Every now and then I get anxious to build a project. It may be a home theater, an ambient air filter for the shop, maybe a portable solar charging system to power my electronics when camping or maybe a speaker or two or even built-in bookcases (both works in progress).

Woodworking projects like these often require a lot of planning and laying out of parts for a cut list so that you can use your material effectively and minimize waste. I have not yet found cut list software for Linux and have not been too excited about running one of the existing packages using wine. The one I did try under wine didn’t work all that well so I may just hold out for a while.

When I lay out my parts for a cut list, I have found that graph paper helps of course, but I wanted some that would help me visualize the material I was working with. So, I went to Incompetech. They have several unique graph papers already available or you can design your own and download them as PDFs.

I made two sheets that I use quite often. These PDFs will print an 8.5″ x 11″ (letter sized) sheet with grids for either 1″ (48 x 96) or 1/2″ (96 x 192) divisions on a standard 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood, MDF, particle board or other similar stock. I have found them extremely useful for my projects and hope you will too (please add a comment and/or link to this article if you find them useful).

Here they are: