What's in your scrap bin?

Matt Ducar

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152
Location
Boston, MA
I started cleaning up the shop today to make space to start on the table I've posted in another thread. One corner of my small shop was cluttered up with small scraps I've accumulated over the years but never found a use for. I know for certain some of those scraps have been there for 5 years or more, but it still hurts to toss them in the trash.

What do the rest of you do? What is the minimum size something has to be for you to hold onto it? I'm not talking the uber rare stuff like ebony or scraps from "the tree", but purple heart, walnut, etc. Will I really find a use for that 1/4"x1"x6" piece of purpleheart? What about that that 3"x12" piece of 1/2" maple plywood?

So far, I haven't been able to throw any of it away. And occasionally the odd piece has come in useful. But it has gotten beyond what my small space can manage. I'd take it outside and burn it, but the last time I did that the neighbors called the fire department and I was told I needed a permit for a fire - even if it is in one of those fire pits you buy at the borg. :huh: Got to love city living sometimes.

Matt
 
We all have to make the tough decision at some point. I use the coin-collection approach . . . if I already have a better piece than the one I am considering, I keep the old piece. If the "new" piece is better I keep it and toss the old piece. I mean, how many 1/4" x 3/8" x 16" pieces of walnut do I really need!?!
 
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I mean, how many 1/4" x 3/8" x 16" pieces of walnut do I really need!?!

Ooh I have a project in mind that would use about 30 of those :rofl:

Still slowly working through my pile of not-quite-junk... Eventually I'll either make it all into something or - due to ooppses - cut it all into pieces to small to save and off to the burn pile they go. Luckily I can run the outdoor firepit here w/o issue but also have a few friends with wood stoves who'll take more volume when I have it.

Currently I'm down to 5? 6? bins near the front of the shop and then the stacks along the back wall so.. ok yeah I have a problem.. but have committed to NO MORE until the current piles are gone.
 
For me any peice under 1-1/2"W x 8"L goes into one of two places. If it is fancy wood it goes to a turner for pens and stuff. The rest goes into the wood stove.
 
Do as I say, not as I do.

I have a trash can with things I would throw out or give away - if I weren't so cheap. I have a huge scrap bin - which is rarely productive - I keep telling myself to reclaim the shop space. I have a separate 5 gallon bucket for each species, limited to the number of small pieces that fit in the bucket (I use the walnut bucket when I am working on a walnut project, etc.)

When I am working on a customer's project, I have found I need to cut good wood, not spend hours searching the scrap bins for each piece, otherwise I never "get done on time." The wood color also matches better.

When I am doing something for myself, the cheap comes out, and I scrounge the scrap bins. My wife complains that things for us take way too long.

One more exception... Scraps of plywood rarely are useful in future projects, but I still keep them to make forms for curved pieces.
 
Unfortunately, most of my pile is OSB cutoffs from covering the inside of the shop! My hardwood cut offs, what little there are of them, usually reside on my multifunction wall cabinets. Some useful like the 4/4 X 5 X 60" piece of QSWO, some are not, like the two pieces of Ipe that are about 4/4 X 5/8 X 2. But I can't seem to throw them away.:dunno: Jim.
 
When cherry, maple or oak cutoffs get too small to work for turning pens (future effort), they go into a box for use in my smoker.

Walnut and mahogany go to the pen box until they're too small, then to the trash can.

Exotics have a home here forever until what's left is chips and dust. I'm way too frugal (cheap?) to toss that stuff!
 
I save. My small shop is getting cluttered with all kinds of wood. I just can't bring myself to throw it away. Frequently, I'll dig into the pile and find just what I need for a project.
I was recently given two segmented pieces that are curved and trying to figure out what to do with them. The non-creative/artistic me is stumped. BTW, they were given to me by Todd. Scrap from a project.
 
since 99% of my projects are made from dismantled pallets that were scrap in the first place i just burn small pcs in the camp fire pit
 
I save everything, not just because I'm cheap{lol} but for contrasting plugs, or inlays etc. etc. always find a use. And come this time of year, like Ned, I have a near endless supply of kindling for the wood stove, and by spring my collection is thin once again.
 
I break out in a sweat and get the shakes when it comes time to cull or rearrange my "opportunity" bins (If I call them scraps my grandkids take them home to play with). I save almost all walnut, cherry, maple, and mahogany cutoffs no matter the size, and I put pine in another box for the kids to play with. Actually it's to the point of being ridiculous. Yesterday I ripped to size 8, 1" cherry boards. I was going to throw away the 1/8" 8 foot pieces of cut off but as I was holding them all together I thought that maybe some day I'll laminate them all together, put them in a form and make something interesting. So I saved them with the dozens of other ones that have been sitting in my rafters for years :doh:
 
I was looking last night and I have a golf club and a bunch of metal cut-offs in mine. :huh: I guess I need to go through and do some organizing to the one I built to organize my scraps. I've actually been filling up a 50 gallon plastic barrel over the last two years and pulling from it as needed, but usually has to be at least a 1/4" wide piece and 6" long before I consider keeping it. I also have two smaller tubs with scraps I brought from the old house that need to be culled and set some aside to use for kindling.
 
I've got two or three bins of assorted scraps, some hardwood, some soft. I tend to put the bins in the driveway when I'm working in the shop, so over time, they've gotten rained on occasionally. As a result, there's not as much useful wood in the bins as there used to be. I'm also guilty of saving thin (1/16" to 1/4") strips of 3/4" material...a holdover from my cutting board days. In addition, I've got a few piles of turning blank cutoffs, saved for making pen or bottle stopper blanks, even though I very seldom turn pens or bottle stoppers anymore. :rolleyes:
 
I don't hang on to anything I can't immediately identify a use for. If its pretty much smaller than an untouched board, into the dumpster it goes. I'd be up to my ears in scraps if I didn't pitch them on a regular basis.
 
I consider "scrap" as garbage! I'll hold onto a few cut offs until the project is finished and to use to get my finish regiment worked out for that particular project. Once that happens they are thrown in the burn barrel.
 
I've got a shoebox full of little nubs of spalted hackberry that I just know I'll use for something someday. It sits on top of shoeboxes of spalted maple, walnut, oak, cherry and unknown wood and those sit on top of milk crates of larger pieces of the same. Those are on top of a bench that covers piles of larger pieces of what was once good turning wood that is now past its time. I also have shorts, skinny long pieces and probably some splinters in boxes somewhere too. I hope to get started on some projects soon that will require me to get rid of lots of this wood...but I bet I just find another place to put it all! :doh:
 
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