# Maximising Timber Sheet Usage



## saximus (Jun 23, 2014)

Just wondering if anyone has any “cheat” methods for minimising the amount of waste from cutting out enclosure panels from larger sheets? 
I was thinking of just cutting out some bits of paper that are the same relative sizes and basically doing a tetris style thing. Does anyone else have better/less time consuming ideas?


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## Rogue5861 (Jun 23, 2014)

Draw it on grid paper or google sketchup.


Rick


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## grizz (Jun 23, 2014)

Design the enclosure to fit the sheet sizes if possible. Instead of making the enclosure 1000 wide, make it 1200 etc. measurements I try and stick to are 400,600,800,900,1200 these all fit well into 2400x1200 sheets.


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## smileysnake (Jun 23, 2014)

1200 x 600 x 600 fits perfect in a 2400 x 1200 sheet


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## saximus (Jun 23, 2014)

Thanks for the input everyone. I may have left out a minor detail which is probably important to note. I’m not building an enclosure, I’m building plyo boxes for some exercise inclined friends. So the sizes I need to cut are fairly fixed. 

I assumed people on here would have experience getting the most out of a full sized sheet of ply or melamine but didn’t consider the fact that the old faithful 4’ enclosure width just happens to match the standard sheet size.


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## cagey (Jun 23, 2014)

If you are building plyo boxes there is an advantage of having them tapered on two opposite sides to increase stability and reducing foot and ankle clipping.


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## -Peter (Jun 23, 2014)

Remember the width of the sawblade so if you cut from a standard sheet a 600mm wide length the other half will only be 597mm wide.


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## Jacknife (Jun 23, 2014)

-Peter said:


> Remember the width of the sawblade so if you cut from a standard sheet a 600mm wide length the other half will only be 597mm wide.



Most sheets/panels are generally anywhere between 5-25mm oversized to accomodate for things like blade width...


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## -Peter (Jun 24, 2014)

whatever


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## PDM_Pythons (Jun 24, 2014)

Jacknife said:


> Most sheets/panels are generally anywhere between 5-25mm oversized to accomodate for things like blade width...


Since when?


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## PDM_Pythons (Jun 24, 2014)

-Peter said:


> whatever



Most panels I agree r about 1/2mm larger in length only....so we cant say we been robbed lol


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## NNSW_Reptiles (Jun 24, 2014)

http://cutlistplus.com/download/


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## Fil_14 (Jun 24, 2014)

The extra on sheets, (for saw cuts) depends on the material and brand. Brands do vary with their size. 
If it was me, I'd draw what you want on paper. 
Then do a cutlist from your drawing. 
Look at your available material. 
Drawing a picture on paper of your sheet and nesting your shapes on it can be helpful, (Tetris style), especially if you can't picture it in your head. 
It also depends on what tools your using, jigsaw/ circular saw / panelsaw etc. 
All good suggestions made here. 
Being good at Tetris will help lol. 
Good luck. 


Fil...


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## Jacknife (Jun 24, 2014)

PDM_Pythons said:


> Since when?



Have you ever bought material off the shelf(not cut to your specific size) that has been the exact measurement to the mm? 
Nowhere ever have I, they always overcompensate a little, and the larger the material, usually larger the excess. I'm not talking huge amounts, but enough that they are assured it's definitely the the size they say it is.


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## saximus (Jun 24, 2014)

NNSW_Reptiles said:


> http://cutlistplus.com/download/



This looks perfect. Thanks very much.

Thanks to everyone else for your input too


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## Jimie (Jun 24, 2014)

I worked out what size i wanted my enclosures then I used A4 sheets of paper (using cut outs the size of each panel down sized) to figure out the best place to cut each panel of the viv then the wastage that was left over I used to make air vents


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