Synopsis: Larry Haun shares his tips for saving time on a framing job by cutting many identical pieces at the same time, and other good ideas for production work.

One thing that I’ve noticed in the years I’ve been a carpenter and teacher is that cutting multiple pieces can be a terrible time-waster. If, for instance, you asked beginning carpenters to cut 100 blocks and didn’t give them any further instruction, it would take them about 100 minutes to do the job. That’s because most people tend to cut one block at a time. And it takes about a minute to find a piece of wood, measure it for length, mark it, and then make the cut That’s fine if you have one or two blocks to cut, but not if you have 100.

On most any job there are numerous occasions when carpenters will need piles of blocks, cripples, headers, trimmers, or studs all cut to the same length. Some builders make a cutting list that contains the size, the length, and the number of these items and then submit the list to their lumber companies along with the rest of the order. Large lumber companies often have gang saws, and with the press of a button, a saw operator can make a pallet of blocks in no time. The blocks can be shipped to the job site with the rest of the order.

Most of us, though, don’t operate that way. When we need a rack of cripples, we set up right in our work area and cut them. There are several methods for cutting multiple pieces that are a lot faster than cutting them one at a time. The two keys are: cut more than one board at a time, which is called gang-cutting, and don’t measure each board individually.

Use a radial-arm saw and a stop block

For many builders, the radial-arm saw is the preferred tool for gang-cutting wood to length. Some carpenters mount their radial-arm saw right on the back of a pickup so that the tool is readily available. I have mine mounted on its own trailer so that the saw can be pulled from job to job.

To cut multiple pieces with the radial-arm saw, I build a simple table out of a 14-ft.- or 16-ft.-long 2×12 (or two 2x6s) and nail a 2×4 fence to the backside. To make repetitive cuts to the same length, all you have to do is attach a stop block to the table at the correct distance from the blade. With a stop block in place, you can feed in several 2xs at a time on edge and turn out a pile of blocks or cripples in short order because you’re not stopping to measure and mark each piece. If a radial-arm saw isn’t available, you can do the same thing with a power miter saw. The stop may be screwed, nailed or clamped to the worktable. If you have many cuts to make, be sure the stop block is well secured so that it isn’t gradually forced out of position when you push the end of a 2x against it.

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