Doesn't it really bother you to pay so much for expensive wood and have so much of it end up in the trash? Or, of course in a box of the pieces too small to use but too big to throw away?

Using cherry 1 3/4" thick, here's how I would normally cut the first 2 pieces on the left for a cobra, with two pieces of the waste on the right.

You can see a little more waste between parts as I tried to keep the parts to cut close, but keep the wood grain correct.

A closer view, (no, I didn't cut the board at the left) I cut at the bottom edge of the thick piece, both thinner pieces away from the thick piece .

After marking the line for the thickest of these two pieces, I used a 1/4" blade in the bandsaw to "resaw" the extra thickness off. After sanding, I'm left with the 2 parts and a nice large piece of 5/16" thick cherry. This thickness can be used in a lot of ways.

Such as nice looking bases or fins, tarantula and scorpion legs or other parts on other projects. Much better than cheap wood for the bases.