Scraps

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M

macchips4

Well-known member
Just finished "cleaning" the shop, realy just sweeping and moving things to the corners. Just a question for anyones input: What do you do with scraps or off cuts? Keep them forever Like I seem to do?  (you never know when you need a small piece of wood)
If so what size to keep and what to get rid of? J
ust throw out and start anew with each project?
Its starting to get difficult to move around the shop!!
Joe
 
I guess it all depends if you do any restoration.  Yet you say you are running out room, which is never good.  If you have boxes that have been around 5 years and you haven't touched them, then I would say get rid of those boxes.  These days I save every scrap of Mahogany, Ash, Walnut, Chestnut, and other rare materials.  These days it has gotten really hard to find quality material or material at a good price.  The future should only bring more difficulty, due to the fish and game cracking down on exotic materials.  So I would say keep what is important and old growth and start burning the newer material.  It is a tough call, but we don't want to become a wood hoarder.  Good Luck, for in my shop I throw something away and then my shop partner takes it out the trash and saves it, then he throws it away and I save it.  It is a terrible cycle. 

Fred
 
Saw them up into pen blanks and sell them on e-bay? I used to have a shop that was only heated by wood. It gets cold here so by the end of winter even unfinished projects start to look like firewood. Some small bits of wood are good for making gauges and such. I tend to work in North American woods so if the piece is large enough I save it for another project.  I save pieces that are large enough to make turnings with, and shorts, pieces large enough to make a furniture part from. The rest goes in the wood stove and heats the house. If you save bits of used tape and have a box of string to short to save there is no hope. Your space is probably at a premium put something useful in it.
 
Joe, 

If small pieces are eating you out of house and home and you can't bring yourself to burn them, box them up and take them to your local woodworker's store or a local building salvage store and give them away.  You will be guilt free and they will either find a use or be someone else's problem.  PSP
 
Bundle your scraps and donate them to your local Goodwill. Long Island will love your scraps and after a while you will have a following. Then only good things will happen with your scraps!!
 
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