How Tree Trunks Are Cut to Produce Wood with Different Appearances and Uses (opens in new tab)

I have to get my project wood from a small local mill, I can get it cut any way I want, the downside is I can't just pick a few boards of different types out of a stockpile like a hardwood supplier. But it is cheap enough that I can buy it an entire tree's worth at a time and keep a decent stock going. The prices for a hardwood board at a normal lumber store are absolutely criminal so it is worth it a dozen times over to get it from a mill or drive to a hardwood supplier's warehouse. Plus with a mill you can bring them any tree you want cut up, I got a few black walnut trees that will probably get me a decades worth of material for next to nothing.

You work in a mill? What's it like? Could you talk about some of the industrial optimizations you've seen in your time?

I'm curious, how did you discover HN?

What do you mean? I don't see any scroll wheel hijacking.

The same people who inject ads on scrolling, duh ;)

I'm curious why you think that. It's all these mills do all day, for thousands of years. Reducing waste by more efficient cuts is literally free profit, which is why they've had automatic scanners and optimized for years[1, 2000].

I've done a little woodworking, but it's enough to realize that wood is complicated and tricky and there are definitely pros & cons to the various cuts. I'm sure if they could get more high quality cuts from a given log they would - it is more valuable down stream.

[1] https://www.vision-systems.com/articles/print/volume-5/issue...

I think the article was geared more towards giving outsiders a rough idea of how boards are made. Not an in depth guide to someone wanting to start a mill. Given the volume of material the industry produces, saving even 1/16" on a cut would likely translate into billions of dollars. I would find it highly unlikely that any outsider, regardless of their mathematics abilities, would be able to walk in and make an improvement. More likely only very incremental improvements come from people who've worked in the industry for years and have an in depth understanding of everything involved from how the wood is used, transported, cut, what's done with the waste, and things like how saw blades are made.