Cut large sheets of glass into multiple, smaller sheets efficiently

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Norton's

Norton's

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Joined
Jan 31, 2012
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24
Loc
Saint Louis, MO
Business
Norton's Fine Art and Framing
Hello all-

Occasionally I need to cut several sheets of glass the same size and it seems like often the most efficient way to do this is to cut several of them out of a larger sheet of glass. I'm looking for an app or website I can plug in the size of the large sheet along with the size of the small sheets and the website will tell me how many small sheets I can get out of that large sheet. I usually just go through the different sizes manually, but I'm pretty sure there's a simple algorithm out there to speed up the process.

This could also be used for matboard blanks and foamcore of course.

Any ideas?
Thanks,
Ty Norton
 
Optimization software is available in the cabinet industry, and in plastics fabrication. Others, I'm sure.
There are mixed results. I had the company that I buy acrylic offer to cut it to size for no additional fee. I sent them a cut list and they wrote back saying it would take 6 sheets of 48" X 96" to do the job after entering the dimensions in their optimization software. Sounded like too much to me, so I sat down and did my own figuring and came up with 4 full sheets and part of a 5th. I sent them schematics and they were surprised as well.
 
Have you considered stocking an array of different sized boxed glass? For instance if you needed a quantity of say, 15x17, then cut those from the box of 16x20 lites. I found that to be more streamlined than cutting out all needed sizes from one large sized lite, since almost all the mental gymnastics and scrap management are eliminated.
 
When I first started (and for many years following) I only carried 32x40 of almost all glass types, (and only order 40x60 when really needed, which isn't all that often).
Over the past few years I have begun ordering smaller sizes like 22x28 or 16x20 in only the types of glass I use the most.
CHolt is right, it does save time and wastage.
I wish I had done this much earlier.
 
Thanks everyone for your input. We do carry several different sizes of glass, so that's always an option.

David - I think your Maxcut program is exactly what I'm looking for, I just need to go through the tutorial and figure out how to use it, but it sounds promising.
 
I've never had a need for that type of program but there is something I'm curious about. Is there a setting for kerf width?

For things like glass it would be zero but for acrylic it would be 1/8" or whatever the blade width is. That's important. I can get 4 16x20 pieces out of a 32x40 piece of glass but I can only 2 16x20 pieces out of a 32x40 piece of acrylic due to the blade kerf.
 
Larry Peterson said:
I've never had a need for that type of program but there is something I'm curious about. Is there a setting for kerf width?

For things like glass it would be zero but for acrylic it would be 1/8" or whatever the blade width is. That's important. I can get 4 16x20 pieces out of a 32x40 piece of glass but I can only 2 16x20 pieces out of a 32x40 piece of acrylic due to the blade kerf.
Click to expand...

I also use Cutlist Optimizer Pro. Yes you can set kerf width in that program. It has all kinds of settings, what material you are cutting, least amount of cuts or scrap, etc.
 
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