Thread: Keeping Offcuts /timber hoarding

...you mean it's possible to throw stuff in the shed away? Your idea intrigues me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter...

I love wood in all its forms, shapes and sizes so I find it very difficult to part with any offcut whatsoever.
My wife on the other hand is very mercenary and dispatches offcuts left right and centre whenever she feels the need to invade my space and clean.



I'm shure she does this to get my attention.

I have the luxury of a double garage, so I prefer to test drill, check saw cuts and match stains, waxes and polishes on timber that already has holes, cuts and stains. It has to be pretty small and crappy timber before I toss it.

Find some good size boxes from Bunnings, stick under a bench or in a corner and fill it with your offcuts and disasters.
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Or buy a woodlathe.

Originally Posted by Master Splinter

...you mean it's possible to throw stuff in the shed away? Your idea intrigues me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter...

You'll have to wait for the book ' The Anarchists Timber Rack'. It only holds 45 pieces of Wood.

The back of the garage is full of off cuts.
You need to decide if the material is too small to be of value, eg smaller than a size you use.
Keep some pieces for testing set ups and to paint on, but cull some items (that a short time later will be replaced with fresh off cuts and opps!).

As some of you may have seen, many of my wood carvings get some sort of paint and/or some sort of clear finish. In process, I like to leave 10-15cm waste wood at one end of a carving as a 'handle'. When that gets cut off, it goes in the bin under the table saw.
When the bin is full, I save the best-looking pieces. With a hot glue gun and a large piece of cardboard, I make a sheet (could be 90 x 100cm) of pieces for testing paints and stains. Only when that gets totally slopped up does it get tossed out.
I know that it means stop-and-go finishing but I'm satisfied in that I have avoided some crass mistakes.

I have a cardboard box nearby and any offcuts that are not of a useful size go straight in it. When it is full it goes to my son who has a wood heater.

Any decent timber over 110mm long and 18mm thick is saved for pens. I do not turn them but hand the timber on.

My selection criteria is shape and size related the smaller and less regular shaped it is the more likely it is to be tossed.

For storage I use under bench drawers or boxes on rollers like this.


Trouble is of course I have run out of room.

OK, so keep what I can still use is how I understand it.
My trouble is I'll carve small stuff to hang around a neck as well as the bigger stuff (and pens in the middle).
That means if I find a nice piece of something small I still keep it.
I just need the time to use it all.

Seems that avast majority of woodworkers are afflicted by the Bower Bird syndrome.

Maybe a genetic trait that helps determine our proclivity to work with wood.

I have even found a use for used matches. I dont think I am the sort of person you should be talking to.

My name is Andrew and I am a hoarder of small pieces of wood that I will probably never use. I need help. My benches are cluttered. I built a new shed for storing wood that I get delivered every few months. It filled up in a few weeks after building. Now the wood that gets delivered still sits on the porch as it did before I built the shed. I don't know if anyone will ever solve this problem. So many of us have it and it aint going away.

Hi,
My problem is how to file it away so I can find and identify the piece I know I have.
Regards

Unfortunately... the only known solution to this problem is to get SWMBO into the garage and leave her there for about 30 minutes...

In that time she will get rid of most (if not all) of the pieces.. Leaving her longer there might cause permanent loss of some good keepers...
I found that the hard way...
Alen