Saving wood

[Tony Pisano]

Back when I was a machinist, there was a pattern making shop upstairs in our building. They would throw all of their scrap wood into cardboard barrels and place them in the hallway outside the door for anyone to take. It was probably early eighties when I grabbed the cutouts pictured. There were about 40 of them, 8 inch diameter, 1/2" thick. I used some and glued them up to make parts for a hand drum. The rest got stored. This week, I've been going through my very crowded shop trying to make space. These discs were stacked up in a cabinet, so I took them out and have been cutting useable rectangles out of most of them. I figure I can put my new incra joint jig to use making some small drawers or boxes. The problem is the small curved left over pcs. Most are going into scrap bucket to add to the fire for boiling sap, but I look at some and think, maybe I should cut some little 1/2" × 3/4" or 1/2" square strips out of these. Does a piece of wood have to be thinner than the tablesaw blade before we can part with it? I guess it's the "someday" syndrome.

[Roger Feeley]

My dad saved every useful looking scrap and pretty much drowned in them. He wasn't a total hoarder but he would see a broken maple clothes hanger and see a potentially useful piece of wood. When he passed, my mother spent 3 months cleaning out all that crap with the help of me and my two brothers and her brother and various nieces and nephews.

When I built my present shop, I resolved to limit my wood storage. then the guy down the street gave me some nice mahogany... Sigh.

[Ron Citerone]

We all have the disease.............What limits me is lack of storage. Anything longer than 20" gets glued up into 3" strips for cutting boards. It really minimizes the waste and the guilt that goes with it. Plus having a few cutting boards around for gifts makes good friends out of casual friends.

[Greg Parrish]

Not sure how flat those are or what type of wood by my first though on quick look is they would make a cool glue up for bowl/vessel turning.

[Bill Dufour]

When my wife taught Head Start she always took a lot of small scraps like under 2" for the kids to glue together and make towers. Growing up my toy blocks were offcuts from a furniture factory.
Bill

[Jacob Reverb]

You sound like someone I'd have to watch like a hawk in my shop.

GET AWAY FROM MY STASH!!! I'm SAVING that stuff!

[scott vroom]

Unless I have an immediate need, all of my shorts/narrows end up in the wood stove, backyard fire ring, or campfire.

[Phil Mueller]

Good timing on this thread. Last week I said enough was enough. The finished side of our basement was looking like a lumber yard. I decided to make a 4’ wide by 6’ tall by 10” deep lumber rack. What wouldn’t fit on it, goes. Completed it on Sunday, stacked and wedged all I could in to it.

I now have the twisted, warped, checked pieces of garbage and boxes full of tiny little cut offs I’ve been saving for years ready for the fireplace. The good news is I can now easily see what I have, and my wife really enjoys a nice warm fire.

It pained me knowing right after I burn it, I’ll need one of those pieces. But, I’m dealing with it.

[John K Jordan]

Tony, I keep bins of pieces too small or oddly sized for me to use. I periodically offer them to local art teachers who let students express their creativity in new ways.

JKJ

[Andrew Joiner]

I store a red bin of scraps in one corner of the shop. After a shop tour once a buddy said " what's that in the red bin". I said those are scraps too small to save

[Nick Lazz]

I keep them in a bin which turns into a pile. I use some of it, but when the pile gets too big, I use it for kindling or just burn it.
Funny story, kind of... my dad used to have these big bins of nuts and bolts and we always dug in there to find parts when we needed them...when he passed I was going to keep those bins, but when I thought about it those bins never got any smaller for the 40 years I been messing with them.,,so I recycled them. Haven’t regretted it once.

[Tony Pisano]

The drum was basically just that, to make a tapered top section.

[Tony Pisano]

I've started trying to think along the lines of being practical. Last year I went through my screw drawers and pared things down and gave a bunch of boxes away. This year I'm trying to expand the idea. I don't do as much handyman work for others, so some drop cloths and roller handle were given away. I recently gave my son a spare woodworking vise, a bench vise and an extra drill press and vise I've had hanging around. I culled out all of tge mismatched, odd sockets and wrenches, and parted with some scrap steel and wire. It's starting to actually feel good to thin things out some.

[Andrew Seemann]

I found that it is easier to burn scrap if it is for boiling sap as well. That said, I had to fire up the wood stove in the shop this weekend, because I was drowning in offcuts. And sure enough I could have used a couple of them later in the day, meaning I was forced to take a couple cuts of the 500 odd board feet I have on the wood rack.

[Jacob Reverb]

If you find you're accumulating too many pieces of nice wood that are too small for anything, there's only one answer:

Get a lathe and glue up those pieces to make bowls!