The Framers Forum

Hi.

When we have to cut lots of frames in different sizes using the same moulding is there a programme that can calculate in which order/size we should be cutting to get the least amount of wastage from the moulding.
Thanks

It's a tricky mathmaticl problem I've been assured. I have an app called Cut No Waste. I haven't tried it fully but it seems to do what you are after if you have an iPad or iPhone.

Start with the longest size first and work down to the shortest. Do this for full or partial sticks of moulding.

There is one moulding that I use a lot on biggish frames. Longest rails about 4ft going down to about 2ft. I like to cut it
'on the fly', that is make it up as I go along. You could spend hours trying to work out the ideal cutting plan which defeats
the object of reducing wastage. It helps if you have plenty of moulding on hand as it's often better to start a new length
rather than end up up with a useless short bit. I waste very little this way.

JFeig wrote:Start with the longest size first and work down to the shortest. Do this for full or partial sticks of moulding.

I do much the same. Also because so much of my output is hand finished, a lot of my wastage is unfinished moulding and is less likely to be worth keeping. I have very little space to properly organise my waste materials and off cuts, so I can easily get in a muddle and gain little benefit in keeping too much.

Too be honest, I'm not the tidiest and most well organised by nature and would probably be better off not keeping to many left overs, but in this case I'm not usually as disciplined as I need to be. I'm often planing to l leave thing to sort out later, which is a receipe for trouble.

Unfortunately I'm slowing down as I get older and don't have as much get up and go to catch up on organising the waste properly. The best that I can say right now is that things are at present a work in progress.

http://www.optimalon.com/online_cut_optimizer.htm

Brilliant for glass. If you're cutting moulding rather than panels then you have to put in a width too. Make the width less than the length of any of the lengths you are cutting, and describe the width of all the lengths, and the stock size, the same. It's not absolutely perfect, sometimes I look at the cutting plans and get a better result.

I'm not sure how much effort it's worth for most mouldings though. Certainly worth it for cutting expensive glass.

Hi Fellow Framers

I use this nifty little programme called Simple Cutting Software from http://www.nesting-technologies.com.

It is great for cutting glass but I use it too for working out moulding cuts for big framing jobs.

For what it's worth.

Cheers

Campbell

The problem I find is when cutting lots of frames and using different sides out of different sticks is the NON uniformity of each stick and have to faf about with the joins so they are smooth as some sticks are deeper than others!! then theres the colour match and not forgetting grain differences. It's not worth all the head scratching to save a foot of moulding.