Hit 1,000 board feet of waste last week and it woke me up

I dumped my scrap bin and realized I'd tossed over a grand in good lumber just from bad cuts and rushing layouts... anyone else do a waste audit on their jobs lately and get a gut punch about how much they're throwing away?

3 comments

3 Comments

james_kim1mo ago

Bad cuts and rushing layouts" hits hard man. On a custom kitchen job last month I measured a cabinet panel wrong twice in a row because I was trying to beat the clock. Threw away two full sheets of expensive walnut plywood. What specific part of your workflow actually costs you the most waste - is it the measuring, the cutting, or the layout planning?

the_margaret1mo ago

Read that study from the Fine Homebuilding guys about how most waste comes from the layout stage not the cutting itself. @james_kim you're dead on about the measuring part. My worst waste comes from those "just one more check" moments where I remeasure three times and still cut wrong because I'm second guessing myself. Last week I had a pile of trim pieces that were all off by a quarter inch because I kept switching between my tape and my speed square without locking in a single system. Layout planning is where the real savings are if you slow down to think before you cut.

vera_campbell18d ago

Always measure twice cut once except when you measure thrice and somehow make bad cuts anyway.