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View Full Version : Where do you gather your "Free Material" from?



Kit Dumph
12-02-2014, 1:14 PM
I'm just starting out and am looking for places to find free material.

So far I have found a custom glass shop that gives me good sized cut glass-Not sure what I'm going to use this for yet!

Anywhere I could find Acrylic?

Wood & Veneers?

Granite countertop makes would be a good place, but what kind of granite actually engraves best? Marble?

Plastics?

Kev Williams
12-02-2014, 1:23 PM
good luck finding Acrylic- an acrylic dealer near me has soup bowls around their place filled will tiny pieces of acrylic scraps, smaller than what I throw out in the trash almost daily, priced at like 50 cents a pop. While I'm sure they don't sell all of it, they give NONE of it away--- ;)

David Somers
12-02-2014, 2:05 PM
Good morning Kit,

I have often picked up scraps of wood and whatnot from the dumpsters of cabinet and furniture shops. I always check with them before diving of course. I used small pieces for accents and for small finials and things when turning wood. Depending on the type of work they do there can be some decent pieces to play with.

Dave

walter hofmann
12-02-2014, 2:27 PM
hi there
I got the ACE hardware store they hld all the scraps from the 3mm acrylic and I give them ones in a while some sample of my stuff, a Sign shop who gives the leftover to me I have to sort them for non CL .
greetings
waltfl

Gene Howard
12-02-2014, 2:33 PM
See if there are any fixture or display case manufacturers nearby. There's one near us that does custom museum display cases and has entire gaylords full of acrylic scraps. There's everything from random 2" x 8' cut-offs to large 2' x 2' sheets that are all perfectly usable with protective paper still intact. They actually pay someone else to recycle it so our picking over the scraps has a positive impact if anything. Just be nice and offer to engrave anything they might want in the future!

Chuck Stone
12-02-2014, 5:36 PM
an acrylic sign supplier sells scrap by the pound. ($1-$1.50) and some of the
scraps are rather large. It's paid for in the sign, so they're not too concerned.
Corian I get from a countertop fabricator. They have tens of tons on pallets
behind the warehouse. They'll beg you to take it because whatever you take
is less they have to pay in disposal. A local company making guitar bodies was
putting scraps out for free, but once they figured out how desirable some of
the pieces were, they started keeping the scraps inside. But some of the wood
used in pallets (which they scrap) can be unusual and exotic woods..

Joe Pelonio
12-02-2014, 9:28 PM
I used to be next door to a cabinet maker, who would give me scraps of 1/4 melamine-covered MDF, and various hardwoods. Just 3 doors down was a granite/marble fabricator and they gave me scraps but they were small and mostly long and thin. Most acrylic suppliers I have used sell scraps by the pound.

Henri Sallinen
12-03-2014, 3:03 AM
I found some nice slabs of granite etc. from a small local kitchen countertop / gravestone company that handles different kinds of stone. Their dumbster was full of nice sized / shaped pieces. Good for atleast testing the materials and settings!