Software Cut List Program Announcement

[PeteC]

I would like to announce to the group that I have written a software cut list program called WoodParts that should help to make the creation and organization of this aspect of woodworking easier, faster and less error-prone. I am an amateur woodworker and professional software engineer who is trying to help his fellow woodworkers and, let's be honest, make a little extra money.

Please check out my site,

. It won't take long and you can download the program for a 30-day free trial. I think it has a number of features that are fairly unique and very easy to use. Feel free to email me or post to the group with comments, suggestions, praise, etc. Thanks

PeteC

BitsOfWood.com

[patrick conroy]

Pete - I use CutList for plywood so I was looking for a screen shot of the "cut list"? Did I miss it?

[PeteC]

Patrick, I guess I didn't include a screen shot of what an actual cut list looks like - I probably should do that. If you use mainly plywood, WoodParts probably won't help much since it doesn't do layout on sheets of plywood (there is already software that does a good job of that and I was trying for something different).

Pete

[B a r r y]

While I truly appreciate your efforts, sheet goods are where cutlists are truly useful.

What good are cutting diagrams for solid stock when the locations of sap / heartwood, defects, and figure quality are unknown to the program?

The person who can predict what parts of each board to use with a computer will become the belle of the ball for operations like flooring mills!

Barry

[Leon]

Actually a solid stock cutting diagram is quite handy. I use Cutlist Plus, a different program that will let you keep an inventory of your on hand panels, lumber, and materials. While it is true that with Cutlist Plus you do no have total flexibility over looking at grain on each board it does however let you take each board that you have and enter an area that should be considered cut off/ waste from on the perimeter. For instance if you are buying S2S or S3S boards you can tell the program to automatically not consider the edges of the boards that need to be straightened with any measurement you choose for each individually entered or group of boards. In addition you can tell the program to not consider the first 2 or 3 inches on each end of a board to compensate for planer snipe or small splits at the ends of the board. Then, for me personally I use Cutlist Plus to tell me how much lumber and or panels to buy for a given project. I simply ender in to the Raw Materials data base the kind of panels and boards that I will be shopping for and the program will use those sizes and types that I entered to determine the quantity that I need to buy. Naturally you do not always get the sizes that you set out to buy so I edit the Raw Materials list to reflect what I actually ended up with and run the layouts for optimal cutting results.

[patrick conroy]

Ah! Thanks!

[PeteC]

Barry, WoodParts generates a cut list, not cutting diagrams. I completely agree that it is impractical to generate cutting diagrams for solid lumber of any major species except for something very uniform like mahogany. WoodParts will help you to generate cut lists based on your specification of what the dimensions are. Unlike all programs I have seen, that only take the final dimension, such as 6-3/4, WoodParts is a very powerful dimension calculator. This may or may not be an interesting feature to (amateur) woodworkers. I thought it would be, but I'm also a software guy, so maybe it's wishful thinking.

Pete

B a r r y wrote:

[B a r r y]

-- Lots of good info snipped --

Thanks, Leon.

I was not aware that Cutlist plus had the features you've mentioned. The solid stock programs I'd seen acted like a "board diagram" typically seen in "Woodsmith" or "Shop Notes", with none of the variables CL+ has.

I really need to check the program out.

Barry