Kitchen Cabinets #1: Prologue

Hi,

I am in the midst of the same. What is dw?

I use 20% and up. The less you buy the more careful you need to be.

It is as simple as adding up the board footage. and multiply by 1.2 or whatever waste factor you decide.

-- -John "Do I have to keep typing a smiley? Just assume it's a joke." www.flickr.com/photos/gizmodyne

DW = Dear Wife Much safer to say that then to refer to her as “da missus”. :)

I usually try to scrimp on wood . . . but its pretty easy to run to HD and pick up a piece of pine if required. I think I may try to be a little generous on wastage as it has to come a looong way.

Tks giz

-- The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them

I find that the lower per centage of waste I order, the greater the anxiety with every cut. I ordered some specialty mahogany for a project with a 10% waste factor and it really took away from the enjoyment of the project. 20% should do just fine.

The thing you might look at is a cutlist program. I use Cutlist2D. You put in the size of all your wood, then put in the size of all the pieces that you need to cut, it generates a cut list with diagrams that you can orient for grain and gives you a real good idea of what you’ll need to buy.

Cheers!

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

I agree try out a cutlist program. I find that they are not always the most accurate. I can ususlly get more pieces from the same amount of wood. I look at what they show and them try to rearrange pieces to fit.

Wood magazine gives pictures of wood layout and you will see a lot of left over pieces at the ends of boards.

The wood that you get might not always be the best size 7 1/2” wide when you need 6 etc.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

I would say 20-30% would be a good factor. One thing it depends on is the quality of the wood. If it is nice straight, clean, mostly free of defects, then you can probably have a lower waste level. If there are lots of knots, checks, crunched edges, etc, then a larger level may be needed.

Mot, do you have a site for that cutlist program? I would like to take a look and see if it would help me out. Sometimes when I get to the hardwood dealer, I have an idea what I need to buy. For some reason, it is usually more that what I need even with the waste factor. Having a cutlist that is diagrammed out might be a help.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

What finish are you planning? The poplar I get tends to be green colored so I only use it for paint grade. I have seen some beautiful pieces here built out of poplar. I’ve been out smarted by lumber (and lumber companies) more than once so I tend to the 25% range. The lower the lumber grade the higher % of waste. I use mostly knotty “low grade” woods so 20% would probably work. Don’t be suprized if their idea of square footage is different than yours. Technically a 10’ 1” board counts as 11’ and that seems screwy to me.

-- http://www.woodsongsfurniture.com

That’s a very ambitious project! Since you are using poplar I assume you may be painting. If you are painting and will be doing either raised or flat panels, you might consider MDF for that. MDF paints well and will cost much less than poplar panels and be more stable. Raised panels are easy to do on the table saw or with suitable bits on a router table. Good luck and share pics as you go along.

-- RonR, Massachusetts

Bill I’ve used cutlist pro. A demo is here http://www.tucows.com/preview/336101

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

Also … it is a good idea to let the wood sit in your house or shop for a while ( around 3 weeks or so). Especially if you are buying it from somewhere like Home Depot where it could have been recently shippied in from a different climate.

-- -John "Do I have to keep typing a smiley? Just assume it's a joke." www.flickr.com/photos/gizmodyne

I tnink I actually spend more time figuring out how to get the most out of a piece of wood than actually cutting. I hate wasting lumber . . . but on a big project like this a little extra would be great.

Thanks karson for the tucows link . . . I’ll give it a try.

According to the supplier the wood is kiln dried . . . but letting it climatize is a good idea.

Just to be safe I just may order a smaller amount first to get a feel for the wood and supplier. DW wants a small cabinet built that I can use as a tester for the kitchen cabinets.

-- The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them