Six jobs, written out at real length
Each of these is a genuine cutting list run through the application, with the sheet count before, the sheet count after, the waste at both ends and how long the whole thing took. Including the jobs where the saving was one sheet, and the ones where the waste is still thirty per cent afterwards.
The six jobs
Different trades, different materials, and one of them is not a sheet job at all. Each page carries the full parts list, the layout it produced and the arithmetic behind it.
Eighteen kitchen carcasses from melamine
108 parts, 28.2 m2 of 18 mm melamine faced board, cut unit by unit until it was not.
Acrylic letters nested for a sign shop
41 letters and roundels for two shop fascias, cut on a router from 3050 by 2030 acrylic.
A sideboard cut with the grain running one way
14 parts in oak veneered MDF, every one of them grain locked, after two were cut ninety degrees out.
A term of plywood for a school workshop
216 parts for thirty six pupils across two projects, batched before the term started instead of cut week by week.
Marine ply for a small launch
28 pieces in 9 mm marine ply, eight of them 2400 mm long, built by one person alone in a rented unit.
Engineered oak floor cut from lengths
81 pieces from 2200 mm boards for a 23.1 square metre room, where the whole question is the piece left at the end of each row.
All six side by side
Waste is part area against the material actually bought. The spread across these six is the honest answer to what this software does.
| Job | Before | After | Waste before | Waste after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eighteen kitchen carcasses from melamine | 13 | 11 | 27.2% | 13.9% |
| Acrylic letters nested for a sign shop | 2 | 1 | 65.0% | 29.9% |
| A sideboard cut with the grain running one way | 4 | 3 | 50.8% | 34.4% |
| A term of plywood for a school workshop | 6 | 4 | 46.0% | 19.1% |
| Marine ply for a small launch | 10 | 6 | 50.5% | 17.6% |
| Engineered oak floor cut from lengths | 64 | 58 | 13.6% | 4.7% |
If you are trying to work out what to expect on your own work, the guide on estimating sheet counts for a quote explains the pattern behind that spread and gives numbers you can quote with.
Read on
How to read the numbers on this page, and what produced them.