Scraps, Shorts bin & Keeping Your Shop Clean

[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.

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