Small pieces left over, what to do???

[drumpriest]

I am constantly saving these smallish cutoffs from projects. At what point do you all think it's insane to hold on to a piece of wood? I have some small projects that I can do to burn through some of it, but they are taking up precious shop space.

thanks,

[Tom Miller]

Oh, boy, am I ever the wrong person to ask. (Oddly, though, I'm the first to answer. )

Just last night I was tossing a couple 2"x2" pieces of 3/4" baltic birch in the saved cutoffs tub. You never know....

Maybe if they had had ragged edges; but they were perfectly square, as though cut for a purpose.

Bandsaw offcuts are more likely to get thrown. It's harder to see the utility of an oddly-shaped cutout.

When I do "throw" any wood, it's used as kindling for a woodburning stove in our 4-season porch. Only the mdf really gets thrown out.

Regards,
Tom

[dkhoward]

I keep two boxes under my RAS. I toss anything smaller than my hand into the left tub and anything bigger than that into the right tub. THe left tub gets used in the fire pit in the back yard and for kindling in the fire place. THe Pieces in the right tub stay in there until it gets full to overflowing and then I go through it and cull them out and these too find their way to the firepit. I do like having a collection of the larger pieces around when I need to cut a pattern for a small piece. THey are also good as glue blocks and other odd jobs where grain, pattern or color are not critical.

[jnesmith]

I save way too much. But since we recently ran out of firewood, and along came a cold snap, a large portion of mine was finally put to good use.

[Jim Boyd]

I am constantly saving these smallish cutoffs from projects. At what point do you all think it's insane to hold on to a piece of wood? I have some small projects that I can do to burn through some of it, but they are taking up precious shop space.

thanks,

Get a lathe Two things will then happen. 1: You will have a use for small cutoffs. 2: You will save more scrap

[L. D. Jeffries]

Like T. Miller said; "Boy am I the wrong one to comment" I have more cutoffs & odd length stuff then I should have, but saying this I also go under the theory that, "If u save it for 7 yrs you WILL find a use for it!". It works for nuts & bolts; why not for wood?

[Pappy]

Hardwood cut offs of any useable size go into one box, pieces of decent ply bigger than 4x6 go into another. The hardwood box gets cleaned out occassionally, the plywood gets used as test pieces for set ups.

I also have a 30 gal barrel for unuseable scraps. When it gets full, it's burn time.

[MilDoc]

I agree with Pappy. I used to save most pieces (as a newbie I had a lot), now I say ..... BURN 'EM!

[WEG]

Hi Don;

"Unuseable scraps"?? What's "unuseable scrapes"?? Those go in the box that's behind the one that I maybe will use one day IF...

(Couldn't resist...) But I have waaaay too much of this stuff. It looks sooo good, you can't throw it out. What if I need something to stick under the clamp? Yeah, like 187 times!! I'm gonna need a bigger storage area

WEG

[maxparot]

No such thing as scrapes. There are test pieces and kindling.

[monte]

Hardwood cut offs of any useable size go into one box, pieces of decent ply bigger than 4x6 go into another. The hardwood box gets cleaned out occassionally, the plywood gets used as test pieces for set ups.

I also have a 30 gal barrel for unuseable scraps. When it gets full, it's burn time.

I do the same as Pappy except I burn mine in my woodburning stove in the shop.

[kwgeorge]

I have to agree with Jim, with the lathes there is very little that I consider being scrap. Even if the piece is extremely small if it has nice color and figure I will save it for inlays.

[scorrpio]

The only wood I discard are dust, shavings, splinters, and whatever pieces small enough to get sucked into the DC. Everything else gets saved. Those small pieces make great stop blocks, tearout guards, test pieces, gauges, clamp pads, shim stock, spline stock, peg stock, spacers, etc etc.

Here is one of the latest examples: We bought new curtain rods for our dinette, and I found out that the mounting brackets were not long enough for the curtain to clear the window sill. So I mounted them on small wooden risers, about 1.5"x1"x1", cut from one of my saved scraps.

[tribalwind]

Get a lathe Two things will then happen. 1: You will have a use for small cutoffs. 2: You will save more scrap

another vote for lathe use

i seen a site where the guy would take tons of tiny pieces,glue them all up into some odd shape then turn them into candy dishes,ash-tray looking things and they looked really cool,multi-colored patchwork forms,no order whatsoever mostly.im going to try some of them sometime.
i think he was an ebay seller,cant remember what products though.

[mschrank]

I was mulling this very topic yesterday as I realized my FOUR scrap bins are full and I have a pile of scraps in the corner. I'm trying to establish/reorganize my shop, and I'm getting tired of moving this pile around!

Regarding burning: I've always been hesitant to burn plywood scraps inside (fireplace) because of the glue component...am I justified in this hesitation?