The Woodwork Bench / Field notes & guides
Turn a cut list into a timber shopping list
A cut list records finished pieces; a shopping list records the stock you must buy. They are different because every cut consumes kerf, defects may need cutting around, and the shop may only sell fixed lengths.
Group parts by material and thickness
Keep 18 mm plywood separate from 12 mm plywood, and hardwood separate from softwood. Record grain direction for visible parts. A narrow piece may technically fit across a sheet but look wrong if its grain runs the other way.
Write quantity × finished length × finished width × thickness. Do not add lengths from different thicknesses together: that creates a misleading total.
Lay out the cuts
For linear stock, sort pieces from longest to shortest and fit them into the actual lengths offered by your timber merchant. For sheet goods, sketch a cutting layout at scale or use a cut-optimisation tool.
Example: three 800 mm pieces and two 500 mm pieces total 3,400 mm before kerf. Two 2,400 mm boards provide 4,800 mm gross, but a workable allocation still depends on defects and the width of the saw blade.
Allow for the saw and mistakes
If five crosscuts each remove 3 mm, that is 15 mm of kerf. Add a realistic margin for trimming and defects rather than assuming the mathematical total is the purchase total.
Buy one extra short offcut for testing stain, drill sizes or joinery. This is often more useful than an arbitrary percentage applied to every material.
Include the parts people forget
Add screws, glue, hinges, brackets, abrasives, finishing products and wall fixings as separate lines. Note the quantity and specification of each. If the plan uses proprietary hardware, check availability before cutting timber.
A sample purchasing calculation
If a project requires three pieces of 600 mm and two pieces of 250 mm, the finished length totals 2,300 mm. A single 2.4 m board leaves just 100 mm for all kerfs, trimming and defects. Sketch the sequence of cuts and measure the real board before assuming one length will suffice.
For sheet stock, keep the part orientation and saw kerf visible on a cutting sketch. Add hardware, glue, abrasives and finish to the shopping list, and keep a separate note of anything you already own.