United States PREPARED BY Northeastern Forest

Department of

Agriculture

Forest Experiment Station

Service NE-INF-45-83
Standard-size Blanks for Furniture and Cabinets

by Philip A. Araman

What Are Blanks?

Blanks are rough-dimension parts of a specific size.

They may be solid or glued up; quality depends on the

final use of the material.

What Are Standard-Size Blanks?

Standard-size blanks are blanks made to standard

thicknesses, lengths, and widths for each desired quality.

How Are Blanks Used?

Blanks in a few standard sizes can be used to make

the thousands of different size rough-dimension parts

needed by a furniture or cabinet manufacturer.

Blanks can be made from lower grade mixes of lumber or other material that results in lower costs and plentiful sources of material.

Who Can Use Blanks?

Blanks can be used by manufacturers of solid, veneered, or

upholstered furniture, recliners, and kitchen cabinets plus other

users of furniture-grade material.

Who Can Make Blanks?

Blanks can be made by a dimension manufacturer; a sawmiller-lumber drier who will add the necessary equipment to

make the blanks; and a furniture or cabinet manufacturer for

internal use or outside sales, or both.

How Blanks Are Manufactured

Blanks are manufactured with log-run or better lumber by

crosscutting, ripping, and edge-gluing, or ripping, crosscutting,

and edge gluing.

Also, they are manufactured with small-diameter, low-grade

logs by System 6 methods, or bolter sawing followed by conventional methods.

Philip A. Araman is a forest products technologist

at the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station,

Forestry Sciences Laboratory, P.O. Box 152, Princeton, WV 24740.
Recommended Sizes

Recommended hardwood blank standard sizes for furniture and cabinet manufacturers (inches)

Intended

product Actual Blank lengths

Nominal finish blank

thickness thickness thickness

Clear Quality/26-Inch-Wide Blanks

Core Quality/26-Inch-Wide Blanks

Sound Quality (for upholstered frames)/20-Inch-Wide Blanks

Sound Quality (for case goods)/20-Inch-Wide Blanks

These are the recommended sizes, but individual companies could decide to use more or different sizes. Our recommended sizes are for the combined needs of the 32 companies

that supplied the rough-part size data.

Sizes from which needed furniture and cabinet part

requirements could be ripped (from edge-glued wide

panels) and then crosscut into specific lengths with only small

material losses determined blank specifications.

Why Only Wide-Panel Blanks?

Only wide-panel blanks are used because this decreases

the number of standard sizes required and permits better utilization of the material used to make the blanks. Random-width

cuttings can be used to make wide, edge-glued blanks.

Advantages of Making Blanks

When making blanks, a producer can achieve high yields

from abundant low-grade material because:

● Up to 12 lengths are cut at one time by the longest

length first cut-off technique.

● Random-width cuttings are edge-glued into wide panels.

● Panels are produced to fill and maintain an inventory

Therefore, undercutting and overcutting of requirements

can be tolerated.

● Costly drying defects are minimized through predrying, kiln drying, and protected storage.

The high yield will help lower costs.
Advantages of Buying Blanks

A purchaser of blanks will not have to purchase, grade,

sort, and stack lumber; air dry, predry, kiln dry and store lumber; or process lumber into dimension parts in a rough mill.

Rather, the purchaser only has to purchase standard-size, edgeglued blanks; store the blanks; and cut them to specific-dimension parts when needed.

Other advantages are reduced shipping volume, reduced

waste disposal problems, and lower raw material inventory

costs.

Advantages of Using Blanks

Standard-size blanks are advantageous because the sizes

were established with the user’s needs in mind. Yields will be

high, and part costs will be easier to determine. Needs can be

determined in advance, and blanks ordered to maintain inventories. Closer rough-dimension tolerances and minor design

changes that improve blanks-to-parts yields are also possible.

Will Blanks Meet the Needs of My Company?

To answer how well and at what cost blanks will meet the

needs of a company a computer program called BLANKS can

be used. The program determines the number of edge-glued,

standard-size blanks required for each species-thickness-quality

combination of rough parts specified by a company. Parts needs

can be for a piece of furniture, any number of pieces in a suite

or group of furniture, or for any combination of pieces of furniture. The results from program BLANKS provide the number of

standard-size blanks needed, yield information, and cost information for any production period.

The results can be used by a manufacturer to:

Evaluate standard-size blanks as a solid wood input

material.

Consider a blanks inventory system.

Decide what to make or buy and inventory as standard-size blanks.

Decide what to make or buy in exact rough-part dimension if total adoption of the standard sizes is not desired.

Decide which low-demand, species-thickness parts

should be made with a more highly demanded

species-thickness.
What Are the General Industry Needs?

percentage of rough dimension furniture and cabinet requirements by product typea

Nominal Solid Veneered Upholstered Recliners Kitchen

Quality thickness furniture furniture furniture furniture cabinets

Clear (C1F and C2F)

Core

Sound interior (for case

goods) and sound frame

(for upholstered frame)

Other thickness/quality

combinations

Total

aBased on surface area of required parts. Percent of requirements less than 1 percent that fit in one of the

thickness/quality categories were placed in the “other thickness/quaIity combinations.”

Blanks Are Economical to Produce and Sell

We recently evaluated the potential of producing blanks

from log-run lumber (No. 2 Common and Better) in a conventionally equipped plant capable of processing 16 Mbf (thousand

board feet) into 9.6 Mbf of 4/4 or 5/4 blanks per shift. The proposed plant requires an investment of over $3 million and if the

average market price for mixed 4/4 and 5/4 clear-quality red oak

blanks is $1.80 per square foot, the promised return is 26 to 40

percent with one or two shifts, respectively.

We also have evaluated the potential for producing blanks

from low-grade, small-diameter bolts with System 6. Sawmillers

would make two-sided cants from 6- and 8-foot bolts 8 to 12

inches in diameter for sale to the System 6 blank producer

($150 per Mbf mill run). Blanks would be produced at approximately 45 percent yield for C1F blanks ($1.70 per square

foot) and 35 percent yield for C2F blanks ($1.95 per square foot)

on a 4/4 red oak basis. A System 6 blank mill with 16 Mbf input

per shift that uses purchased cants and requires an investment

of approximately $2 million promises returns of 20 to 30 percent.

These rates of return indicate that it is economically advantageous to produce and sell blanks.

Blanks Are Economical to Produce and Use

Accounting-based cost estimates for blanks range from

$0.89 to $1.07 per square foot depending on the amount of

new investment required and level of operation. Estimates are

for a conventional plant that uses 70 percent 4/4 and 30 percent

5/4 log-run red oak lumber mix when making clear blanks.

Accounting-based cost estimates for blanks produced for

internal use in a System 6 blank mill that uses red oak cants
were: $0.90 to $1.02 per square foot for C1F blanks and $1.20

to $1.33 per square foot for C2F blanks. These estimates are for

a 4/4 blank basis.

These material costs are probably lower than material costs

for existing internally produced parts. You should investigate

these opportunities.

Where to Get the Computer Program and More Information

The computer program described in this leaflet is available on request with the understanding that the U.S. Department of Agriculture cannot assure its accuracy, completeness,

reliability, or suitability for any other purpose than that reported.

The recipient may not assert any proprietary rights thereto nor

represent it to anyone as other than a Government-produced

computer program. For a copy of the program or more information about standard-size blanks, write: Northeastern Forest

Experiment Station, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, P.O. Box 152,

Princeton, WV 24740.

The standard-size blanks concept is depicted on the cover.

Standard-size blanks are processed to rough-dimension parts that are

used to make furniture and cabinets.

U.S GOVERNMENT PRINTING 0FFICE:1984-707-583