question:

[Butch Edwards]

...after dressing 100 BF of hard maple down to it's appropriate sizes, I find that I wasted a lot of wood in sawdust. milling 4/4 into 3/4 wastes 1/4... even if I had bought 8/4 the waste woulda been the same.
looking at the 2 extremely large trashbags full of maple dust really makes me shake my head in distain.
Am I the only one who hates(but deals with) the waste of this hobby?:confused:

[Jim Becker]

In some cases, this is just the nature of the beast. If you have an adequate band saw, you do have the option of preserving some of that material for thin stock by resawing first. But the 4/4 rough material will very often not be flat and you're going to burn material just to get it there before you thickness it in the planer. Wood is like that.

But also consider that the chips and sawdust you create can also be recycled to good purpose most of the time. (Black walnut and some exotics are not suitable for this) We put a good deal of what I create into our large compost pile, especially when we have a lot of greens to balance with browns. I've also used it for years on the pathways of our veggie garden...it's pretty kewel to see after a 3" coating of cherry shavings is added to those pathways!

[Jason White]

It's great for the compost bin, though!




...after dressing 100 BF of hard maple down to it's appropriate sizes, I find that I wasted a lot of wood in sawdust. milling 4/4 into 3/4 wastes 1/4... even if I had bought 8/4 the waste woulda been the same.
looking at the 2 extremely large trashbags full of maple dust really makes me shake my head in distain.
Am I the only one who hates(but deals with) the waste of this hobby?:confused:

[Karl Brogger]

Unless you're planning on cutting material with magic, what else are you going to do? Its not waste its nature of the beast. You don't eat corn then look at it after a BM and call it waste do you?

[Paul Greathouse]

One way to look at it is, how much would you have had to pay at the lumber yard for boards that are in the milled condition that yours are in now? Once you look at it that way its easier. Also, like Jim and Jason said, many species are great for the compost pile.

I'm kind of the exception to the rule but, with the free logs that I get, all I pay for is the sawyer fee and the kiln drying fee. After I do the planing myself, I end up with about $1.00/bdft hardwood lumber. Now thats a deal.

[John Keeton]

You don't eat corn then look at it after a BM and call it waste do you?
Karl, I'll never look at an ear of corn the same after that!

[Dick Bringhurst]

John, the thing not to look at is the end result. Dick B.

[Peter Quinn]

I bring my shavings to a local farm that uses them (along with the shavings of many others) for cow bedding. Leave out the walnut in case it reaches the horses. Some I give to my neighbor for their rabbit cages. I try to minimize my waste. but some saw dust is part of the equation. Not to worry.

I am worried about Karl's analogy though. I find I am able to enjoy corn without wishing I could also eat the cob. Once its eaten, I stop taking inventory.

[Neal Clayton]

you should try cutting molding ;).

as mentioned in a couple other threads, i can make 200 gallons of shavings and dust in a day, easily.

at best it's a 50% waste operation, on a bad day, it can get up to 65% with oddly flawed boards that just won't plane or cut smoothly.

it's only money, right? ;)

[Glenn Howard]

Unless you're planning on cutting material with magic, what else are you going to do? Its not waste its nature of the beast. You don't eat corn then look at it after a BM and call it waste do you?

Actually, waste is exactly what you call it.

[Mikail Khan]

With most of the 4/4 stock I buy I can clean up both sides and still be around 21-22mm (approx. 13/16" to 7/8") so I use it at that thickness unless I specifically need 3/4" (19mm).

It saves me one or two passes through the planer and I have less sawdust to dump in the compost heap.

For a lot of items (e.g. face frames) the actual thickness (21mm or 19mm) is not that important. What is more important is that everything is the same thickness.


MK

[Dave Falkenstein]

Unless you're planning on cutting material with magic, what else are you going to do? Its not waste its nature of the beast. You don't eat corn then look at it after a BM and call it waste do you?

And what about that corn cob??? :)

[Anthony Whitesell]

Same here. For 1/2" stock I bought a $900 bandsaw and an $800 jointer so I could resaw 5/4 stock and minimize the size of my compost pile. Looking at it that way, it's a lot of money to spend to save on planer blades and surfaced lumber :eek:.

[Chip Lindley]

The extra thickness of rough sawn 4/4 lumber has it's purpose. Rough 4/4 lumber is sawed to allow for shrinkage during the drying process. A thickness less than 4/4 (1" +) invites tragedy if the mill inadvertantly sawed boards at a slight taper. And, for many applications, bow and twist in dried lumber must be flattened with a jointer before it is thicknessed with a planer. Perfectly flat lumber is essential for rails and stiles in door making. Of course, there are other purposes for less-than-perfectly-flat milled lumber which can be drawn into place with clamps. If you are feeling wasteful, build your projects of 13/16" or even 7/8" stock for extra strength and value. Nobody says we must adhere to the 3/4" thickness. Think "outside" the box!

[Butch Edwards]

all wonderful responses...but the corn analogy worries me :D

[Karl Brogger]

When I cut out face frame material, I cut it an 1/8" wider than it needs to be, then plane it to width to get rid of the kerf marks. This is pretty common practice. One of my friends owns a cabinet shop, he used to size material with a jointer because the planer he had was a piece of crap, when he got a new planer he was all pumped thinking he could just cut material a 1/16" big then size it, taking a 1/32" off of each side to get his width. But the problem is that many times you can't cut material that closely on a tablesaw, (or you can, but it isn't worth the time), or the saw marks can go more than a 1/32" deep. And really what are you saving? You're still going to have a drop from the board, and its either useless or not. I consider anything less than 1-1/8 to be basically unusable, if I saved every drop that was that size I would be drowning in it. If you have a 6" usuable wide board, you can get 3 rips at 1-5/8, having a thinner kerf isn't going to change the usability of that drop. The best you can do is get your pieces that you need out of the appropriate width boards, and try to plan the drops for other things.

Like I said, its not waste, its nature of the beast. If it bothers you get your material sized at 13/16 and let somebody else deal with it. If it payed to do it differently, trust me it would be done that way.

[Butch Edwards]

When I cut out face frame material, I cut it an 1/8" wider than it needs to be, then plane it to width to get rid of the kerf marks. This is pretty common practice. One of my friends owns a cabinet shop, he used to size material with a jointer because the planer he had was a piece of crap, when he got a new planer he was all pumped thinking he could just cut material a 1/16" big then size it, taking a 1/32" off of each side to get his width. But the problem is that many times you can't cut material that closely on a tablesaw, (or you can, but it isn't worth the time), or the saw marks can go more than a 1/32" deep. And really what are you saving? You're still going to have a drop from the board, and its either useless or not. I consider anything less than 1-1/8 to be basically unusable, if I saved every drop that was that size I would be drowning in it. If you have a 6" usuable wide board, you can get 3 rips at 1-5/8, having a thinner kerf isn't going to change the usability of that drop. The best you can do is get your pieces that you need out of the appropriate width boards, and try to plan the drops for other things.

Like I said, its not waste, its nature of the beast. If it bothers you get your material sized at 13/16 and let somebody else deal with it. If it payed to do it differently, trust me it would be done that way.

Bro Karl... I size all my lumber myself from saw mill(rough-cut) lumber. it's the only way I buy lumber,except from friends on a few forums who I occasionally buy small amounts of pre-dressed stuff to help them out. when you start with a tad oversized 4/4 RC board, and your plans call for 3/4 dressed material, then you have about 1/4 waste. what few sawyers we have left around here sell mainly 4/4 boards. they do have 6/4 and up, but not as much. that's why I'm about to have a bunch of logs sawed to those larger sizes, so I can resaw. so,in essence I'M the one who has to deal with it!!! :D