to represent the sheet...

Here's a link to a web page that has links to whole heap of options:

http://www.woodweb.com/Resources/RSS...onnection.html

wow, thanks for the all that info, there goes my spare time.

I used smartcut pro the other day and put in a plan from woodsmith magazine for the router table and used the size plywood they suggested and then i changed to different sizes to see how many of these smaller sheets i would need (mainly because i couldn't be bothered hitching the trailer to bring home a 2400 x 1200 sheet.

Well long story short, i priced out all these other sheets 1200 x 900 x three sheets, 1200 x 600 x four sheets and 900 x 600 x five sheets and then totalled then up, $81.27, $74.20 and $70.20 or just $42 for the original 2400 x 1200, guess i'm hitching up the trailer next weekend.

Originally Posted by Toolin Around

You could also try drawing scaled sized parts on the computer .... and then fitting them in an area drawn to represent the sheet...

That's pretty much how I do it, except full size. My projects are mostly one-offs, and material requirements are generally decided between 1 vs. 2 sheets, so doesn't justify the learning curve for software. Nice to know about Mark's link, though. Thanks, Mark.

Joe