Reading a cutting diagram

A cutting diagram is a drawing of one sheet with the parts marked on it. It is the only thing from Cut Solver that goes anywhere near the saw, and if it is not readable from two metres away with sawdust on it then it has failed.

This is what everything on it means.

The five parts of the drawing

1. The sheet edge. The outer rectangle is the sheet as ordered, at its nominal size. It is drawn to scale, so a part that looks half the width of the sheet is half the width of the sheet.
2. The trim line. The dashed rectangle inside the sheet edge is your trim allowance. Nothing is placed outside it. If a part appears to touch it, that is a drawing rounding, not a plan to cut into your trim.
3. The kerf. The gap between two parts is one blade width. It is drawn at scale, which means at 3.2 mm on a 2440 mm sheet it is a hairline. It is there, and the layout has already paid for it. See kerf.
4. The part label. Whatever you typed in the label column, printed in the middle of the part with its finished size underneath. This is what you write on the part in pencil the moment it comes off the saw.
5. The offcut. Any area with no part on it. Larger areas are dimensioned so you can decide whether they are worth keeping.

Sizes are finished sizes

The number printed on a part is what the part measures after it is cut, not the space it occupies on the sheet. The space it occupies is the part plus the blade, and that is the layout's business rather than yours.

This matters when you check a diagram against a cutting list with a tape. Measure the drawn part, not the drawn part plus the gap.

Four checks before the saw

Two minutes, every job, and they catch nearly everything:

1. Count the parts. Add up the parts across all the sheets and compare with the total on your cutting list. A part typed twice or missed entirely is the most common error and the easiest to see.
2. Find the biggest part. Look at it on the sheet, then look at the sheet on the rack. If the largest part is close to the full length of the sheet, you need somebody to help you handle it, and it is better to know before it is on the saw.
3. Check the grain. Every part with a locked grain direction is marked. Check that all your doors are standing the same way up. This is the check that saves a remake.
4. Check the last sheet. If the final sheet holds two small parts, you are buying a whole sheet for very little. Sometimes changing one part size by ten millimetres removes that sheet entirely, and the only way to know is to change it and run it again.

Print it, do not read it off a screen

We are aware this is an unfashionable opinion for software to hold.

A printed diagram can be written on. You tick parts as they come off, you write a part number in pencil on the face, and you can hand the sheet to somebody else. A screen at the saw gets sawdust in it, sleeps at the wrong moment, and cannot be marked up.

One sheet per page, portrait, is the default because it is the format that stays readable when it is taped to a wall.

What the diagram does not tell you

It does not tell you the order to cut in. The parts are drawn in their final positions, and getting from a whole sheet to those positions is a sequence of decisions about handling and support that depends on your saw and whether you are working alone.

That is covered in cutting order on a panel saw, and it is the one part of this job that no layout will ever do for you.