Unfortunately waste is sometimes unavoidable and a cost of the job when there is an inside and outside on trim like that.

 

If the molding isn't reversible from inside to out you're going to have that waste no matter what you do. You might as well cut the trim to a rough length and then miter it. The only reasonable way to minimize waste is cut your longest pieces first and work your way to the smallest. You can really get into an unreasonable amount of work trying to calculate how to cut the parts where there is little or no waste.

 

Thanks! Yeah what I have been doing is simply cutting the longest length needed until I can't anymore, then cut the remaining longest, and so on and so forth. The good news is I'm starting with 14' trim boards, so the waste at the end of the board is already minimized.

 

That's pretty much it. The only other option is to plan your cuts. Sometimes the longest piece needed plus 1 of the next size down plus 1 of the size below that yields less waste than just cutting as many big pieces as you can out of a full stick and then hoping the offcut works for something else.

The only way to do this is to know what all of your measurements are first and then plan the cuts per stick to maximize usage. The downside is this takes more time and planning which isn't always consistent with production.

 

Avoid mulitple saw stop settings!

When cutting many pieces to the same length out of several boards, try to keep your fence stops in the same location until you longer need that length. This will insure accuracy and less set up time. Then move on to the next length needed. It doesn't matter whether you start with longest or shortest , just plan it out so you don't run short of stock....:|

 

I do not really understand your design, so do not know if this would help.

I have found that swapping ends of the board I am cutting can help with reducing waste. That is I rotate the board 180 degrees on the long dimension.

George

 

This is really close to what I'm doing:

https://www.decorpad.com/photo.htm?photoId=122989

 

You have zero waste, actually

Any pieces < 1/4" are "zero" waste. Maybe 4" or 6" long piece could be considered waste, but for a large project like that you always order more length than needed, usually 20% is allowed for waste. In the big picture, it's not that much.

There is no secret code, just make all your right side miters first, then cut to proper length using the left side miter position. You should have a secondary fence installed with an adjustable stop to bump the miter to for best accuracy. You really don't want to have to measure each piece individually and to switch back and forth between right and left miters on each piece. :|

 

Looks like a pretty ordinary "picture frame" miter cut to me. Do not understand your top and bottom and inside and outside references.

There should be minimal waste.

George