Scrap habits

[andyvh1959]

I built my shop garage in spring of 2020, and I still have piles of left over 2x4, 2x6, plywood, etc. I have a scrap habit,....meaning I hang onto pieces of scrap dimensional lumber, lots of them. I need to set a standard, like, less than 36" long scrap the damn stuff. I need to load up my trailer with all these pieces of dimensional lumber and sheet stock and take it to the Green Bay yard waste site. I can take all sorts of scrap wod there.

I don't have a fire pit so that is not an option to eventually get rid of the stuff. So it needs to go. I'm sure there are others out there like me. If I have not used the sections of lumber in two years I simply need to convince myself it has to go.

 

[Sumboodie]

Don't need a special fire pit to have a fire.

Last one I had I just dug a hole 15ft deep.

 

[u2slow]

I hang onto pieces down to 10-12". Can always make cribbing stack-platforms. 16-24" makes good shelf boards. Lumber is expensive these days.

It pains me to dig into a fresh 2x4 to make a 'scrap' for a random task.

I burn in the yard too... no fancy fire pit.

 

[mike93lx]

I keep a few pieces around and try to actively use them for projects. Once they can't be easily stored, they go in the trash. I hate waste, but I'm not tripping over **** in my garage to avoid buying a $4 2x4

 

[Walkers]

I just cleaned out my dads garage. My mother had us stack piles out lumber next to the driveway and she would list it on one of the neighborhood sites in the free section. We did it several times, and the stuff was always gone the next day.

 

[kumquat]

Don't need a special fire pit to have a fire.

Last one I had I just dug a hole 15ft deep.

Must have taken you a while. What were the length and width?

 

[alfadan]

Chimenea?

 

[The Cobbler]

listed on a classified site, stacked at your driveway , the stuff will be gone

 

[rktinc]

Well, I have a very similar problem after building my shop out for the last year and a half. All beautiful used lumber I just cant bear to trash. Yesterday I stopped by my elderly neighbor who has a wonderful wood shop in his back yard. He builds little projects and sells them or gives them away. He jumped at the chance to take these scraps.

I trashed the smaller ones and still have a couple loads to go. It is just so hard to clear it out but it has to be done.

 

[Sumboodie]

Must have taken you a while. What were the length and width?

Maybe 20x20. Maybe 30 mins, if that, to dig with the 200.

 

[rsanter]

I have a bunch of dimensional lumber cut offs.
12” to 16” I save it.
I use it as cribbing, or blocking to beat on, it if I need t cut something out of them.
They get neatly stacked on the shelf and they get used (or given to a friend that needs one)

 

[niget2002]

I've gotten a whole lot better at judging how much stock I need for a project. Most of my scraps end up only one or two feet. I have a few small buckets that I put scraps into. When they're all full, I haul them off to the edge of the property where I put them in a pile and let them decompose.

 

[MushCreek]

What's annoying is that right after you purge, you're gonna need a 12" piece of this, or a plywood patch or gusset for something. Now that I'm finishing up building my boat, I have lots of scraps of cherry, mahogany, and marine plywood. That goes on top of all of the building materials left over from building my house...

Once in a while, it pays off, though. For building the boat, I had to first build a strongback and temporary molds. This all gets thrown out after the boat is done. I had about 90% of what I needed already on hand. I even saved some of the bigger pieces when I took it apart. Of course, the downside is managing all those piles of lumber while you're waiting for a purpose to come along.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

I always keep a small stockpile of scrap KD and PT 2x material and 1x pine boards. Besides that, no...I keep nothing. KD Cut-offs get cut to length and split and thrown in the kindling box. Eveything else goes in the yearly burn pile out in the back 40.

 

[mwalsh9152]

I constantly build the same things over and over, so I know what size scrap pieces I can use. I was starting to get overwhelmed by 12" 2X4's but I am in the middle of a run of builds that use 3 of them per, so I knocked that pile down to almost nothing.

This winter I will need to focus on better organizing my 225SF shop. My #2 issue is scrap storage.

 

[Mike65]

According to my wife I cannot throw away any wood scrap lumber & she is probably right. It has to be a very small piece for me to toss it in the scrap bin.

 

[couch67]

My limit is 1' or longer - BUT if I already have a few that are 1', then the new (or worst looking ones) go in the trash. I pretty much keep anything that is 2' or longer (still working on that though!)

 

[laser3kw]

for 2x4 and similar, I use 5 gallon buckets to store them. I use them a lot as cribbing when I need to block up a mower or such.
Other times, you just need to "clean house" to get rid on stuff that you haven't touched in over a year. I'm doing that to our house much to my wife's objection (very loud objections)

 

[Garcky]

Well, I have a very similar problem after building my shop out for the last year and a half. All beautiful used lumber I just cant bear to trash. Yesterday I stopped by my elderly neighbor who has a wonderful wood shop in his back yard. He builds little projects and sells them or gives them away. He jumped at the chance to take these scraps.

I trashed the smaller ones and still have a couple loads to go. It is just so hard to clear it out but it has to be done.

You need a fireplace. What you have there is kindling. That's how I used my cutoffs.

 

[CoogarXR]

You need a fireplace. What you have there is kindling. That's how I used my cutoffs.

Or just a generic backyard fire ring. I have a 20" dually ring that I use as a small fire ring setup.

Before I had that, I just threw my tiny scraps in a tub. I would take the tub camping and burn it there.

 

[Prospecter]

Yup. I have two wood stoves. If it looks like firewood / kindling, it goes on the stack. If it's junky, it gets cut down to size and goes on the stack. If my accumulation of scrap exceeds available storage, I thin the herd.

 

[speed bump]

Growing up with a dad who was a bit of a lumber horder I now take great pleasure in throwing out scraps. I still have a lot of them but when I'm cleaning up oddball pieces or real small stuff just goes if it hasn't moved for a while. Some days it's as satisfying to organize and clean a space as it is to build something with the material.

 

[Firebrick43]

Make a 2x4 jenga set and give them aways as christmas gifts to families with kids.

DIY Jenga set

 

[jar944]

I keep some hardwood falloff around that can be run into moulding (usually 4' min) but construction lumber gets burned or taken to the dump asap.

 

[Toomanytools?]

I feel your pain. I have been a General Contractor, Carpenter, furniture maker for 40+ years and always hang on to stuff for that next project. Some of it might be 1 1/2"x1 1/2"x6" exotic wood that I'm sure I will use "someday". So now anything less than 24" common species get burnt or tossed. I have been hanging on to about a dozen 24-30" / 6"x8" pole barn cutoffs from my shop built 7 years ago, finally tossing them. I am a pack rat of material, you just have to toss stuff as you build something.

 

[Jim_No_Garage]

All of my offcuts end up in a "deck box" that holds my firepit kindling. I have pulled wood back out of the "box" to use in a project as needed.

Jim

 

[PCustoms]

I have a divider wall in my shop that is framed 25" o.c. and has 2x4 shelf supports (that were likely scrap, lol) coming off it. Scrap long enough to span supports goes up there.

Plywood goes into the stud bay, or on rare occasions I have larger they lean against the wall mostly vertical.

Short scrap goes in a box under the miter saw. Clean wood that is around 12" eventually goes into a kindling box for heating season.

When the box is full I check for anything useful looking, I might save chunks of 2x4, otherwise the whole thing goes in the campfire. Note: PT cutoffs less then 12" go straight into the trash can.

 

[BigGarage]

When I had anything too small to be of use I'd put it in a bucket and hang it the fence when it filled. My neighbor would take it and burn it outdoors. I made a holder for scrap that was useful and put it behind the door. The space wasn't being used for anything anyway. I put it on wheels too.

Dennis

 

[Garcky]

I had a lean-to storage thing at the back of my workshop. Had walls, a roof, and doors at both ends. It was well ventilated. Long full-width shelves, accessible from either door, about 12" apart. That was my scrap wood storage area. Typically, if I was doing a project, I'd buy extra materials, so I'd be able to replace something I screwed up on. So, there was a lot of that excess wood in there. If it was less than 12' long, it could get put in that lean-to.

That was my spare lumber. When I needed something, I'd pull it out of there. Worked out pretty well for me.

 

[nadogail]

I too have a "Lumber Yard" it is the 3 foot setback between the garage my workshop is in and the Property Line Fence. The "shelves" are scraps of steel welded to the supports holding up the fence.

 

[James-W]

I don't keep any piece of wood less than 12 inches long. I cut them into smaller pieces and throw them into a heavy duty cardboard barrel and when it is full a friend of mine takes the small pieces of wood and burns them in his back yard. He has a burning pit and he has plastic chairs and he and his grand-kids toast marshmallows and have a grand old time.

 

[bdbecker]

What has been working well for me is to have a set amount of space used for material storage. I allow myself to save whatever I want, regardless of size, until that space is full and starts to overflow. Then it's time for a sort.

Small scraps go into two plastic totes - one bin for plywood, the other for boards. These get emptied out fairly frequently. I'll keep a handful of the pieces that have the best chance of being reused sometime in the future, the rest goes to my Dad to use as kindling for his fireplace (empty dog food bags work great). I try to remove at least 75% or more of the material out of the totes when I sort them. It is pretty easy for me to part ways with most of what is in the totes because they are such small pieces.

I also have wall racks and a swing out sheet goods cart for larger pieces. I can usually go a couple years between having to clean out this area. Anything I find in this area that I don't think I'll use gets donated to the ReStore. I'm much less aggressive when sorting this area. The main goal is to get the material that I do keep back on the racks/in the cart in a somewhat organized fashion with some room left over to store material for the next project I'm working on.

I do keep a small, dedicated assortment of 2x4's and 4x4's for utility use. When I go through my totes and find a good chunk of 2x4, I'll toss the worst of the utility pieces. Every so often I'll have to pull out a good piece of wood off the rack and cut it up for utility use, but that happens infrequently enough that it doesn't bother me.

 

[kaymccampbell]

I turn it into little projects. Shelves, racks, small parts. If it sits around for more than a year or so, it gets cut up for firewood.

 

[Jgaz]

I too use the two tote method for small scrap. Mine are six gallon milk crates.
One is more common pieces and the other is hardwood scrap that may become a box or small project.

Lately, I have been saving more small pieces of Baltic Birch plywood then in the past.
That material has gotten crazy expensive even compared to other, inflated, lumber prices.

 

[rdoty]

I built a materials storage cart to hold both sheet materials and cutoffs. The base is 2' x 4'. The stair step slots on the left make it easy to sort cutoffs by length and to get to the shorter pieces. A chain (not shown in this picture) around the sheet stock keeps them from falling off of the cart.

If it doesn't go in the storage cart it goes in the trash. At the end of major projects I sort the remnants from the project against what is in the cart and save the best. This way I have both a reasonable assortment of materials to work with and a manageable amount of materials saved up.



The only problem I have is that I used cheap casters. This cart gets heavy quickly and I really need to put better casters under it...

 

[NUTTSGT]

1x & 2x kiln dried along with plywood or OSB is kindling for the wood burner.

 

[Aaron_W]

I have a problem of actually using random scraps just enough to weaken my will power to get rid of them.

 

[Notgrownup]

I also have a similar problem/habit but I make frames for my wife so anything odd size can be reused but I started to burn or trash very small pieces. I have a pretty decent rolling rack and my good hardwood goes in the ceiling rack

 

[PCustoms]

Short scrap goes in a box under the miter saw. Clean wood that is around 12" eventually goes into a kindling box for heating season.

When the box is full I check for anything useful looking, I might save chunks of 2x4, otherwise the whole thing goes in the campfire.

Been framing a shed and ripping rough cut pine. Raining so doing some cleanup

Sweepings going in outdoor fireplace



Saved for wood stove kindling



I've also got a bunch of 2x4 cutoffs, might save the longer ones for wood stove (the don't split well though) and toss the rest in fire pit.

 

[kwb]

I have a pallet that I put ~12" sides on. Stuff in it gets used for cribbing, cut down in to parts for welding jigs, or if a small project needs something I can usually find something in there to use.

Once they start getting too busted up I throw them in a bankers box and use as kindling in wood stove, chiminea, or the big fire pit.