Wife Cleaned up the shop

[Mike Olson]

We are in the process of packing up to get the house ready to sell. My wife is a stay at home Mom right now since she lost here job so she has lot's of time to pack up the house.

Well yesterday she decided to clean up the basement where my shop is and the kid's helped. In the process they picked up all the garbage from the floor and emptied the garbage can.

The garbage was all the small wood scraps I toss under the workbench and that garbage can was my scrap bin where i put the longer pieces of scrap wood as well as the wood shavings from the hand planing. I wasn't really upset because I knew I wasn't going to be taking them with us but all that scrap and shavings kinda gave me a feeling of accomplishment whenever I went into my shop. Knowing that I made those shavings, I hand cut/chopped out those little pieces of wood, I spent time ripping that long piece off a bigger board. I guess it's silly and makes me feel like a bit of a hypocrite for mocking her for the 5th box of china we uncovered on Saturday.:rolleyes:

[Jim Koepke]

I often feel remorse when even an unusable scrap ends up in the burn bin. The shavings often get used to start fires. I swept up the floor and used a lot of the sweepings to start a fire in the yard a few days ago to burn off brush trimmings.

Some of the really unusable scrap also got burned. It was heart wrenching to go through the scrap bins and pick some pieces.

On the other side of the coin, my wife wanted a foot rest while she was sitting outside tending the fire. Four pieces of scrap and a dozen nails made a pretty nice little foot stool. So, there was good reason to save it all.

jtk

[Bill Houghton]

It is upsetting to have your shop messed with. Two upsides:

1. Now it won't have to be you bundling up that stuff for disposal, tears coursing down your cheeks.

2. She was the one who took the risk of finding a mouse corpse under the bench, not you.

[Andrew Gibson]

I am always torn when trying to sort throulg my scrap pile. I know that as soon as I toss it, I will have the perfect use for it... happens every time.

[Jim Koepke]

I am always torn when trying to sort throulg my scrap pile. I know that as soon as I toss it, I will have the perfect use for it... happens every time.

My small pieces tend to get made into clamping blocks or glue blocks. Almost anything can be usable.

jtk

[Bruce Haugen]

All my unusable (in my opinion) scraps go into burn boxes. When enough have accumulated we have a fire and a glass of wine. The trick is I have my wife put the wood into the fire, and sometimes I have to justify why a piece of wood is in that box. She has a better appreciation for keeping wood now. There's a fair amount that she's rescued with the intention of "making something" with it.

[David Keller NC]

I had the same attitude for years (I can always use that little scrap of maple/mahogany/walnut).

Until I found myself building a 4 foot by 4 foot by 4 foot wooden box to keep all of my scrap in. I actually filled that box up - all 500-600 lbs. of it.

That's when I decided to join SHA (Scrap Hoarders Anonymous) and systematically started chucking the pieces in the woodstove. I still don't burn ebony or cocobolo (except the really tiny pieces), but everything else gets burned - no exceptions.

I find this attitude to have affected my woodworking in at least one very positive way - I'm not spending hours either hunting through the scrap pile to avoid sawing 12" off of the end of a board for a small project, or endlessly revising my designs in a vain effort to "make it fit the piece of scrap available". :D

[Jeff Wittrock]

I'm often accusing my wife of being a pack rat, but I have a real soft spot for my wood scraps.

I have kind of a tiered system. I have my first string bin that holds the scraps large enough to have any hope of being used on some project. From there the scraps end up being used for various things which ends up creating smaller scraps. These go into my second string bin. My Son is allowed to raid the second string bin for his projects which creates even smaller scraps and scraps with nails and screws. Finally comes the garbage bin.

-Jeff

[Larry Frank]

Hi - My name is Larry and I am also a scrap hoarder.


Does anyone have the 10 steps for this program?

I am in the process of a major shop remodel and have to pack a lot of the tools and scraps and have found it difficult but necessary to get rid of a lot of scraps. I end up in a debate with myself about each piece. I am better off just going in and throwing all the scraps in a garbage can.

[Jon van der Linden]

I still don't burn ebony or cocobolo (except the really tiny pieces), but everything else gets burned - no exceptions.


Those really really small pieces are great for catches, shelf supports, etc. unless it's smaller than 1/4" x 1/4" x 5/8" it has a use. So if you're burning pieces of ebony and cocobolo larger than that....

My solution with the less valuable pieces is to "donate" them to my brother in law. I'm sure plenty end up in the fire that way!

[Bruce Haugen]

The last place I lived, I had a friend who had a small lumber yard and cabinet shop. He let me scrounge through his scrap dumpster out back. 15 years later I still have some of those scraps. There comes a time when it's prudent to part company with those scraps.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi - My name is Larry and I am also a scrap hoarder.


Does anyone have the 10 steps for this program?

I am in the process of a major shop remodel and have to pack a lot of the tools and scraps and have found it difficult but necessary to get rid of a lot of scraps. I end up in a debate with myself about each piece. I am better off just going in and throwing all the scraps in a garbage can.

Step 1 throw everything too short to go through the planer into the trash

Step 2, if you hand plane wood, throw everything shorter than 12" into the trash

Step 3, empty trash.

Step 4, reflect on how nice your shop looks

Step 5, reflect on how much time you're saving not looking through the trash for a piece of wood that's too small

Step 6, spend some time doing some productive work

Step 7, gracefully accept compliments from your spouse on how nice your shop looks

Step 8, recognise that at our age, there's no way we're going to remember 10 steps, so stop at 8.

Regards, Rod.

[Rich Purdum]

Just look at the problem from a different angle. I don't have any scraps but I do have about 5 boxes of remnants.

remnant: leftover: a piece that remains after the rest has been used

Scraps you give to the dog. Leftovers you save for lunch the next day.

[john brenton]

I'm laughing at the mouse carcass comment. I don't have a problem with mice, but I am starting a collection of petrified frogs that have found a foodless home under my wood stacks. It may be morbid but I already have quite a few shellacked. They die in really neat and peaceful positions...yeah, I know it sounds weird.

[Mark Roderick]

Important note.

Even if you liked having your wife clean your shop, don't do it! Once you've let her clean the shop the line becomes too blurry. Better to keep the wife and the shop parts of your life completely separate, even if that means cleaning yourself.

[Dave Cav]

Well, there's scrap and then there's scrap.....

Years ago one of the things I was responsible for was a high rise office building. A large general contractor had the job of doing all the tenant improvement build-outs in the building. Something was always going on and they had shop space in the basement for preparing millwork, door and window casings, etc. It was all oak. Most of the door and window casings got reused several times and there was a large pile of pieces they would sort through. Most of it was 8 feet long or longer. One day the carpenter foreman told me they were going to throw a bunch of it away. I filled up the back of my pickup twice with their "scrap" and used it for over 10 years. It usually required a glue up or two, but I got a lot of use out of it.

[Charles Bender]

We are in the process of packing up to get the house ready to sell. My wife is a stay at home Mom right now since she lost here job so she has lot's of time to pack up the house.

Well yesterday she decided to clean up the basement where my shop is and the kid's helped. In the process they picked up all the garbage from the floor and emptied the garbage can.

The garbage was all the small wood scraps I toss under the workbench and that garbage can was my scrap bin where i put the longer pieces of scrap wood as well as the wood shavings from the hand planing. I wasn't really upset because I knew I wasn't going to be taking them with us but all that scrap and shavings kinda gave me a feeling of accomplishment whenever I went into my shop. Knowing that I made those shavings, I hand cut/chopped out those little pieces of wood, I spent time ripping that long piece off a bigger board. I guess it's silly and makes me feel like a bit of a hypocrite for mocking her for the 5th box of china we uncovered on Saturday.:rolleyes:

Not sure where you're moving to but once you get there, you're welcome to swing by my place and pick up all the scraps and shavings you can handle. Just want to do my bit to help make the new shop feel like home. :D

[John Shuk]

My wife once bought a bunch of plastic shelving units and organized my basement shop for me. I told her not to but she and her sister did anyway. she effectively shut my woodworking down. I haven't been able to get past it. Everything is mixed up and with unrelated stuff in bags that I can't see into. I was away for work at the time and came home to be told how much better it was. Bottom line. I am an adult and have paid for all of my tools. I don't want anybody messing with my stuff.
Sorry folks but this brought everything to the surface for me.

[Brian Vaughn]

John,

My wife has also jumped on the "everything should be in opaque bins so I can't see it" bandwagon, which means when I want to find something, I'm opening 20 of the darn things to find what I want. And she wonders why I leave stuff sitting around all the time....:rolleyes: But at least in the shop (Back of the garage) I'm still free to leave stuff out as I choose. She's offered several times to come help me organize it, but I just tell her that I know where everything is, and I'd like to keep it that way....