What do you store your scraps in?

[Nick Coffelt]

So many people keep thier scrap piece of lumber and hardwoods, and I happen to be one of them. What do you store your's in? My dad stores his in a old whiskey barrel but its difficult to dig out something you need. Currently mine are piled up on the floor next to my miter saw which creates most of the victims.

So I'm looking for something a little more clean looking, any ideas?

[Yonak Hawkins]

For scraps that I don't consider for re-use, I store them in rolling trash barrels that get burned in the winter. For cut-offs I may have future use for, I have made a few long crates that I put on shelves which are shallow enough to dig through.

[Keith Weber]

I've always leaned them up against a wall or put them in plastic bins, which I've always hated. My new shop is quite a bit more confined (more tools/less space) ,so I needed to come up with something else. My solution (hopefully) is to build a plywood cart. One of these days I'm going to finish it -- the pieces are cut, I just need to find the time to put it together. Until then, all I have is a SketchUp pic of my design. Plywood on one side, and cutoffs on the other.

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[Brian Tymchak]

I have a sheetgoods cart somewhat like Keith shows. It gets really heavy really fast and kind of a pain to move. I suggest putting handles on the ends to grab hold. I'm trying to finish off a 12' miter saw bench that has 2 open shelves below the bench top. I envision stacking hardwood short shorts there and then collecting small pieces in labeled plastic bins and storing those in the bench. (I'm one of those that can't seem to throw any scrap away..) Not sure how well that's going to work out yet. Other hardwood is stored either on the wall rack or vertical storage in the corner of the basement. The prized hardwoods are stickered and stacked in another part of the basement.

[julian abram]

Longer pieces are leaned up against the wall so they can fall over and I can pick them up several times each week. Shorter scraps in 5 gal buckets. Not a very good system, hope to improve someday.

[glenn bradley]

The "cut-off" type scrap you describe go here for me:

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The different depth cubbies keep everything easily reachable and therefor frequently used. When my scraps were in a pile, they just stayed there ;-)

There have been quite a few threads on this. Here's a quick search result:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=scrap+site:www.sawmillcreek.org

[paul cottingham]

Hmmm. The floor. Where they fell.
in retrospect, I don't think that is the kind of answer you were looking for.

[Marty Tippin]

I've made myself stop hoarding most of my scraps because I know darn well that 90% of them will never get used. Yeah, it's hard to throw away "perfectly good" wood but what good is it when it's just taking up space...

I've got a big box by the door for all the stuff that is too short to be of any use; the kids know they can grab all the wood in there anytime they want for a bonfire.

[Brian Henderson]

I've always leaned them up against a wall or put them in plastic bins, which I've always hated. My new shop is quite a bit more confined (more tools/less space) ,so I needed to come up with something else. My solution (hopefully) is to build a plywood cart. One of these days I'm going to finish it -- the pieces are cut, I just need to find the time to put it together. Until then, all I have is a SketchUp pic of my design. Plywood on one side, and cutoffs on the other.

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I have something similar to that but I find that the bins are still too big for all the little cutoffs that I keep. My mission, once I finish up my current project (which I should complete today), is to go through all of my wood, pick out the pieces that are worth keeping and trash the rest. It will be a long, involved process.

[Brian Henderson]

I've made myself stop hoarding most of my scraps because I know darn well that 90% of them will never get used. Yeah, it's hard to throw away "perfectly good" wood but what good is it when it's just taking up space...

I've got a big box by the door for all the stuff that is too short to be of any use; the kids know they can grab all the wood in there anytime they want for a bonfire.

The thing is, I use a lot of tiny scraps, they're great for jigs and stop blocks, I put together a quick jig yesterday out of a 2" long piece of plywood and some scraps of MDF. I don't know what percentage of my scrap eventually gets used, but I'd say more than half.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Wood box that doubles as a saw bench/seat/step stool/trip Hazard.

[Brian Henderson]

I just finished digging through my pile, I separated everything by wood species, threw away scraps I thought I'd never use and now I have to go through each piece and see what is worth keeping and what is worth ditching. There are some boards where I cut a little bit out of one end, I'll square up the end and replace it. I really wish I had done this earlier, behind my cart was a *TON* of spiders and piles of rat droppings. Oh, and rabbit droppings, there's a baby bunny living in my shop that I just can't catch but it was behind the cart when I pulled it out. Zoom! I know how it got in, I just don't want to block that entry point until it's gone again. I swept up behind the cart, now I just have to go back there with a shop vac and clear the cobwebs before moving it back into place.

[Keith Weber]

there's a baby bunny living in my shop that I just can't catch but it was behind the cart when I pulled it out. Zoom! I know how it got in, I just don't want to block that entry point until it's gone again.

You know you have a big shop when you have wildlife living in it and you cant get it out.

[Brian Henderson]

You know you have a big shop when you have wildlife living in it and you cant get it out.

Oh, I've got lots of things living in there, there are a couple of big lizards that I'm trying to shoo toward the door, they get inside because it's warmer at night than being outside but at least they don't hurt anything. I had wild rabbits destroy a car once, they got under the hood because it was warm and they ate the wiring harness. I'd rather not see a repeat of that in my shop. The problem is, I've got sliding barn doors and there is just enough room for a small rabbit to squeeze between them. I saw him run in once evening as I got home and while I know he comes and goes, I have no way of knowing when he's actually gone so I can block off that opening. Locking him in there permanently is as bad as having him there in the first place but he's really small and cute so I don't want to hurt him, I've just had no luck trapping him. I put a piece of wood up on the lip of a barrel with greens inside but he hasn't taken the bait yet. Luckily, I've seen no indication of chewing so far, I figure he's just using the place to keep warm and safe from the coyotes.

[Keith Westfall]

Some milk crates screwed together to make a row of them. Then mount these on a backing plate and screwed them to the wall at ceiling height - (8' ceiling). divided them with 3 shelves and just end the pieces into them.

Have to use my 2' step ladder to get at it, but I don't really do it that often anyway - seems to work. Got them up over the man door to the garage...

[Lee Reep]

I store small scraps in a 5 gallon bucket. These get hauled upstairs and used for kindling when I am finally willing to admite I'll never use them for any project. The longer stuff gets stored by species in more buckets. I suppose that most will get used, but I'm tempted to cut many of them down and put in the other bucket so they'll get used for kindling.

One of these days I'll have a really nice wood storage system.

[Brian Hale]

In my first shop i used the scrap to make scrap bins which I filled with scraps. As i got more scraps i made more scrap bins which I filled with scraps. When I moved to the second shop my friends convinced to get rid of them so I got a case of Yuenling and a 5th of Sailor Jerry. Piled all the bins in the pit and had the hottest bonfire you can imagine.

3 shops later and i still don't have a good solution but i admit I have a scrap problem , just can't part with those little treasures....

Perhaps there's a support group somewhere?

[Prashun Patel]

Rough trimming of the stock ends and sides makes things easier to stack. I do have a fiberboard drum that I toss tiny scraps into. That's intended for my fire pit but that potpourri comes in handy for test cuts and practice.

[Brian Henderson]

Rough trimming of the stock ends and sides makes things easier to stack. I do have a fiberboard drum that I toss tiny scraps into. That's intended for my fire pit but that potpourri comes in handy for test cuts and practice.

Agreed, a lot of small MDF scrap that I had in the pile had test dado cuts for sizing. Most of that just went into the trash but that's a really good use for scrap wood.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Hardwood scraps go into empty beer boxes, and go to friends for kindling. Not off-cuts with some potential furniture value I keep them as noted below. I have filled dozens like this with wood that cost $18 - $20/bf. :eek: The most expensive fires in metro ATL, I'd surmise. Damn near match-light - QSWO, HM, cherry, QS sycamore, curly maple, walnut....

The beer boxes seem to be like fishes and loaves - no matter how many I fill, there are always more. Its a complete mystery to me. :confused:

Then - other stuff - MDF, ply, hardwood pieces I am keeping - they get tossed on a shelf, in roughly species piles - 8' long x 16" tall. Every 3 - 6 months, I go thru that pile, sort, organize, stack neatly , and pitch 50%.

I realized, finally, that there was a pragmatic difference between "I [I]could do something with this" and "I will do something with this" and "I have a use for this right now". I try to be brutal in culling the herd - have never been disappointed - there is always more where that came from.

[Pete Staehling]

Since I build small musical instruments, I use pretty some small pieces. I think some of what I buy is probably pieces others may consider scrap. Longer pieces typically stand in 5 gallon buckets. Small blocks go in another bucket or box. As it all gets picked over and there starts to be more junk than useful pieces I purge the buckets and burn what ever doesn't make the grade. It is kind of nice to have a fire in the evening.

[Jim Andrew]

It is really nice to burn wood to heat your shop. I store scraps in a 5 gallon bucket, then go to the furnace for kindling. When I used to buy lumber, I saved everything, now I cut my own, feel I can afford to burn some.

[Mac McQuinn]

I have a collection of 24" deep, wooden drawers salvaged from a 1950's lake cottage kitchen remodeling project. They're made from knotty pine w/ 3/4" ply bottoms. I left the metal handles on and fill them with cut-offs and scraps. Works pretty well as since they're only 8" deep, you don't have to dig far to find the piece you need. Stack nicely and slide under the bench well.
Mac

[Nick Coffelt]

Lots of good suggestions, and it seems like there are a lot out there like me. Looks like I'll be putting together a rolling cabinet. Hopefully this helps to keep me more organized. Thanks for the advice.

[Mark Patoka]

I bought a bunch of Rubbermaid tubs and sorted mine out by species, mostly oak, cherry, maple and walnut. Those tubs are stacked on a couple of shelves and a rolling cabinet I have and I find I rarely ever go in them. I usually have enough scrap still lying about that I end up using when needed. We did put in a wood-burning fireplace a few years ago so I don't feel so badly tossing as much now since I can now repurpose it as kindling. I keep telling myself that someday I'm going to use all that scrap on cutting boards, toys or segmented turning but still waiting for that day to come.

[Larry Edgerton]

Wood stove.

[Bill Adamsen]

+1 for the wood stove ... this is such a great topic. I was just thinking about this today. I get a lot of hardwood cutoffs that I simply cannot bear to throw away. Would love to find a better way to store.

[Yonak Hawkins]

For scraps that I don't consider for re-use, I store them in rolling trash barrels that get burned in the winter. For cut-offs I may have future use for, I have made a few long crates that I put on shelves which are shallow enough to dig through.

Above is my solution for solid wood. For plywood cut-offs and other panels there's a place above my radial arm saw :

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There is a different place for full and half sheets.

[John Donofrio]

When I was setting up the shop I built this to hold the cutoffs and misc scraps I just couldn't part with. The rest goes to the firepit burn pile.

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