I’ve been at this woodworking adventure long enough that scrap wood is starting to take over my shop which is relatively roomy (two and a half car garage from which cars are banned)..I have made a few containers and use garbage cans and other useful containers but every project results in more cutoffs…I’m one of those people that hates to throwout or burn anything that might be useful sometime in the next twenty or thirty years but I’m beginning to reach critical mass here..
How do you all handle this predicament?
Neil
Replies
I assign an arbitrary dollar value to storage space. When the value of the space outpaces the value of the scraps, out they go. ;-)
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Two things:
1) get better at efficient layout;
2) make fewer mistakes (time will take care of this)
Chunk ANYTHING that resulted from a mistake. You don't need that bad omen lying around the shop. It will rub off on the new wood you bring into the shop.
Then get rid of about 75% of the rest of the scrap and you'll have it.
Neil,
I too generate loads of cutoffs and other waste, especially since a lot of the timber that comes my way is salvaged from old furniture, fittings or other items that must have the planks extracted from them. Just this week I've cut the waney edge sapwood off around 3 dozen very large oak planks "inherited" from a friend. There are bags and bags of the stuff.
In the same spirit as getting it, I try to give potentially useful cutoffs away to people who can use them. This is generally people who make little boxes or other small stuff(they get the exotics) or who make rough stuff for gardens and other places where neither looks nor durability matter much.
There is still plenty left after that. It goes to various folk in the village for kindling and also into our chiminae, for those cooler nights when the I, the ladywife and the cats sit around in the garden imbibing vino and talking nonsense (not the cats).
Lataxe
I use mine to make jigs and fixtures. I made a bin that's 3' wide by 2' deep and keep all my scraps in it so that when I need a short piece for something it's readily available. It's pretty much filled all the time but I'm constantly pulling something out of it to use. Here are some ideas that I've come up with to use scraps for:
1. jigs and fixtures
2. making boxes
3. making inlay
4. intarsia projects
5. making toys
6. practice for hand joinery skills
7. glue blocks
8. culls
9. small projects like wine bottle stops or bookmarks
10. firewood kindling
Add this one to the list -- it's the best of all (depending on the species):
11) Woodchips for the Barbeque smoker. Yum.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
aahhh yes.... I need to try that!
Anything longer than 12" goes into cutting boards. People love the interesting designs and colors. Glue up the scraps run them through the planer, round corners and edges, sand, and walnut or mineral oil. They make great gifts.
Neil, I faced the same problems in setting up my new shop in the mountains of East Tenn. The size of the shop is relative, making the problem geometric. BUT, if you use some gauges it solves the problem. I have four outlets for sawdust, plannings and cutoffs. Sawdust from the DC's go to neighbor Sherm for his crops, plannings go to neighbor Sam for bedding for his horses, cut offs and trims are gauged.
If it's trims of mill edges, sapwood or faults it gets cut to 24" and used in the sentry coal stove to start up large chunks of ash, maple, oak and hickory split dry burl joints($50 a truck load), thus heating the overhead of the shop in the winter or cool mountain mornings and the floor of the ranch house above. A great and comfortable savings I assure you, saving the heat pump expense.
The rest takes discipline.If the cut off is really fine grained board wider than 3" and at least as long as your forearm it could be nice box making stock so make a wall hung 2'x2' box 24" deep . when it's full the rest -or old residents- go to make up splits to start the stove. The longer pieces 3"+ x 24" + need more judgement to go to the wood storage rack, or the stove, be strong here!!
At no time does black walnut (dust, plannings or cutoffs) escape the trash or the stove as it will kill crops and sicken the horses. Good luck, Paddy
Ps. Ya don't have a stove in yur shop? Where do ya put the mistakes err. trial pieces?PFH
Look for smaller projects to build that can utilize the scraps or mill the scraps into components for bigger projects. YOu might want to also look at the starting size of the stock you use and how you break it down. If working with 8' stock leaves you a lot of cut offs that are too short to use for other parts you might want to look at starting with 10' stock enorder to get more mileage out of your lumber. You might also consider using some of the scraps as test cuts on future projects if you consistantly mill to the same thickness. Scraps can be used to test cut joints, set up bit and blade heights, clamping cauls there are endless posibilities and ther good part is that a lot of them are one off uses that can be pitched when done. Hey, don't forget finishing. I will usually use scrap wood from a project to test new finishes with ect before I commit to the end product. I have resawn cut offs ect and laminated them with other scraps to make accented inlays and small parts that really catch the eye. If you know anyone that turns they might like cutoffs to make laminated turnings with or pens. Got any grandkids, nieces or nephews? They all love to play with blocks, make them there own custom set.
Finger joint to create larger boards of the same species. Lee Valley sells a router bit that can be used for this purpose http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=30210&cat=1,46168,46176
LB
When my kids want to have a marsh mallow roast, they raid the scrap barrel which is different from the good stuff (over 2' in lenght and at least 3" wide). I do it for fun not a living, so they keep it clean! Got to admit, fire starts pretty good.
If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Hi noviceneil,
Unless you do a fair amount of turning or make small boxes you really need to be brutal about getting rid of scraps. I know I do. Anything shorter than 6-8" gets tossed in the shop wood stove or stored in plastic garbage cans for later burning. This is typically hard and soft maple, alder, oak, walnut, and so on generated from a one man cabinet shop. Most exotic scraps I keep unless the're very small.
Bottom line, How much space are you willing to give up?
I'll be keeping myself warm on cold days
Paul
Yup. Me, too. I heat my shop with a wood burning stove.
'Nuff said.
Greg
Just keep it, then when you go to your reward in heaven or wherever, you'll get even with your children for all those nights they kept you up til 4:AM waiting for them to come home.
Two words.... pen blanks
Yeah, but I bet you go through the pile thinking, "Can I use this piece?"
This sure is a nice piece of maple, cherry, birch, walnut. Could I turn this small piece of exotic into a nice handle for that chisel? Maybe just a jig?
Or is it something I could use to add a bit of flavor to that salmon I caught?
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 9/16/2007 9:31 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
Edited 9/16/2007 9:32 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
Install a woodburning stove
neil,
I have about a pickup load a month I haul to a friend who has become a bit of a snob about what wood he burns in his firepit..
Blackwalnut is acceptable as is cherry, white oak barely, but I tried to slip a 2x4 in and now he examines every piece as I unload it and set it into the proper pile..
Smaller pieces may if bagged properly be set aside as kindleing, all balck walnt pieces must be in the black walnut bags etc.. no mixing cherry with black walnut.
medium sized pieces up to 4 feet long may be set in the pile, pieces over 4 feet long must be cut in two. major pieces such as 4x8's must not exceed more than 20 pounds and he absolutely refuses to accept any 12x12's anymore since they take so long to burn..
Piles of walnut shavings are accepted by the pickup load but the rest of my shavings are not acceptable.
I think he's pushing the limit of the definition of "friend"...I have considered the possibility of a woodburner in my shop but am a bit concerned about the risk of fire...and to complicate matters the former 2 1/2 car garage has a walk in basement under the northern 1/2 which is slowly separating from the rest of the shop, that portion is built into a hillside..I had a contractor look at raising it up...he said the foundation was shot and estimated it would cost $25.000 + to fix it...I've just spent two years making it into a real shop with insulate walls and bead board finish...not sure it's worth that much money but I really don't want to tear it down after all that work...maybe I'll use the cutoffs to jack it up...
I do have someone coming out next week with a system where they hydraulically drive horizontal rods under the structure and then pull the wall back upright...hopefullya considerable amount of change less than the aforementioned proposal..
As to the cutoff issue, I appreciate everyone's suggestion...I've concluded that I just have to deal with my packrat tendencies a little (or alot) more harshly and send those three and four inch 2X4's to the burn pile.
Cheers,
Neil
noviceneil,
Packrat is worse the more you pay for wood.. I buy direct from the sawmill so wood is usually under $.50 cents per board ft. sometimes as low as 10 or 15 cents..
Scraps that cost less than a quarter are easy to dismiss especially when You buy as much wood as I do..
I am finally getting to the point where all my stacks of wood are indoors. to achieve that I needed to decide that scraps simply didn't have a place or I'd never achieve my goal..
It was hard to give up pieces of burl or wonderful character but unless I planned on stopping building this house the decision had to be made..
Some of the wood I gave away I know would make wondeful boxes and picture frames.. My basic nature of adapting everything to some sort of valued use is sorely tested but I looked at the lost space and decided to be brutal..
Cut them up in even lengths and widths to build a kids set of building blocks.
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