How to write a steel cutting list the workshop can follow
A cutting list turns the shop drawings into instructions for the saw and the cutting table. A good one is easy to follow, hard to misread and tells purchasing exactly what to order.
What every cutting list needs
- Job details: job name or number, client and who prepared the list, so a loose page can always be traced back.
- A label for every part: the mark from the shop drawings (C1, B2, BP1…). The label is what ties a cut piece back to its drawing and to the assembly it belongs to.
- Section or material: 150UC37, SHS 75×75×3, FL 100×10 or 10 mm plate. Write it the same way every time.
- Length (or width × length for plate) and quantity: in one unit across the whole list — millimetres for most steel shops.
- The stock it comes from: which bar or sheet each part is cut from, and in what order.
Keep sections apart
Mixing sections on one page is the most common source of wrong cuts. A 2100 mm part in 150UC37 and a 2100 mm part in 200UB look identical on paper. Group the list by section or plate thickness, start each group on a new page, and print the section name large on every page so a sheet that falls off the clipboard still says what it is for.
Plan from the stock you actually buy
A cutting list is only useful if the bars and sheets in it exist. List the stock length you buy for each section — for example 150UC37 in 12 m lengths and flat bar in 6 m lengths — and plan only from those. Planning a part from a length you do not stock means a trip back to the drawing office when the bar arrives.
Check the supplier's available lengths and sheet sizes before planning, and remember that the longest part, plus trims, has to fit inside the stock length.
Allow for kerf and trims
Every cut removes material, and the ends of stock are not always square. Include the saw kerf and a trim allowance in the plan, or the last part on each bar will come up short. The saw kerf guide covers typical values and a worked example.
Show the cutting plan, not just the parts
A list of parts tells the operator what to cut; a cutting plan tells them how. For each bar, show which parts come out of it in order and what is left at the end. When the same combination repeats, group those bars together (“Bars 1–5”) so the operator can set up once and cut the same pattern several times.
Mark the offcuts
Decide what length counts as a usable offcut in your shop, and list every offcut above that length so it goes back on the rack labelled, instead of into the scrap bin. Anything shorter is scrap and should be shown as scrap so nobody keeps it “just in case”.
Common mistakes
- Two spellings of the same section (“SHS75x3” and “SHS 75x75x3”), which splits one order into two.
- Lengths copied from the drawing without checking whether they are overall lengths or cut lengths after copes and end preparation.
- No job name on the printed pages.
- Planning from a stock length the supplier does not carry.
- Forgetting kerf, so the last part on every bar is short.
Doing it with SteelCutList
Enter the stock length for each section in the length optimiser, then add your parts with their label, section (picked from the stock list), length and quantity. The optimiser works out how many lengths to order, lays out every bar, and exports a PDF with the order list on page 1 and one set of pages per section, each with its own parts checklist and offcut list. Plates work the same way in the plate optimiser.