Board cut calculator

Worked example: 12" pieces from a 96" board

These are the figures the calculator above opens on. Change any field and it works the same problem for your numbers.

About cutting pieces from a board

How many pieces of a given length can I cut from a board?

Divide the board length by the piece length plus one blade kerf, then round down — and then subtract one kerf from the total, because the last piece doesn't need a cut past it. A 96" board in 12" pieces with a 1/8" kerf yields 7 pieces and 11 1/4" left over, not 8, because the 8th would need 96 7/8" of board to leave a kerf between every cut.

Why is the leftover more than I expected?

Every cut between two pieces costs a kerf's width of material, and that adds up faster than it looks — a dozen cuts at 1/8" is a foot and a half gone to sawdust. The leftover shown here already accounts for every kerf the layout actually needs.

Does this tell me how many boards to buy?

Enter how many finished pieces you need and it will — it divides that count by how many one board yields and rounds up, because a partial board still means buying a whole one.

You might also need

• Sheet layout calculatorHow many same-size panels fit on a sheet of plywood in a plain grid, turned 90° if that fits more.
• Cut list optimizerLay your parts out on a sheet of plywood and get the cuts in order. Accounts for blade kerf and keeps the grain running the right way.
• Inch fraction calculatorAdd or subtract two measurements written the way a tape shows them, read to the nearest sixteenth, thirty-second or sixty-fourth.