Scraps, Shorts bin & Keeping Your Shop Clean

[Joe A Faulkner]

I think the seemingly constant mess in my shop is attributed to a number of issues. One being I see beauty and or utility in the smallest scraps of wood. I do not burn wood for heat. Once in a great while we may strike up a camp fire, but I have firewood galore for that. For those of you with relatively neat shops, how do you do it? Do you dispose of a good portion of your scraps or do you have organized storage foe your scraps? Share pictures of your bins for organizing your scraps.

[ken hatch]

I think the seemingly constant mess in my shop is attributed to a number of issues. One being I see beauty and or utility in the smallest scraps of wood. I do not burn wood for heat. Once in a great while we may strike up a camp fire, but I have firewood galore for that. For those of you with relatively neat shops, how do you do it? Do you dispose of a good portion of your scraps or do you have organized storage foe your scraps? Share pictures of your bins for organizing your scraps.

Joe,

I can't show pictures of the solution but I could sure make some of the problem:o. One of my biggest problems with scraps is the main storage area for small scraps is under the plane and chisel storage behind the main workbench. At this time it is over flowing and there is little need for a bonfire when it is 110F during the day and being in Monsoon it doesn't cool off much at night.

ken

[Steve Mathews]

Joe, it's a sickness along with constantly rearranging the shop and of course buying more tools. The only way to get help is from a professional or a disinterested party, namely your wife. She'll gladly tell you what scraps of wood or anything for that matter in your shop is worth saving.

[Erich Weidner]

I have a rubbermaid rectangular garbage can (commercial style), this is where all offcuts over a foot and less than about 3 feet go.
Longer pieces get leaned against the wall or stickered in the attic.

I have two home depot buckets. Hardwood scrap less than a foot goes in it, the other is for softwood (and any hardwood which isn't suitable for smoking food).
I toss the softwood when the bucket gets inconveniently full.
I use a wood burning BBQ pit, so the hardwood scraps are used as kindling. (I keep a few handfulls of hardwood shavings for the same purpose.

[glenn bradley]

This stair-step solution built from scrap plywood as it became available has been my best "shorts wrangler". I put a measuring tape down one side for quick checks on sizes which means I use a lot more of my scrap than I did when I had to dig through a barrel or a pile.

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[Erich Weidner]

This stair-step solution built from scrap plywood as it became available has been my best "shorts wrangler". I put a measuring tape down one side for quick checks on sizes which means I use a lot more of my scrap than I did when I had to dig through a barrel or a pile.

I like it! I just wish I had the floor space for something like that.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Joe, it's a sickness along with constantly rearranging the shop and of course buying more tools. The only way to get help is from a professional or a disinterested party, namely your wife. She'll gladly tell you what scraps of wood or anything for that matter in your shop is worth saving.
Steve, I think you are right. The tendency to see value in small scraps carries over to tools. If one #4 is good. Three must be better. I think my biggest issue is not having the discipline to pitch anything. Add to that the tendency to acquire stuff and at some point the stuff over takes hap-hazard organization systems. I have some serious purging I need to do. And I need to develop better system for organizing the scraps. I like Glen’s stair step system. I have some metal shelves that will work nicely for organizing short scrapsIn a similar fashion. I have a shorts bin for l9nger scraps and racks for lumber. I Just need to take the time to do the necessary purging and organizing. Being organized sounds fantastic. Getting organized is kind of like dieting. At least for me

[Jim Matthews]

If one #4 is good. Three must be better. I think my biggest issue is not having the discipline to pitch anything. Add to that the tendency to acquire stuff and at some point the stuff over takes hap-hazard organization systems. I have some serious purging I need to do. And I need to develop better system for organizing the scraps. I Just need to take the time to do the necessary purging and organizing. Being organized sounds fantastic. Getting organized is kind of like dieting. At least for me

Welcome.

We the members of the "No 13th hammer society" vow to search for the tools we already own at least as long as the drive to Ace Hardware.

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You're not alone in this. We live in a land of plentiful, cheap surplus. It's easy to find tools, difficult to find time for their use.

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Two shop principles I followed this Summer on a similar shop shape up...

Store lumber against exterior walls, only.

Rule of Eights:
Longer than 8 feet, reduce the length.

Shorter than 8 inches, to the garbage can - outside.

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Drop me a PM if you want suggestions (or want to avoid making my habitual hack mistakes).

I started with LED lighting...

https://www.amazon.com/Hykolity-FlushMount-Workbench-Fluorescent-Replacement/dp/B06XGBKDKZ/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=led+overhead+lighting&qid=1594637651&sr=8-3

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I started with LED lighting...

https://www.amazon.com/Hykolity-FlushMount-Workbench-Fluorescent-Replacement/dp/B06XGBKDKZ/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=led+overhead+lighting&qid=1594637651&sr=8-3

So was the LED lighting a mistake or a good thing?

My experience so far has been that my LED lights burn out long before my CFL bulbs do. A CFL bulb fails, I drop in an LED, and the first bulb to burn out is that newly replaced LED, even if it is name brand. So far, I have not been impressed with the LEDs simply because they have not even almost lived up to the hype. Different brands, different types, different purchase points, and I keep replacing bulbs. I have wasted way more money on those than I would have paid for electricity. And yet i keep buying them.

I always keep at least some scraps around, but when it gets too many, I burn them. Well, my family burns them, they like to burn things.

[Jim Matthews]

My point to the OP was better lighting leads to a cleaner shop.
(That and having a garbage pail with a lid leads to sweeping up.)

Re: LED vs CFL - I can't speak to how long the replacement for a traditional screw in fitting lasts. The overhead LED lights were particularly attractive because they came with a standard plug.

I go for easy solutions first with cost considerations.

[glenn bradley]

I like it! I just wish I had the floor space for something like that.


It takes up less room than my previous single vertical bin if you count the stuff that laid around on the ground because it wouldn't fit in the bin :D

[Andrew Pitonyak]

My point to the OP was better lighting leads to a cleaner shop.
(That and having a garbage pail with a lid leads to sweeping up.)

Re: LED vs CFL - I can't speak to how long the replacement for a traditional screw in fitting lasts. The overhead LED lights were particularly attractive because they came with a standard plug.

I go for easy solutions first with cost considerations.

I expect an LED bulb to outlast a CFL or similar by a long shot. My experience that has not been the case. I just put in an LED fixture into the bathroom and I half expect to have to replace the fixture in short order.

Good to know that your experience with the LED lamps were positive. Off hand, it looks like a really good price for the fixtures, which is why i asked. I agree that good lighting is very important. I was thinking about picking up a set if you liked them.

[Jim Matthews]

I prefer a longer "housed" version that uses a strip of LEDs - same size as the old overhead flourescent lights. To survive in my shop (low 8' clearance) it must have a transluscent cover.

FYI - these are all poorly made, and *something* will break. I've refitted a chain pull switch, already.

Brighter shops are cleaner, because you can't ignore the pile of trash in the dark corner.

[Jim Koepke]

My experience so far has been that my LED lights burn out long before my CFL bulbs do. A CFL bulb fails, I drop in an LED, and the first bulb to burn out is that newly replaced LED, even if it is name brand. So far, I have not been impressed with the LEDs simply because they have not even almost lived up to the hype.

My experience has been just the opposite. Some of my screw in LEDs are getting close to 10 years old. There were a few that died but were replaced by Cree. To the best of my knowledge the only CFLs still in use are the ones in the greenhouse with very little use and one in the laundry room, which is going for the longest lasting CFL in my household. It has been in place for 12 years come September.

One of my shop florescent fixtures was changed over to 120v LED tubes. The T5 fluorescent bulbs died much faster than expected. Another fixture was purchased at Costco to replace a T12 fluorescent fixture. After that a half dozen ballast compatible 48" LED tubes replaced the rest of the T5s. That has been a few years without problems. In the winter some of the fluorescent lamps would have to warm up for quite awhile.

My curiosity is now been piqued as to why Andrew's experience might be opposite of mine. My only thought is my electrical service is provided from a transformer only servicing my property. Using my Fluke DVM, the line voltage here is a bit higher and steadier than my former residence in California in an area with more than a dozen houses on the same transformer network.

Could LEDs have a shorter life at a lower voltage while at the same time giving fluorescents a longer life?

Incandescent bulbs tend to have a longer life at a slightly lower line voltage. Many of the long life incandescent bulbs formerly available were simply bulbs made to run on 130V.

jtk

[Andrew Seemann]

Back to scrap.

I have a 2' x 2' x 3' rolling bin that I store my scrap in. It is a bit on the overflowing side and hard to see the bottom off the bin. The main (only?) thing that works about it, is that I refuse to keep any more scrap than fits in there.

Fortunately I have a wood stove, a fire ring, a slight pyromaniac streak, a maple syrup evaporator, and a family into campfires. Otherwise I would be drowning in scrap. I make it a point to cut anything smaller than about 1.5" into kindling not long after generating it. That does help a lot.

[Mark Gibney]

If you run a production shop you keep on hand just what lumber and plywood is usable for the upcoming jobs.
If you have a hobby shop, or a "mixed" shop where you make furniture and millwork, some of it commissioned, some from your own imagination, then scraps are potential, they are invitations to try something new, to make breadboards that you haven't tried before, or a stool top from that interesting off-cut.
Or that 4' long piece of figured something this is just 3/8" thick x 2" wide could make a couple of pencil cases for gifts.

There is no easy way to control the growth of scraps. If you have room to store them neatly, great, if not then every few months you'll have to go through the lot and whittle it down to what you can store. Giving advice is easy!

[Jim Koepke]

Giving advice is easy!

Almost as easy as spending someone else's money when they ask which tools to buy. :D

jtk

[Mike Allen1010]

Joe, great question – I'm guessing were all equally afflicted. Any Neander with more hand tools that he needs is also likely to have way more scrap than necessary – at least that's true for me.

I started with spare cardboard boxes and plastic buckets from Home Depot but those were rapidly overfilled. Most recently I made this little rack to hold sliding plastic tubs of various sizes. Can't show you a good picture because, like Ken, mine is against the wall directly behind my bench. Original intent was different size plastic bins for different size scraps. I guess that sort of still holds.


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What this picture doesn't show is the box behind the saw bench full of cutoffs and other scraps that have no woodworking utility. I saved these for fire wood for the couple winter months during the year in San Diego when fire in the fireplace sounds good. I used to find this a very satisfying solution in the sense of using more the lumber that comes into the shop for a utilitarian purpose. That is until my wife told me wood fires are now illegal where we live because they produce too much pollution- That girl really knows how to ruin a good time!

Not really on point regarding scrap storage, but biggest ROI for me recently in reclaiming shop was building couple sets of shelves to store my wife's stuff in the garage attached my shop. It was actually kind of fun project working with construction lumber, plywood and screws to to bang out something useful quickly. Didn't stop me from making the tall shelf knockdown with loose, through wedged tenons to hold the shelves in place.

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Cheers, Mike

[Aaron Rosenthal]

I'm like so many ....left-over scraps and many tools.
Worse, our local bylaws have outlawed outside wood burners (we're heavily treed and a fire would be ahem, disruptive).
My dear wife is an "immediate" girl, and so feeding the smoker is way too long vs the gas BBQ. So, my scraps increase. I've also inherited many planes from a friend's father's estate, but I've been weeding those out in favour of one good one only.Glued-up pieces that cannot go into a burner get put into the green recycling bin with grass and food scraps.
But, I've been keeping busy making small items for family and friends using off-cuts whenever possible. I am amazed that I can find so many tiny projects. Takes a lot of imagination sometimes.

[Jim Matthews]

Here's a follow up question: what changes in building things can generate *less* scrap?

I find that using a "Cutlist Optimizer" helps when planning plywood cabinets. (Plywood is stupid expensive, these days.)

Is there some way going forward, to plan hardwood (solid lumber) use the same way?

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The emphasis of most suggestions has been holding onto scraps without generating chaos.

I buck the trend and put anything smaller than 8" out on the curb.

If a "dump run" isn't possible a onetime fee from "1800 GOTJUNK" will be a worthwhile expense.

Comparatively, trash removal is cheaper than building a shop space to house trash.

[Jim Koepke]

Here's a follow up question: what changes in building things can generate *less* scrap?

[edited]

The answer to this came from my shop manager ~45 years ago, design your work to use the wood you have to make the sizes you need. He worked in as a cabinet maker before WWII.

For me when making potting benches the dimensioning was calculated to be made without waste as much as possible. The table tops were ~40" X 20". This allowed the frame to be cut from a 10' 2X4 without waste. Of course the 2X4s had to be selected to not have knots in strategic places and no splits anywhere. The legs were 5' & 3' from an 8' 2X4.

Those usually had very little if any scrap left over.

Most of my shelves end up at ~24" when using standard 8' lumber.

Sometimes it is a different story when buying hardwoods that are at random lengths.

jtk