Ordering Teak Lumber From a Cut List: What I Need to Fill It

A cabinet shop called me last week with a project written on the back of a drawing: a parts list, a thickness callout, and a note at the bottom that said "teak, whatever you have." That is an honest way to start and I can work with it. But the conversation goes faster, and the order comes out closer to what the shop actually needs, when the cut list gets translated into the way lumber is really bought and sold. Here is how I do that translation, and what I need from you to do it well. If you want to see what the stock is before you read further, start with the Ecuadorian teak lumber I carry.

Give me finished parts, not a total

The most common thing a shop sends me is a single number — "I need about four hundred board feet." I appreciate the clarity, but that number is the end of the math, not the beginning, and it hides everything I need to know. Four hundred board feet of narrow, short stock is a completely different pull off the rack than four hundred board feet that has to yield long stiles.

What I would rather have is the parts list itself: quantity, finished width, finished length, finished thickness. Doors, drawer fronts, face frames, a run of trim — whatever the parts are. From that I can see the shape of the job, and I can tell you honestly whether what I have on hand fits it or whether you are going to be fighting the stock the whole way through.

Thickness is where most lists go wrong

I sell Ecuadorian plantation teak (Tectona grandis) on 4/4 nominal board feet, surfaced two sides. Nominal is the trade's bookkeeping, not a promise of what lands on your bench — a 4/4 board is counted as one inch thick for the purpose of the tally, and what you actually have after surfacing is less than that.

So when a cut list calls for three-quarter-inch finished parts, that is a real question, not a formality. Tell me the finished thickness you need and let me tell you whether 4/4 gets you there with enough left over for your own milling. If the answer is tight, it is much better for both of us to know that on the phone than for you to find out at the planer.

Add waste before you call it a quantity

Every cut list needs a cushion, and the right cushion depends on the job rather than on a rule of thumb I could print here. A run of small, forgiving parts cuts a lot of yield out of a board. Long parts that all have to match cut very little. Knots, end checks and the simple fact that boards do not arrive in your exact widths all take their share.

Shops I work with regularly tend to carry a meaningful allowance over net footage, and the ones who have been burned once carry more. What I will not do is pick that number for you and let you discover later that it was thin. Tell me what your shop normally adds and I will tell you whether I think the job warrants more.

Width and length: say which one matters

Almost every list has one dimension that is non-negotiable and one that has room. A face frame can usually be built from narrower stock glued up; a single-piece panel cannot. A long rail has to come from a long board; a drawer side can come out of almost anything.

Mark the parts where the dimension is hard. That one annotation changes how I pull your order more than anything else on the sheet, because it tells me where I need to reach for the longer and wider boards and where I can fill from stock that would otherwise sit.

Tell me what the parts are for

Two lists with identical numbers can need entirely different boards. A set of cabinet doors that will be seen side by side wants boards that read together. A hidden carcass part does not care. Trim that runs past a window gets looked at in a way that a drawer bottom never will.

I do not need a design brief. One line — "these are the visible doors, these are interior parts" — is enough for me to pull sensibly, and it is the difference between an order that works and an order that technically matches the list.

How I quote it back

Once I have the list, I come back with what I can actually fill from what is on the floor, in plain terms: how many boards, what the lengths and widths run, and what is thin. The lumber is kiln-dried — 100 percent — and surfaced two sides, and it is sold on 4/4 nominal board feet with the tally taken at loading. That last part matters: the footage on your invoice is the footage counted off the actual boards going onto your truck, not an estimate made in advance.

If a part of your list is something I cannot fill well, I will say so rather than send you boards that will disappoint you. That is not me being difficult. A shop that gets a bad pull once does not call back, and I would rather lose a line item than a customer.

What to send me

A photograph of a handwritten list is fine. A spreadsheet is fine. What I want on it: the parts with finished dimensions, a note on which dimensions are hard, a word about what is visible, and your timing. If you are working to a date, tell me the date — pickup and freight take their own time and that is worth planning around rather than discovering.

Shops working on cut-list projects can see how I usually handle them on the millwork and cabinet shops page. Otherwise, call me. I answer my own phone.

Norman Jimenez
Platinum Luxury Teak
(773) 584-7334
info@platinumluxuryteak.com