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Scott Shepherd
04-18-2012, 11:14 AM
I have 2 fairly large material racks for our plastic storage. I think I have storage for about 75 different colors, each with it's own location. I'm hitting my breaking point for how to store materials. I don't mind throwing material scraps away, but I also hate to throw out material that can be used for future jobs, but those jobs are making my material storage a real mess.

Here's an example. I might do a job that takes 20 sheets of material. The piece sizes might be 10" x 10". So I end up with a 2" x 24" strip at the top with 4" left on the right edge. Now what? Throw them away? If I stuff them in my storage rack, they take up precious space and often burn me when I'm "material checking" for a job. More than once I've looked at a stack and made the assumption they were full sheets, only to get the job and realize the are all bits and pieces.

It also seems that once you pull off the liner, if you look at the surface, it will scratch, especially if it's metal grained material.

I'm really close to throwing it all in a pile and putting it up for a freebie to whoever wants to drive here and get it.

How are you handling those "drops" from all the work you do?

And don't even get me started on the scraps from our router. We have the same problem, but of course, it's a much bigger problem due to the sizes of the drops.

Doug Griffith
04-18-2012, 11:28 AM
I've got some large steel flat files I use for that. They work great.

Glen Monaghan
04-18-2012, 11:31 AM
Similar problem albeit on a slightly smaller scale. I've used those drops for most of my prototyping and small specialty jobs but it can be a bit of a problem trying to measure/eyeball exactly what fits where on odd sized/shaped remnants so, for a while, I was trying to proactively (speculatively?) add some of these "predictable" jobs on the sheets when making the original cuts and then storing them until actually needed. However, which parts to cut was a crap shoot, inventory of these precut parts built up too much, needed its own storage, and so I stopped that. Someone recently posted about keeping a CD document for each sheet with previously cut parts transferred to a non-printing layer to simplify subsequent use. I'd sort of like to try that, but the logistics of tagging each sheet of material and keying files to them is a bit daunting.

So, last week when I got a new batch of material, I just when nuts and pitched a bin full of leftovers, basically anything that didn't have at least one "sufficiently large" rectangular area. But I'm a bit of a miser and hoarder so, later, I had to force myself to stay out of the bin and not go back through checking to see if I pitched something that really could have been useful... (:^o

For my router, I have a large box that left overs go into. Sometimes I fish through it for scraps to use for a prototype or some little project or other. Once every month or two, I give the contents to a friend for his fireplace...

-Glen

Martin Boekers
04-18-2012, 2:04 PM
I'd cut them up in various sizes, bag em, and sell them on Etsy or another crafters site. :)

Chuck Stone
04-18-2012, 2:32 PM
most of the things I make are small. The pieces you call scraps are what I often buy
from someone else as their scrap. I'll often scan a piece of 'scrap' to use as a template
for laying out my next cuts. When I'm done, my own scraps don't often have more than
a square inch in any one spot. I'm frugal. (cheap) Thrifty. (cheap) Stinting. (cheap)

When I'm done with those, I break them up and throw them in a gallon jar and cover
with acetone. When it melts, I can use that as a clear gloss finish or mix with TransTint.
I can also use that on soft or punky woods to give them a bit more strength. That
wont compare with stabilizing, but it helps.

Tim Bateson
04-18-2012, 3:31 PM
...When I'm done with those, I break them up and throw them in a gallon jar and cover with acetone. When it melts, I can use that as a clear gloss finish or mix with TransTint.
I can also use that on soft or punky woods to give them a bit more strength. That
wont compare with stabilizing, but it helps...

What type of products would you use this type of finish?

Chuck Stone
04-18-2012, 6:37 PM
What type of products would you use this type of finish?

If you take the time to get used to how it works (the acetone flashes off fast) you can use
it most anywhere. I use it on wood pens (instead of CA) or sometimes as a barrier/sealer.
and if you use it as a clear coat (be sure it won't eat the finish underneath, though) you
can polish it up to a very high shine with micromesh.

Steven Cox
04-18-2012, 10:36 PM
Scraps.... What Scraps!.

I just use up everything and cut out small symbols in various sizes to make small charms. I have about 300 different shapes I use and just resize them to suit. We throw the charms into a container and sell em at 5 for $2.00 or $0.50 each. You'd be supprised how many people buy them. The remaining panel with all the cutouts I either sell or give to preschools for the kids to use as stencils. Very little gets chucked in the bin.

Biggest seller of the charms are animal shapes and peace symbols. I make them as small as 20mm to 50mm.

Bill Cunningham
04-18-2012, 10:58 PM
It's a dilemma! Everything I threw out yesterday, I'm gonna need tomorrow! 30 years ago I used to be employed by a fellow that had a big storage basement under his shop. His motto may have been "a place for everything, and EVERYTHING was in that place." I'm not that bad, yet! But my wife might argue that point.. :rolleyes:

Jiten Patel
04-19-2012, 6:18 AM
We have literally thousands of pieces of scrap. We log everything onto a spreadsheet by size and colour so that we know for future orders whether we have enough or need to order in. Because we offer so much choice, it is sometimes a little annoying with the amount of spare stock we have. But we are looking to do as Martin does, bagging stuff we simply do not need and sell it on. As the saying goes - one man's trash is another man's treasure!

Glen Monaghan
04-19-2012, 11:37 AM
As something of a hoarder and a cheap bastard, I find it very easy to justify keeping bits and ends because I just know I'll need them someday and certainly don't want to throw something out only to turn around and buy the same stuff again.

As I see it, the decision comes down to a set of factors such as cost of the substrate (more sensible to retain remnants from high priced materials), cost of storage (the expensive floor space and the cost of various racks/shelves/bins to hold all the remnants might pay for an awful lot of new material), cost of retrieval (includes your time to sort drops into storage and time to find a suitable piece again when you need it), cost to reuse (it takes time to eyeball/measure/fit a part onto a drop, and sometimes extra time and material when you misjudge/mismeasure/misposition/miscut; I sort of like the idea of cumulative cut files to avoid the eyeball/measure thing, but the extra logistics of tagging, organizing, and coordinating materials and files seems daunting for moderate to large inventories).

I'm cheap but finally began to understand the "penny wise and pound foolish" saying. I think it is very easy to spend several dollars-worth of production time trying to save a few cents-worth of materials, especially with lower priced substrates.

-Glen

Dave Rust
09-19-2012, 6:55 PM
If you’re going to throw matrial out I would love to get a nice sampling of materials from you. I am going to order my first Laser Engraver within a month and then I will be practicing, practicing, practicing on anything I can get my hands on! I'll pay shipping! You'll be helping out a newbie! My plan right now is to look up supply houses and purchase stock for practicing; however this sounds like a much better solution!!! I love reading through these pages, this post was on page 29... Working my way through the archives!!!! Thank you in advance if anyone wants to help me out! Just send me a note and we can chat!

Jeff Wilkins
09-19-2012, 7:22 PM
See if your local high school has a laser and donate it to them. Use it as a tax write off. I would love scraps for students to practice with.

Dewey Schramm
09-19-2012, 11:00 PM
Can I offer a bit about my work process (when dealing with sheet materials)... which I suspect is similar to how others work - I have copied from the best here at SMC and added my bits here and there.

I've created template(s) for myself with my standard material sizes and type of materials. It also allows me to preset my most common layout/design settings. This template simplifies the following initial steps of layer creation, naming, etc.

Whenever I start with a new sheet of material, I create a new layout file and name the sheet and save it in a "Sheets In Progress" folder. (I usually use the date and a material description as my file name.) I immediately create 3 layers in the layout file. I name one layer Burnt, one layer Unburnt, and one layer Scrap. I look over my sheet for defects. If there is a defect (perhaps a knot in a wood sheet) I measure it off and draw a rough matching circle (or any appropriate shape) with solid fill in the Burnt layer to prevent me from laying out into this spot on the sheet.

When positioning/laying out new cuts, I make the 'Burnt' layer visible as well as the 'Unburnt' layer. I layout my first item or two on the new sheet in the 'Unburnt' layer, and also layout for rastering somewhere on the sheet the file name of the sheet. I turn off the 'Burnt' layer visibility and send the (Unburnt) job off to the laser. I immediately move all completed work to the 'Burnt' layer. Often times I layout multiple phases for cutting in other layers but only cut a portion at a time. When I send work to the laser, I rarely have anything but the 'Unburnt' layer visible. So I select the items from the various layers and drag and drop to the 'Unburnt' layer before sending to the laser. As they are cutting, I again move the completed work to the 'Burnt' layer. This cycle just repeats as the sheet gets filled. It may take a couple of days, or it might take weeks before I exhaust the sheet - but I can pick up a sheet and know what file it belongs to immediately. And just as importantly I never have to eyeball where things are because I have the layout preserved in the 'Burnt' layer.

If I have a few minutes between jobs or what have you, I do what others have said and drop charms, or doodads or whatever floats my boat into the "unused" space on the sheet in the obvious scrap areas. I do this by making my 'Burnt' Layer visible and placing the charms on the 'Scrap' layer. I DON'T cut the 'Scrap' layer until the end because I don't want the sheet to lose it's rigidity. Once the sheet is completely swiss cheese from various jobs and unlikely to be a candidate to quickly place and run anything else, and the machine is otherwise idle - I make the 'Scrap' layer visible (adding any final charms there is room for) and send that layer to the laser on it's own. Once this layer cuts, what is left is no longer useful and the sheet is finally decommissioned to the recycle bin or what have you.

Note: I work almost exclusively in illustrator, it is easy to manipulate the layer visibility by clicking on the layer in the 'Layer Palette'. Dragging and dropping selected items between layers using the Layer Palette is easy as well. If this is a more arduous task in Corel or your design package maybe this approach won't be valuable to you.

Once I established this work pattern, I find that I am able to set a partially used sheet of material aside in order to keep things moving or to interrupt a job for a higher priority, and pick them up again as I need to without 'losing my place' or having to measure off to find the next available chunk of sheet real estate. There isn't any rocket science just establishing what worked for me. Being able to also run a 'Scrap' job when convenient allows me to keep my partial sheet pile manageable - the longer they hang around the less valuable due to inevitable scratch & dent events.

Oh - and if anyone has any other approaches I would love to hear them - I'm still learning and figure many of you are doing things in a way that would make me laugh at how effective it is.

Steve Clarkson
09-20-2012, 7:45 AM
Scott,

Three things I do:

(1) To keep masking on the scraps - if I have a 24" x 12" sheet of material (Rowmark, acrylic, etc) and I know that I will have a 4" x 24" "drop"......I run a quick vector cut (100 speed 10 power) of a rectangle around the area I plan to use and then I remove the liner thus leaving the drop still covered.

(2) If my drop is 2"x24" at the top and 4"x12" on the right. I'll often run a cut at 2" all the way across and then vertically at 20" all the way down leaving me with two rectangular pieces instead of an "L" shaped piece that is much harder to store. Granted, it's extra cutting, but in the long run it will save time. Also, it makes the drop "nicer" looking.....in other words, let's assume you are cutting out 3" circles in that 10" x 10" area rather than just a square......the drop would normally have an edge with little arches all along it......running a straight line vector will cut those off and leave your scrap piece with a nice straight edge. It only takes 2 seconds to add one or two straight cuts to your layout and although it will add additional cutting time, like I said, I find it is worth it. Another example is, if you have to cut out two 5" circles out of a full 12" x 24 sheet, I'll run a vertical line at 6" so I am left with a scrap that is 18" x 12" rather than 12"x 24" with two big holes in it.

(3) I keep a few large cardboard boxes to save scraps in......I wouldn't keep one box for each color, but rather one box for each category......let's say one box for all your mirrored acrylic, or all your solid opaque colored acrylic, or all your Rowmark, or all your 1/8" thick clear acrylic.......because they are small pieces, you don't have to worry about keeping them flat like you would for a full sheet and if you need a small piece of gold mirrored acrylic, it's much easier to fish it out of a box of only mirrored acrylic scraps.