Off cuts

[Andy Kev.]

This might seem a bit of a neither here nor there question but out of interest, what is your cut off size for off cuts?

I find it hard to chuck e.g. a 12" x 2" x 3/8" cherry if it's planed up and looking nice. The result of this is that I seem to have accumulated quite a few small pieces of very attractive wood that I wonder if they will ever be big enough to make something of them. I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I need to be ruthless and bin anything less than two foot long.

Has anybody got any thoughts on this admittedly trivial matter?

 

[profchris]

Find a ukulele maker! Three pieces of that cherry would make two necks, three more would make the body with careful resawing.

If anyone in mid-Suffolk is suffering with offcuts like that, I'll come round and solve your problem!

 

[transatlantic]

As somebody who can only afford basic pine. This hurts to read

I wish I could have those offcuts to glue up

 

[Water-Mark]

I'd have though you'd shift them no problem.
You just need to join the right forums and bundle them up for posting.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Yes, it does breed, doesn't it!

My father was brought up during World War 2, when you couldn't get anything you needed when you needed it. Consequently, he kept just about every stick of wood that came his way. At the age of about 75, he decided he needed to rationalise his stocks (he could get the car in the garage, but he struggled to ease his way out of the 12" opening the garage contents restricted the driver's door to). It took him months, and innumerable trips to the tip. Kept it - used about 5% of it, if that.

It's hard with 'nice' wood to be rational, but it's inevitable that it accumulates because we all over-order for a big project. You can make marking gauges, chisel handles, wooden squares and the like, but once you've got 20 marking gauges....

Keep selectively. Boxwood, rosewood, ebony and the like - keep pretty much everything. Project sized pieces of nicely figured woods and large boards of ordinary stuff are worth keeping - if you have suitable space. Sling out everything else, or you'll struggle to enter the workshop after a few years.

By the way, have you noticed that you rarely have the offcut you need at a given time? Mallet heads (carpenter's type) for example - the gurus say 'use a gnarly, interlocked offcut of oak'. Yeah, fine - but how many of us routinely have 3" gnarly, interlocked oak boards in the shop from which to generate offcuts? A stick for the handle - no problem, choose from about twenty - but the head? Most of us end up laminating 1" stuff!

 

[custard]

I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I need to be ruthless and bin anything less than two foot long.

Wise decision. The real luxury in any workshop is space, so if you don't have a use for something that's eating up that space then get rid of it.

 

[NazNomad]

Errm ... what's an off-cut?

 

[Jacob]

I tidy up every now and then and burn all the short/thin bits (and mdf, chipboard) if there's too much. It'd be nice to use more of it - little boxes, knobs, shaker pegs etc.
I've got a bad habit of keeping "good stuff" for too long and end up frantically searching for the right piece as everything near the size is just too good for the job in hand. :shock:

 

[No skills]

I have a similar problem on a small scale, I'm at the point where collected materials are stopping me make progress on important things (like finishing the possibly defunct workshop). At the moment I'm quite tempted to run all the spare wood through the saw to make small standard sized pieces and laminate them together to make a chest or large toy box etc.
It won't be a great use of the wood but at least it will be used productively rather than thrown or burnt and maybe I can make progress on something else.

 

[Racers]

Start making small boxes, that will use up your offcuts.

Pete

 

[Penny]

Even the smallest 'off cut' can be put to use:

 

[AndyT]

Anyone else remember this boat from the Olympics?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-17981130

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Anyone else remember this boat from the Olympics?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-17981130

That's great - but it's as much a tribute to modern glues as it is to thrift.

(I wonder what they did with all the bits that wouldn't fit, and the bits they trimmed off to make all the bits fit?)

 

[AndyT]

I wonder what they did with all the bits that wouldn't fit, and the bits they trimmed off to make all the bits fit?

Ah yes, offcuts of offcuts. Wandering even further off topic, I'm reminded of a somewhat non-PC puzzle from an old annual I had as a kid:

A tramp collects dog-ends in the street to make cigarettes. Each cigarette needs 7 dog-ends to make. He finds 49 dog-ends. How many cigarettes can he make?

The answer was not 7 but 8, on the grounds that he would first make 7 cigarettes, smoke them, then make one more from the dog-ends of the seven. The effect on his health was not thought worth a mention!

Back on topic, I do have a couple of trays behind the bench, which hold an assortment of small bits of hardwood. Just occasionally, a piece comes out and gets used. I think it's a bit like keeping odd screws - you have to keep a lot, in order to have the occasional right size, right type. It's impossible to use everything up.

 

[bugbear]

Keep selectively. Boxwood, rosewood, ebony and the like - keep pretty much everything.

Hell, yeah. At a local auction I split a lot with a dealer; it was from an old house being rewired and decorated.

The box was full of door push plates and old bakelite light switches.

The dealer was keen for the light switches, I was keen for the push plates.

Fortunately we managed to realise this before the sale.

The push plates were painted a nasty shade of light green.

But there was beautiful rosewood underneath, and there were around 30 of them.

So far they've supplied stock for beautiful boxes for jewellery, and a few knife scales.

BugBear

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Summarising so far:-

1) Build wardrobe, chest of drawers, desk or whatever.

2) Use the offcuts to make some small boxes.

3) Use the box offcuts (and a large tub of glue) to build a boat.

4) Use the boat offcuts to make wall clocks, jewellery, etc.

Pretty much sorted - we just need a use for shavings and sawdust, now!

 

[lanemaux]

MDF and OSB surely CC. Waste not , want not. :lol:

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Good point - and it makes use of any left-over glue from the boat build!

Just need a mincer to recycle the MDF offcuts, now.

 

[No skills]

That last post shows how much more mature the hand tool forum is, there would be an offensive comment posted immediately after it on any other forum :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[monkeybiter]

That was nearly me.