Nesting for sheet metal fabrication in Ireland

Material is the biggest controllable cost in a fabrication shop. Between a rectangular layout and a true-shape nest there is usually 10-30% of sheet, and none of it needs new machinery to recover.

Where the material goes

Three things quietly consume plate: parts nested as bounding boxes instead of outlines, spacing set generously because nobody trusts the kerf figure, and offcuts that never make it back into stock. Quick Nesting addresses all three, and the calculators let you measure each one against your own prices.

• True-shape nesting on the real outline, holes included
• Per material kerf and spacing presets
• Remnants saved with their real outline for reuse
• Multi-sheet jobs across mixed plate sizes

Costing that survives a customer question

Stockists quote per kilogram, customers buy parts. The sheet price estimator converts one into the other: sheet weight from size, thickness and density, sheet price from your price per kilo, then material cost per part at your real utilisation with Irish VAT shown separately.

The offcut value calculator does the same for the remnant rack, comparing what a plate offcut saves as reusable stock against what a merchant pays for it as scrap.

No install, no server

Nesting runs in the browser, so drawings never leave the shop PC. That keeps procurement and customer confidentiality simple, and it means the free tier is genuinely usable on the machine you already have.

FAQ

Does it handle plate as well as thin sheet?

Yes. Set the kerf and spacing per material, generous plasma kerfs of 1.5-2.5 mm included.

Can it nest into an offcut rather than a full sheet?

Yes. Saved remnants can be selected as the stock for a job, so the nest is run against the real leftover outline.

What formats does it read and write?

DXF and SVG in, DXF and SVG out. No proprietary format in the middle.