Abstract: An in-feed conveyor brings individual pieces of lumber to an examining area, where a carriage is movably mounted relative to the conveyor for movement along the piece of stock. A control on the carriage is triggered whenever the carriage is positioned in predetermined alignment with defects in the stock, including undesirable end portions as well as structural or quality defects intermediate the ends of the piece. Triggering such control sends an input to a computer, which controls the cutting of the stock by a saw located downstream from the examining station, by which the defects are cut out of the piece of stock. The computer completely controls the incremental movement of the piece of stock at the saw, automatically stopping the stock and causing the same to be cut, not only to remove defects, but also to produce an optimum yield of different pieces cut from the good stock between the defects.