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, http://www.BitsOfWood.com . 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

"PeteC" wrote in message
news:kukUd.13360$Az.6034@lakeread02...


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.

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

patrick conroy wrote:
"PeteC" wrote in message
news:kukUd.13360$Az.6034@lakeread02...


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.


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



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

PeteC wrote:
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).


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! G

Barry

"B a r r y" wrote in message
news:H7ZUd.38080
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?


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.

"PeteC" wrote in message
news:CPPUd.14298$Az.12181@lakeread02...
of plywood (there is already software that does a good job of that and I
was trying for something different).

Ah!
Thanks!

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:
PeteC wrote:

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).



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! G

Barry

Leon wrote:

-- 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