Offcut storage

[Marc Fenneuff]

I made the woodstore.net rolling lumber cart. Lots of clones on YouTube too. Coming from no organization before, it is a godsend. It's big and it's mobile. Needs heavy-duty urethane casters.

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[Charlie Jones]

I keep a 20 gallon barrel for the kindling that I cut from anything about 20” or shorter. When it is full it goes to friends with a fireplace. I keep some for my Solostove when camping. I have a wall rack that is full and I never seem to use the stuff. Piles leaning in the corners seem to grow overnight. I am trying to discipline myself to get rid of it all and just buy enough for each project. It is a terrible affliction!

[Justin Rapp]

thinking about shorts, some people do make smaller items, like keep sake boxes and jewelry boxes, etc. Those shorts and small pieces could be a treasure of parts for someone who builds small items.

Maybe a 'short' exchange or give away, esp of they are not being used for a smoker or fire pit, etc.

[Alex Zeller]

thinking about shorts, some people do make smaller items, like keep sake boxes and jewelry boxes, etc. Those shorts and small pieces could be a treasure of parts for someone who builds small items.

Maybe a 'short' exchange or give away, esp of they are not being used for a smoker or fire pit, etc.

My neighbor does large commercial jobs. Often he works with 10/4 and larger wood. Anything less than 2' long goes into the wood stove unless I take it. My problem is that I have too much small stuff because I can use it. It's overflowed and is now just leaning against the wall. All was fine until Thanksgiving with a boiler incident left a 1/2" of water on the floor of my shop and all the board started wicking it up. I swear short cut-offs and dull router bits never seam to leave my shop until well past their time.

[John K Jordan]

Our turning club has an annual wood auction which brings in a lot of money for programs and such. Perhaps that's a good use for surplus wood. Many donate wood. I usually bring 4 or 5 tubs full of wood blanks ready for the lathe.

[Jon Endres]

I built a second floor into my garage - 750 square feet and it's nothing but lumber storage at the moment. It's a work in progress. I had all my lumber stored in the shop itself, and as I've slowly been moving it all upstairs, I'm culling it as I go. Small offcuts, the subject of this thread, are stored in various cardboard boxes, plastic totes and a trash can for the long skinny stuff. I haven't come up with a good solution yet so this is timely. I don't really want to store the little stuff upstairs or it will never again see the light of day.

[Jim Becker]

Jon, despite the added work to leverage second floor lumber storage, I moved to that a number of years ago and would do it again in a heartbeat in a future shop.

[Jim Fox]

My off-cut storage system

That's the same system I use. Between milk crates, 5 gallon buckets and old curbside recycling totes I must have 15 bins of scrap to burn. I save them for campfires in the yard and camping. Sadly didn't do any camping last year.

[Justin Rapp]

My neighbor does large commercial jobs. Often he works with 10/4 and larger wood. Anything less than 2' long goes into the wood stove unless I take it. My problem is that I have too much small stuff because I can use it. It's overflowed and is now just leaning against the wall. All was fine until Thanksgiving with a boiler incident left a 1/2" of water on the floor of my shop and all the board started wicking it up. I swear short cut-offs and dull router bits never seam to leave my shop until well past their time.

Wow - under 2 feet long. 16-23.9" as long as they are 2" wide and rock maple, walnut, cherry or some exotics go go right in my cutting board pile. I'd love to have a neighbor that handed off shorts in that size range.

[Jim Dwight]

I have a large rolling rack with compartments for storage and put them other places including leaving them on the floor (which is not advisable). I don't think there is a perfect solution to the conflict between the facts that they are often very usable and the fact that at some point they are overwhelming and you can't find what you need anyway. So every once in awhile, I make a run to the trash collection station with a bunch of little offcuts. Then immediately I need one I just threw away.

[Jeff Wright]

I just built this mobile bin from a free set of plans from Woodsmith magazine. My plan is to allow it to determine my max amount of saved cutoffs . . . and each time I have another to add, determine if the piece in my hand is better than one in the bin that can be sacrificed.

[Alex Zeller]

Wow - under 2 feet long. 16-23.9" as long as they are 2" wide and rock maple, walnut, cherry or some exotics go go right in my cutting board pile. I'd love to have a neighbor that handed off shorts in that size range.

The last two pieces he gave me about a month ago were 12/4 8" wide birch he was using to hit the tires/ wheels on his car that are about 16" long. The center of the rim was slightly rusty and wouldn't easily come off to put his winter tires on. He easily could have used a mallet but they were closer. Luckily he only hit the tire so they aren't damaged, just brown looking. I'm thinking of using them to make a segmented bowl. While he doesn't have a CNC he does have pretty much everything else that I'm free to use when I want. It's large industrial stuff. I have my own backhoe which he occasionally uses so it works for both of us.

One of the strangest tools he has is a shingle mill. It's easily over 100 years old. It's got to be the most dangerous but fun to watch tool. You feed logs into it and it'll increment them in a way that the 5' blade will cut the shake at the correct angle. The log automatically slides into the saw blade to cut the shake then returns to increment the log again. Meanwhile you pick the shakes up out of a basket and there's two stations that someone can plane the edges of the shakes. Back in the day it would go from farm to farm and kids would run it to make shakes for barn raisings. Lots of mass and not a single guard on this thing.

[Brian Tymchak]

I just built this mobile bin from a free set of plans from Woodsmith magazine.

I'd forgotten about their bin. I remember when watching the show that it might be a good way to go.

. . . and each time I have another to add, determine if the piece in my hand is better than one in the bin that can be sacrificed.

Good luck with that strategy.. I've never been able to make it work that way..

[John K Jordan]

...Small offcuts, the subject of this thread, are stored in various cardboard boxes, plastic totes ...

I finally learned to buy clear plastic tubs! And try to organize and label the containers. At one point I had over two dozen opaque tubs - without labels I'd have never found anything.

[Justin Rapp]

The last two pieces he gave me about a month ago were 12/4 8" wide birch he was using to hit the tires/ wheels on his car that are about 16" long. The center of the rim was slightly rusty and wouldn't easily come off to put his winter tires on. He easily could have used a mallet but they were closer. Luckily he only hit the tire so they aren't damaged, just brown looking. I'm thinking of using them to make a segmented bowl. While he doesn't have a CNC he does have pretty much everything else that I'm free to use when I want. It's large industrial stuff. I have my own backhoe which he occasionally uses so it works for both of us.

One of the strangest tools he has is a shingle mill. It's easily over 100 years old. It's got to be the most dangerous but fun to watch tool. You feed logs into it and it'll increment them in a way that the 5' blade will cut the shake at the correct angle. The log automatically slides into the saw blade to cut the shake then returns to increment the log again. Meanwhile you pick the shakes up out of a basket and there's two stations that someone can plane the edges of the shakes. Back in the day it would go from farm to farm and kids would run it to make shakes for barn raisings. Lots of mass and not a single guard on this thing.

That sounds like a neat machine to watch and of course stay clear of. Imagine the dangers of working in and industry with machinery back in the early 1900's before any true worker safety measures were in place.