Free Board Yield Calculator for Kumiko and General Woodworking
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If you've ever stood in front of a pile of lumber trying to figure out how many strips you're going to get — or worse, run out of stock mid-project because you didn't account for kerf — this one's for you.
I built a free, browser-based board yield calculator and it's now live at yield.althoffwoodshop.com
No login. No install. Works on your phone in the shop.
What it does
In the initial version, there are two tools in one:
Board Yield Planner — the general-purpose side. Enter your available stock (with condition — rough, skip-planed, S3S, S4S), enter the parts you need, and it figures out the most efficient way to cut them with minimal waste. It accounts for saw kerf, surfacing losses, and gives you a visual cut diagram for each board plus step-by-step cut instructions.
Resaw Planner — built specifically for kumiko strip production. This one walks through the full milling sequence I actually use in the shop:
1. Rough crosscut to manageable blanks (with snipe buffer built in)
2. Joint the reference face
3. Resaw on the bandsaw — fence setting calculated automatically, and any leftover offcut gets redistributed across your slabs for extra blade drift buffer
4. Drum sand to target panel thickness
5. Finish crosscut to exact length
6. Rip strips on the table saw
7. Hand plane
8. Final drum sand to finished face dimension
Punch in your stock dimensions, pick your SKUs, and it tells you each step and how many finished strips you'll walk away with.
Why I built it
I switched from buying pre-surfaced 17/16" stock to 8/4 skip-planed basswood earlier this year. Same end product, roughly a third of the material cost. But it completely changed my milling sequence, and I kept doing the math in my head or on scraps of paper.
This tool does that math for me — and honestly does it better, because it handles things I was approximating, like distributing the resaw offcut across slabs rather than just leaving it as waste at the end.
It's free, and it always will be
No account needed. Export your cut plan as a JSON file to save it, import it back next time. There's a print button that generates a clean milling sheet you can hang in the shop.
If you find a bug or have a feature request, feel free to reach out.