How to use Maxcut in Imperial

[Leif-Norsemen]

I recently purchased these plans and was going through the MaxCut\Mobile Workbench to start looking at the cut list and noticed that each of the sheets are a little different than any sheet of 4x8 plywood I've ever seen. I'm using the Imperial conversion in MaxCut and it's showing 9'9/32" x 6'1/16" as the dimensions for the cut list of the 5/8" sheet. (The other sheets have the same overall dimensions)

Is there a trick to get the layout to work properly in Imperial and to work with 4x8 sheets of plywood? This is my first time ever using plans as I've always just done my own drawings and planned everything in my head. (Obviously I'm not a professional woodworker for my day job. )

Thanks in advance for the assistance!

[Suso]

hi Leif,

what is happening to you is that when you talk about boards of 4'x8', that's feet not inches. When performing the conversion the program is changing the board to inches, not feet.

I don't know if the program has a way to change the board to feet and keep the small pieces in inches.

Another way to do it is export the measurements of the pieces in inches and an excel file, then you have to open a new file in Maxcut and create your own boards in feet and with the correct measurements and then import the excel file. I think you're going to have to tell the program which board to use for each piece. You can also calculate the exact inches of the 4'x8' feet board and create the boards in inches,

You can also send a question to the program support, maybe you can do it in another way.

[JimParker256]

Apparently, most of the "metric world" is supplied with sheet goods (plywood, etc) that are considerably larger than we get here in the USA, where it's 4ft x 8ft, at best. Seems like 2500mm X 1250mm is the standard elsewhere.
To change the sheet goods size, select the "Input Items" tab in MaxCut, then select the "Materials" item from the icon ribbon. Select "Sheet" from the drop-down menu, and you should see a list of sheet materials that you can edit (one at a time) to change the size to 1219mm X 2348mm so it correctly reflects the 4ft x 8ft sizes we get here in the US.
Hope that helps.

[wil_g9@hotmail.com]

Hi, thanks for the input! I have a similar question, but I'm more concerned with the depth.

It looks like the materials for the workbench are in 18mm plywood, 15mm, and 9mm. Since US plywood typically comes in 3/4in, 1/2in, and 1/4in, does anyone have any ideas for using those thicknesses instead? The LxW I'm not worried about because I can always get an extra sheet or something, but the thickness being off seems like it would throw things off all over the plan.

Any ideas?

Thanks!
Will

[jboyer5774]

Hi, thanks for the input! I have a similar question, but I'm more concerned with the depth.

It looks like the materials for the workbench are in 18mm plywood, 15mm, and 9mm. Since US plywood typically comes in 3/4in, 1/2in, and 1/4in, does anyone have any ideas for using those thicknesses instead? The LxW I'm not worried about because I can always get an extra sheet or something, but the thickness being off seems like it would throw things off all over the plan.

Any ideas?

Thanks!
Will

I'm wondering the same thing.......is it 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4, or 3/4, 5/8

[Suso]

hi jboyer5774, these are the best approximations for each board thickness:

18mm= (3/4) 19,05mm
15mm= (5/8) 15,8mm

[BGarrett]

I have not yet purchased the plans for this same reason. I had previously looked for a materials list, which I find odd that it isn’t available to download. Am I to understand that the only plywood material thicknesses associated with the plan are 18mm and 15mm? No other plywood thicknesses are required to build the mobile workbench?

If so, has the author of the plans been able to determine if any adjustments to individual measurements are required for someone in the US using imperial (3/4” and 5/8”) plywood? I find it hard to believe that even though we’re talking about a difference of roughly a millimeter that some adjustments to dimensions of cut list parts would not be necessary. It would also seem necessary to know where these adjustments should be made, as altering the dimensions of some pieces could potentially cause problems elsewhere with the build. I own plenty of metric tapes so using the metric system for the lengths and widths of pieces isn’t a problem. We aren’t able to obtain plywood that is 18mm and 15mm in the US so this information is certainly necessary unless one wants to revamp all of the plan. I appreciate any suggestions and guidance that can assist.