Tools / Cabinetry
Cut list, every sheet standard
Nest your parts onto plywood with a real blade kerf, then see what the same list costs on American, British, European, Australian and Baltic birch stock. Guillotine cuts only, so every nest here is one a track saw can actually make.
The same list, every market
A parts list is not portable. The European sheet is 60 mm longer than the British one, Australian stock is 40 mm shorter than a nominal 4 × 8, and Baltic birch is square. Here is what your list costs on each, so you know before you publish a plan or order a pack.
| Sheet | Imperial | Stocked in | Sheets needed | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1220 × 2440 ← | 4 ft × 8 ft | US, CA, UK | 2 | 79.8 % |
| 1250 × 2500 | metric only | EU | 2 | 76.0 % |
| 1200 × 2400 | metric only | AU, NZ | 2 | 82.5 % |
| 1525 × 1525 | 5 ft × 5 ft | US, CA, UK, EU, AU | 3 | 68.1 % |
Why guillotine only
A guillotine cut runs edge to edge across whatever piece is on the saw. That is what a track saw does on a sheet laid over foam, and what a panel saw does in a timber yard. It is the constraint most people are actually working under.
Optimisers that ignore it produce tighter nests full of pieces you cannot reach without a CNC, because freeing one part would mean cutting around a corner. A nest that reads as five percent better and cannot be cut is worse than an honest one, so this tool refuses to produce them. If you do have CNC time booked, a nesting package inside your CAM software will beat this and it should.
Where yield looks poor, the usual fix is splitting one oversized part into two. A 1180 mm shelf across a 1220 mm sheet leaves a 37 mm ribbon that can never be used again.
Kerf is not a rounding error
A 3.2 mm blade removes 3.2 mm of plywood on every pass. Two parts that each measure exactly half a sheet do not come off one sheet, they come off two, and no amount of careful measuring changes that. It is the single most common reason a cut list that looked fine on paper needs an extra sheet at the yard.
Set the kerf to match your blade rather than leaving a default. Thin-kerf track saw blades run around 2.2 to 2.6 mm, general purpose circular saw blades around 3.2 mm, and a yard's panel saw can be 4 mm or more.
Sheet standards
| Metric | Imperial | Stocked in | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1220 × 2440 mm | 4 ft × 8 ft | US, CA, UK | The most widely stocked sheet. Nominally 4×8 ft, milled to 1220 × 2440 mm. |
| 1250 × 2500 mm | metric only | EU | Continental European metric format. 60 mm longer and 30 mm wider than the UK sheet, and not interchangeable with it. |
| 1200 × 2400 mm | metric only | AU, NZ | Common Australian and New Zealand format. Note that 2440 × 1220 mm is also stocked in some AU suppliers, so confirm before cutting. |
| 1525 × 1525 mm | 5 ft × 5 ft | US, CA, UK, EU, AU | Baltic birch is square. A nesting diagram drawn for a 4×8 sheet does not apply to it at all. |
Thickness matters as much as footprint, and it is the other place the two unit systems part company. See the reference tables for nominal against actual, and why 18 mm and three quarters of an inch are not substitutes.
Common questions
- How many sheets of plywood do I need?
- Enter your parts and the calculator nests them, so the answer accounts for kerf and for offcuts you can actually reuse. Rules of thumb fail here because sheet yield depends on how the parts happen to nest: the same parts list can take two sheets or three depending on the sizes and the sheet you are buying.
- Why is the answer different for US and European plywood?
- Because the sheets are genuinely different sizes. A US sheet is 1219 × 2438 mm (4 × 8 ft), a British one is 2440 × 1220, a European one is 2500 × 1250 and an Australian one is 2400 × 1200. The European sheet is 60 mm longer and 30 mm wider than the British one, and a cut list drawn around a 4 × 8 sheet can be physically unbuildable on Australian stock because the long side is 40 mm short.
- What is a guillotine cut and why does it matter?
- A guillotine cut runs edge to edge across whatever piece is on the saw, which is what a track saw or a panel saw can actually do. This calculator only produces nests you can cut that way. Full 2D bin packing scores better by tucking parts into interior pockets, and nobody without a CNC can execute it, so a tighter number you cannot cut is the worse answer.
- Is 18 mm plywood the same as 3/4 inch?
- No. Three quarters of an inch is 19.05 mm nominal and the sheet you buy is typically 18.26 mm, against 18.00 mm for a metric sheet. The quarter-millimetre difference does not matter for a panel and matters a great deal for a groove or a rebate cut to fit the other one. The reference tables mark which pairs should never be substituted.
- Does it account for the saw blade?
- Yes. Kerf is subtracted on every cut rather than treated as rounding, and it is held in millimetres throughout so it cannot drift. A 3.2 mm kerf across a full sheet of parts is easily a lost strip, which is often the difference between two sheets and three.
- Can it keep the grain running the right way?
- Yes. Mark a part as grain-critical and it is never rotated during nesting. Grain is assumed to run along the sheet length, which is how plywood is manufactured. Expect a worse yield when most parts are locked to one orientation, because the packer has fewer options.