What to do with cutoffs, etc

[Dave Sharpe]

I suspect this is a common problem, but the pictures of your shops posted here never seem to be overflowing with short pieces of wood left over from prior projects. I seem to always have piles of short cutoffs laying around the shop, stacked on shelves, etc. I have one area of the shop set aside for sheet goods, and can't seem to get rid of anything smaller than 12" square. As for lumber, I seem to be constitutionally unable to get rid of anything less than 2' long, or even shorter if it's a nice hardwood. I still have little 3" x 5" pieces of exotics like ebony laying around.
Maybe it's just that I'm a packrat, but how do you folks decide what to save for future use, and what to throw away or burn. (I do have a woodstove in the shop which helps with erasing mistakes ) I don't do a lot of intarsia or marguetry so I don't really need all the little pieces but you never know.

Anyone have a "system" for making these tough choices?


Dave Sharpe
Whidbey Island, Washington

[Warren Clemans]

I seem to remember various threads on this topic, but it's a good one that bears repeating. My current uses mostly have to do with my kids:

-bird houses to build with the kids
-things for the kids to play with -- egg-beater drill, hammer, a few nails and a pile of off-cuts equals about 2 hours of entertainment.

I have a few small-ish pieces that I'm planning to make into small shop cabinets to hang chisels, files, screwdrives, etc.

In the meantime, it just piles up.

[Montgomery Scott]

I have a few boxes of small pieces of various species. Stuff like maple and birch usually get thrown into the fire in the winter, but the exotics tend to get used for box handles, trim, pens or given away to others who can use them.

[Cary Swoveland]

My only advice is to do a rough sort when you discard, by having different containers for different types of discards (e.g., exotic hardwoods, other hardwoods, softwood, plywood, etc.)

Cary

[Gary Herrmann]

Give them to turners - we can always make pens, knobs and other things from cutoffs. Thats where mine go. If you don't want to give them away, make up a box full and try selling it on the classified forum.

[Matt Meiser]

I periodically clean them out and use them for bon fires. Small pieces of exotics (which I rarely use) go in a box. Anything under 2" wide I pretty much throw away anymore. Usually each project generates more small stuff than I can use on that project by the time I break stuff down.

[Bill Huber]

I have 4 boxes, one for hardwood, softwood and plywood, one for exotics and the last one is for really little stuff.

When one gets full I go though and clean it out and only keep the best stuff. I don't worry about the width as much as the length, I can always you long skinny ones for inlays and things like that.

[Rick Gibson]

Being basically cheap I mean frugal I'll use the real small cut offs for earings like these. The grand daughters love them.

[Michael Pfau]

Dave last year I soo many cutoffs, I made about a dozen cutting boards for Christmas gifts, and the scrap I could not use I use to start fires in the fireplace. Try that!!

[Larry Fox]

Fireplace mostly with some pieces of exotics making it to a "gonna use it someday" box. Some pieces I just can't throw away or burn but the chance of my using them are almost 0%.

[Bill Wyko]

Segmented turning will get rid of a bunch of it but then you'll end up with more scrapps that are really small.

[Martin Shupe]

Slice them up into 3/4 by 3/4 by 6" pieces and offer them to someone helping out with the Freedom Pens Project.

Use the really small ones for starting fires on Boy Scout campouts.

[John Buzzurro]

I like to do these:

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

My system is very sophisticated. I employ an archaeologically based filing system that used recursive energy flow back.

It works like this. There is this space off the right rear of my saw. Things tend to fall there. I let them pile up and gravity keeps the pieces of wood from floating off into space. Eventually, I can't stand it any more and then it's kindling.

An awful lot of the pieces get used in jugs fixtures and on little projects and bits.

[Rick Mellin]

Here is what I do with some of mine.