Nesting to save timber

**Rocker** · 16th March 2005, 05:42 PM

Nesting? Ah yes; that is when you have one 'while' loop nested within another. No, I am not speaking of writing code, but about the potential to save timber by interlocking curved or tapered parts when laying out their outlines on a board.

I had a recent example of this when designing a sewing table for SWMBO. I wanted to get four 48 mm square table legs 750 mm long out of a board of jarrah 190 mm wide and 900 mm long. At first sight this seems impossible, but if you taper the legs, and interlock them it is easy, so long as you have a band saw to make the angled cuts for the interlocking tapers.

The concept is dead simple, but, if you are not alert to the possibilities, you may easily waste timber. With jarrah more than $4000 a cube in QLD, it is worth thinking about.

Rocker

**craigb** · 16th March 2005, 07:47 PM

Mate, I'm a bit slow. Can you draw me a picture? (Not in Autocad though

)

**Rocker** · 16th March 2005, 09:09 PM

Craig,

Will Turbocad do? The drawing is to scale, and each leg is 48 mm wide at its top. By tapering the legs to 40mm wide at their bottoms and interlocking them, you can get 4 legs out of the 190 mm wide board.

Rocker

**craigb** · 16th March 2005, 09:47 PM

David,

Turbocad will do just fine

It's true that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Cheers
Craig

**arose62** · 16th March 2005, 09:50 PM

What if you'd made the legs hollow??

Then you could have *really* nested them (partially) inside each other. (Like a stack of icecream cones)

Probably would have saved even more wood

)

Cheers,
Andrew

**craigb** · 16th March 2005, 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by arose62

What if you'd made the legs hollow??

Then you could have *really* nested them

You mean like a Russian doll ?

**arose62** · 16th March 2005, 10:22 PM

Not really - Russian Dolls are of decreasing size, and fit completely within the larger ones.

I was visualising a "stack" of the tapered legs - like a stack of square tapered plant pots perhaps.

Of course, this was all totally ignoring the practicality of then cutting them out in the real world!!

Maybe he could totally shred the board, mix the shavings with glue, and form the resulting mixture into the legs he wanted ???

Cheers,
Andrew

**craigb** · 16th March 2005, 10:29 PM

Originally Posted by arose62

Maybe he could totally shred the board, mix the shavings with glue, and form the resulting mixture into the legs he wanted ???

Cheers,
Andrew

Yes. And call the result craftwood

**bitingmidge** · 16th March 2005, 11:03 PM

Or chip it, have paper made, recycle it into corrugated cardboard and check out the other mysterious thread.

Initial point well made Rocker, I see it as a logical move, but I've scrounged an awful lot of timber from people on whom the principle would be completely lost. (and I'm happy about that for the sake of all the scroungers out here!)

Cheers,

P

**Rocker** · 17th March 2005, 07:01 AM

Midge,

I only wish I had your contacts, so that I could be able to scrounge all that lovely timber when old Queenslanders are demolished to make way for McMansions :eek: Unfortunately, I have to pay the full cost of dragging jarrah across the Nullarbor Plain :mad:

Rocker

**bitingmidge** · 17th March 2005, 08:50 AM

Trouble is, I only scrounge the dud stuff!!

Plenty of Hoop pine available as VJ boards though.

Cheers,

P

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