Plywood Cut List Optimizer

Kerf is the width of material the blade turns into dust — about 1/8 inch on a standard blade. It matters disproportionately because it decides whether pieces divide evenly into a sheet. Two 24-inch pieces need 48.125 inches of a 48-inch sheet once the cut is counted, so they do not fit, and a job that looked like one sheet becomes three. Nothing else in cut planning has that kind of leverage.

Usually because they allow non-guillotine layouts — parts dropped into the middle of a sheet, surrounded on all sides. That packs tighter on screen and cannot be cut on a table saw, a track saw or a panel saw, because those all cut edge to edge. Every layout here is restricted to cuts you can actually make.

On anything that will be seen or that spans a load. Plywood face grain runs the length of the sheet, and a part rotated 90 degrees has its grain running across — obvious on a finished surface and weaker across the span. Hidden parts such as drawer bottoms and cabinet backs can usually rotate, which is where most of the material saving comes from.

Add a small amount if the factory edges are damaged, which is common on sheets that have been moved around a yard. Half an inch off all four sides is typical. If your sheets are clean, leave it at zero — trimming costs material that would otherwise be usable.

Near it, but not provably optimal — perfect two-dimensional packing is NP-hard, so no browser tool can promise that. For realistic part counts the difference from the theoretical best is usually zero or one sheet. If the result sits just over a sheet boundary, try unlocking the grain on parts that do not need it, which is the change most likely to buy back a whole sheet.

It plans rectangles from rectangles, so it works for anything sold in sheets — plywood, MDF, melamine, polycarbonate, plasterboard. Solid timber is a different problem, because boards vary in width and carry defects you cut around, and a planner that assumed a clean rectangle would mislead you.