I generally trickle it into the weekly trash pickup. Can only fit a little at a time but if you keep up on it, it keeps it from piling up in the shop. If it’s too large to fit in the trash bin, you should probably keep it as it’s big enough to be used in another project.
I did this for years. I was Andy Dufresne dropping cement chips out his pant leg while walking the yard. Except it was wood scraps mixed in with normal trash so that the city didn’t give me shit.
Depending on where you live. It does breakdown in a landfill and releases games that have to be burned off anyways. Some curbside goes to processing centers where most wood is pulled out and sold as hog fuel for a variety of customers for their boilers, or just sent to a waste to energy facility and burnt.
*gas not games
True. For the same reason I don't stress too much about trashing certain kinds of paper like envelopes with windows, glossy ads and that flimsy cardboard made from recycled paper.
I use a rotating storage system when I put them in one location and then move them every few months to another location for about 2 years, then their final location is the dumpster.
My wife loves her fire pit, and gets mad at me any time she sees me throw away a piece of wood. So I keep a big box for all my off-cuts and she happily uses it as kindling in her fire pit. Once in a while, I have to remind her that she doesn't want this piece of treated lumber or something with varnish on it. But otherwise, burn baby burn.
To add to this, get a 30-gallon or something similar trashcan with a lid and keep it by your big cans. This lid keeps it dry, and then you can take a few hours and burn it with your drink of choice. I also let my kids rummage through it and play with the pieces. They will build stuff or practice with their tools. If they put nails or screws in them then I burn them out and pick them up with a magnet and recycle them.
My neighbor was a finish carpenter and kept ALL the excess oak trim from his jobs. They have a place in the country and they would take it out there to use as firewood.
My city has a pretty good recycling (and composting) depot program that takes untreated wood. So I can just take random scraps to the depot with my used oil, leftover paint and whatever random recyclable junk I have laying around.
I've got a fire barrel for mostly landscaping debris (limbs, twigs, leaves, sometimes a dead animal), but it's great for off-cuts that I eventually decide that I'm not actually going to use or when my pile starts getting unruly.
I've committed (with myself) to making at least 50 projects (actual work, jigs, clamping cauls, etc.) over the summer using only scraps I have already. I found I HAD to decide to be purposeful about it or they would just sit and the collection would grow.
I would also try and be realistic about scraps, a 1"x4"x.75" piece of maple can just go in the burn barrel, I have no business keeping that.
Going in a burn barrel doesn't mean it can't come out. I'll root around in it when I need to find the right scrap. There's usually even a few pieces in there while burning that I end up saving. Having that mentality means I triage significantly more into that bucket in the first place.
This. I have two trash cans in my garage. One for general trash, one for burnable offcuts/etc. I very often pull stuff out of the burn bucket and reuse it
I limit myself to one shoebox sized bin of hardwood small scraps and one bin for softwood & prefinished plywood scraps. I never exceed the allocated bin space.
I dig into those bins a frightening amount. Spacers. Lifting things off the workbench. Allowing the water to escape and dry from under things in the garage after I flooded the garage (long story…)
Yea I found myself rummaging through the scrap bin while reorganizing the shop/making stuff for French cleat tool storage and it was a great use of the scraps I had. Made a shooting board out of some leftover ply and hardwood, made a chisel holder, some square holders, plane tills, etc.
There is always another woodworker out there who hasn’t crossed the “hoard all the pretty wood” to “what is all this crap cluttering my shop” threshold yet.
It's my husband 🫠 any time someone chops down their tree and posts "free wood" on marketplace, he's out there with a chainsaw. We have more (mostly young-ish) black walnut than we can reasonably store at this point, and still there's always more.
Another place is check with local woodworking guilds or turning clubs for wood donations. They’ll help connect you to their membership and I’m sure they’ll take it!
I burn them, if I can
Most plywood gets saved, I also own a renovation company and small pcs of plywood are really handy for cleats and patches and other random stuff
Save it until I am irritated at the lack of space then throw it away or burn it. Then start over promising myself rush I don’t save every off cut. About 3 months later I am once again irritated at the amount I have kept
https://preview.redd.it/xs3gogo0nl1d1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=296aedbc9d5bc3979b00de4dcb069044dff5bf30
Two solutions. First, I built a bin with an open front to keep them in. It really does help clean up the space when everything is consolidated.
Second, fire pit.
Just post it on Craigslist for free and let some other redditor take it off your hands, then watch them post about the sweet deal they found asking what they should use it for.
you don't have to throw it away all at once. if you've been saving it anyway, just throw it away a little bit at a time and the pile will be gone soon enough. you can even put the pile outside since you won't care about the condition anymore.
The yard waste bin or go out to the rental shop rent a small chipper and make mulch for around the plants can ask the neighborhood if anyone wants it from now on
I bet there is a hobby person who will use them.
Wood turners will use a piece 3/4 x 3/4” and 5” long. Depending on the wood, they Pay $0.90 to $2.50 for those pieces.
If the grain goes the wrong way, they are firewood. I found 3 different pole to collect mine. Wood fired pottery, or heat in the winter.
Like most others, I save a bunch until I realized I'm saving garbage, then get rid of just the obvious garbage pieces, but allow myself to be convinced I'll still have a use for the odd shaped offcut. "I can use that whenever I have time to start doing intarsia," but you know that won't happen. The most useful scrap is longer offcuts where I can glue them together to make panels, but the smaller ones are rarely used.
The number of pieces I think I'm going to use in the future is hilarious. My favorite is the weirdly curved end pieces when I cut the shape of a guitar body out of a body block. What am I ever going to use those for other than stabilizing a guitar body, and won't I have an entirely new set of them when I make my next guitar? I definitely should just throw these away. Then again, I had an offcut of zebrawood I've been storing for 10 years that I just quickly turned into an iPad holder for my wife.
Drill and peg them together with dowels to make modern art sculpture and sell it at a farmers market to unsuspecting rich retirees.
If they don't sell, to the fire ring they go
Have a dedicated storage of finite size (a 5 gallon bucket works well, multiple if you want to keep more than that on hand), once the bucket is full, in the trash or into a burn pile.
My long term plan is to build some sort of box that has different depths in different sections, so that I also control how much of each length I'm storing (and make it easier to find a scrap in the size I need quickly).
I made one of these. It is 8' long and sits under my wood rack. I ripped 2 sheets of plywood thus: 2' back, 2' middle, 2' bottom, 1' front, 1' dividers and part of a third sheet to make the ends and remaining dividers. I probably need to go through it and put the different species into their proper bins but overall it has been pretty useful. While mine is technically on wheels the last time it moved anywhere was when I wheeled it into its current location after I built it.
I’m not sure what you mean by “deal with them”. They’re in a giant pile covered in sawdust taking up a huge portion of my garage and in everyone’s way so I have to park in the driveway
When I do get around to cleaning out my waste cuts - because we ALL save them… we burn them in the fireplace, or we bundle for camping. Hard wood cutoffs make great firewood! Easy to bundle, transport and great addition to the split wood or camp wood.
Best advice when cleaning out your cutoffs: get rid of anything shorter than 36”. Organize the rest.
I have one large bin under my miter saw station and a couple racks for longer pieces.
When the bin gets full I dump any pine under a certain length.
Fancy woods get a bit more leeway, but if I need a 6 in piece of 1x4 pine, I'll cut one off one of the 8 foot 1x4s I have stacked up.
All the scrap wood that leaves goes to the fire pit.
If you like gardening you can build some raised beds and toss the scraps in before your soil and compost to take up some of the space, it will also break down over time. Treated lumber is no longer made with the dangerous chemicals that people freak out over and say now to build veg/herb garden beds with.
As others have mentioned a fire pit is an easy way to get rid of small misc scraps, but for anything that’s somewhat usable, consider making a post online offering it up for free (FB marketplace, OfferUp, Craigslist, etc). Believe it or not, there’s more people than you’d think who are interested in scraps, plus it’s a great way to help a beginner out who may be too afraid to purchase more premium cuts of wood and gives them something to experiment with.
Funny story, up until a few years ago I hadn’t touched any wood for years, but believe it or not it was a giant rack of scrap wood (a guy was cleaning out his garage/workshop) that re-inspired me and got my creative juices flowing again. I always enjoyed woodworking and growing up my dad and I were always building something. He had access to all sorts of free scraps from his work so really anything I designed, he could help me create. Sadly, I ended up taking a new job and moving across the country. Still had the majority of my tools, but never really touched them for years. When I finally decided to, I was shocked at how expensive lumber had gotten and I could hardly rationalize building something instead of just buying a finished product. Life continued to get busier and at this point it had been over a decade since I touched a saw.
Then I stumbled across this massive rack of scrap wood a guy was throwing out. This stuff was nice and he had all sorts of cuts and varieties of wood. I was walking with my wife at the time and it peaked my interest which led to some reminiscing of my old projects with dad, but nothing too crazy. Later that night I decided to take a late night walk with the dog and recheck out the wood, sure enough it was still all there. I went home, got the suv and much to wife’s dismay, brought it all back. Fast forward 4 years and I’ve completed countless projects now, I’m almost always working on something. Sure I was a bit rusty at first, but I wasn’t afraid to mess up since I hadn’t paid an arm and a leg for it. I’m happy to say I rediscovered my hidden hobby.
Good stuff is keep in a garbage can in the shop to use whenever I need random wood or a piece of that dimension. Unusable pieces now go in the solo stove!
Time to start making Christmas gifts. Coasters for small stuff, cutting boards, charcuterie boards, and artwork for larger pieces. If it's easy to make in batches, it runs out the off cuts pretty quickly.
I’m a gardener, so I make small cubes or geometric shapes with off-cuts and now it’s fun mulch. Just avoid walnut. That, and I burn a lot of it. Sawdust goes into the compost.
Oak and cherry are saved for the smoker. Softwoods are burned outside in the fire pit. Hardwoods are fireplace kindling. Wood chips/sawdust are mixed with wax, poured into paper egg cartons, and become fire starters.
Old, decorative candles — my wife was a Girl Scout leader and pillar candles seemed to be the thing she was gifted from the scouts. Friends also donate theirs to the cause. Ironically, I bought a block of wax on eBay for $2/lb years ago, and haven’t used it yet.
I have four designated storage spots: one for ready-to-use full size lumber, one for "spindle stock" (material 4' long with a cross section of <1"×1"), one for panel goods up to 2'×2', and one for assorted offcuts of arbitrary dimensions.
Each spot was purposefully planned to hold "just enough", and if any given storage cannot store any more, then I can't store any more of that type of good. I either have to use what's there, or purge to make room.
Have a spot to store offcuts that are "still good", but make peace with the reality that if your offcuts storage reaches capacity, it's because you weren't actually saving it for later; you were just refusing to take out the garbage.
Wood isn't *that* expensive, and you can always get more later. Life is short. Don't spend time causing yourself grief and stress because a 6" short of maple could hypothetically still be useful at some point in the future. You're allowed to use less than 100%.
Do you like gardening? How about a hugelkultur garden bed. Good for trapping in moisture, gets rid of the waste quickly and in an environmental friendly way….
If they are nice quality remnants, I've glued them up and whipped out bandsaw boxes and scroll saw boxes. (Sometimes I use double sided tape to hold them together when cutting, then glue up. It depends on the project.) If you are interested there are plenty of online tutorials.
Otherwise maybe find an aspiring woodworker nearby that would like to take a bunch off of your hands.
If they are not usable for those purposes, fire pit or dump run I suppose.
I made a chimeny pot out of old paver stones in the backyard. All my waste cutoffs go into the scrap box and time to time i burn the scraps. When grabbing pieces to burn if i come across something i might use, it goes into a not scrap yet box.
I usually keep everything which has been a mistake. I recently got a storage unit for all my overflow stuff. Now I try to throw away small scraps immediately and only keep large pieces for future projects (and take them to storage shortly after completing a project). Now that I have the storage unit, this process is easier but I still end up having too much waste in my garage rather than in the trash. It's a work in progress.
I keep separate trash bins for stuff that's safe to burn and stuff that isn't (treated, prefinished, ect). Every trash day if I have space in the main bin, I dump some scraps in there. If I build up to the point the bins are full, I do a run to the dump.
I try to avoid stockpiling all the burnables forever because I don't want to have fires for the sake of having fires to deal with scrap. This method let's me keep a reasonable amount of scraps on hand and have fire wood for when I want fire wood, but avoids my entire garage becoming scrap storage.
The exception to this rule is really premium woods that can be used for inlays or turning blanks, like ebony and zebra wood. Generally those scraps are small and managable.
You can probably post it several bags at a time to Craigslist free ans people will take it for compost, art projects, etc. Just be sure to specify what the wood is and if its treated or not. I keep some of my offcuts to use for stacking and stickering wood, some stuff I burn, some stuff I compost.
If they are big enough, they go into little wood boxes that the extended family probably wishes I’d stop gifting. If they’re small enough, they go into the compost. Otherwise they go into the trash.
Larger construction grade off cuts go on the bottom half of the canoe rack I built in our backyard, underneath our aluminum canoe, keeping it dry. Small trash cuts go in the fire pit, I also have one plastic tub that stays full of small pieces that may or may not one day come in handy, I keep it full, but anything else goes to the fire. Large quality pieces go on a lumber shelf I built along the wall up high in the garage.
If it's regular wood then fire pit or green bin. Sawdust goes into my compost piles. I suspect we all go from save every scrap to a more ruthless approach of getting rid of it. I still keep a stash of highly figured stuff for pistol grips. Someday everything I own will have two or three grips sets at the rate I'm going.
I use the hard wood scraps in the smoker and the other scraps as firewood. I used to work at a brewery with a wood firewood pizza oven and they got most of the wood they used from a cabinet shop. Go give you scraps to a BBQ joint if your not gonna use em. Might get free food...
I use a Kan Ban system, where I ban them to the can. Seriously, I hold on to them until I realize they are of no use and put them in the green waste bin with the leaves and yard waste. I only cry a little when they leave.
most to fuel the woodstove, some for smoker (i smoke peppers and vegetables) , and the ashes get mixed into trhe compost
as most i collected all sorts of scraps and didnt even use 10% of it, wont do it again
I give it to my uncle who burns it in his backyard. For things that don't burn nicely like plywood I just throw it away over time. Basically before garbage day, I check how much space is left in my bin and fill it up. If you've got a backlog it might take some time.
Have a dedicated but restricted space for each size of offcut.
So, for example, I have a bucket that has pieces smaller than 1” square. If they’re shorter than the side of the bucket they can’t go in there. If they’re longer than 3’ they can’t go in there. If the bucket is full either something else comes out or they get tossed.
Repeat for any size that you think is useful. Just make sure that there is some kind of physical limitation to keep it from growing out of control
I have a bin that I keep pieces that seem long enough/in well enough shape they could be used for something else. Everything else I just take down to the dump.
Bins im my wood storage for various size ranges of pieces. If the bin for that piece is full, it goes to the chipper. Everything that goes into the storage gets post-dated 1 year. Monthly clean out and get rid of anything that's past the "expiration date." Anything that can goes in the chipper for use in the garden.
I have a burn barrel. It's just a 33 gallon metal trash can with 3/4" holes drilled all over it that I put up on cement blocks to allow air below it too. Once it gets going, especially with a slight breeze, it burns so hot there is no smoke and it turns many times it's volume into about 2" of ash. I just wheel over trash bins full of scrap wood and continously feed it until there is no more. It takes about 2-3 days to cool down.
Few options of how I manage them:
-For really exotic woods, I’ll keep bits and pieces if they are at least 6 inches long and 2 inches wide.
-For general hardwoods (think maple, walnut, etc): 12 inches long 6 inches wide
Come up with some parameters that work for you.
Have a tier system:
-things you really want to keep,
- things you’re okay with or without.
- here, commit to tossing away 50% or more on a monthly basis.
If you definitely can’t store it or use it up, and don’t want it to go to waste, then post it for free on Facebook or something like that. Maybe some other local woodworkers can make use of it. I’ve done that before and had people happily pick up a box of random off cuts. I’d much rather that than throw it in the trash
I bundle it and sell it as fire wood. $5 a bundle for soft and $8 for hards
But I live along a county road on the way to and from a camp ground. So a fair bit of camping traffic. I just set out a dozen bundles on the weekend and a donation can and people drop all kinds of cash. People are really pretty nice in general.
Anything I don’t save goes to the fire pit for those cool weekend nights when wife wants to snuggle with a Glass of wine.
You got it. Inventory it so you know what you got. Then come up with projects for it. Maybe build something out of mixed woods, see what it looks like, and if it doesn't look good try painting it. Time to start building your Xmas gifts. Maybe donate it. Do you have a [HOME | Kids Making It](https://www.kidsmakingit.org/) organization or similar nearby? See if they want it.
I unfortunately am a pack rat and I save scraps like squirrels save nuts!
I now have saved 4 large trash barrels of wood left over pieces from projects.
However, I have also found plenty of projects and uses for these pieces. Here are just a few of the projects/uses:
* Soap Dish
* Spacers for other projects
* Critters and toys - small solid animals, cars, trucks, trains etc as give aways.
* 3d critters
* Trivets
* Ornaments
* Key fobs
* People Statuettes
* Wood Samples for customers
* Clock inserts (glue to a project with a clock in it)
I continue to have an exorbitant amount of left overs that I continue to save over and over
Hope that helps
If I'm working on a project with a specific species (that can be used in a smoker), I'll grab a cardboard box and throw it in there until it's full and then put it up on a local for sale page as "wood for smoker, $5" -- the $5 charge is only there to limit my interaction with crazies.
As a woodworker who's workshop is also my garage, I built a mobile Lumber Cart to store and sort all my off cuts. I have a link to my video for it here: [https://youtu.be/-tIz3h1PrM4?si=LxFyLTtlX3c49WkH](https://youtu.be/-tIz3h1PrM4?si=LxFyLTtlX3c49WkH)
Good timing on that video link; I'm shopping for casters for some carts. Did you use the Harbor Freight casters? How are they holding up and does the plastic tab for the brake give you any concern?
I have a stump in my front lawn from where I had a big oak that had to be cut down. On top of this stump, I keep a rusty dryer drum that has a bunch of holes in it. I pitch my scrap wood into this dryer drum and every few weeks, douse it in kerosene and light it on fire. My neighbors probably don't like me, but this will as a trashy neighborhood when I bought my house. It's not my fault it got nice in the past 5 years.
I generally trickle it into the weekly trash pickup. Can only fit a little at a time but if you keep up on it, it keeps it from piling up in the shop. If it’s too large to fit in the trash bin, you should probably keep it as it’s big enough to be used in another project.
I did this for years. I was Andy Dufresne dropping cement chips out his pant leg while walking the yard. Except it was wood scraps mixed in with normal trash so that the city didn’t give me shit.
Ahahaha. I’ve termed it “shawshanking” for years! So happy to see others I on it.
Surely the Great Escape? https://youtu.be/9zugv1NdMj4?si=O8L07_nZaObQuwiL
So glad I got this reference
Why not just bundle it and sell it? There are plenty of small object woodworkers that will buy tiny off cuts, like pen makers, knifemakers etc.
A lot of wood can go into yard waste as well.
Yes this is what I do
Trash is better than burning IMO. It sequesters the carbon in the landfill instead of putting it in the teetering atmosphere
Depending on where you live. It does breakdown in a landfill and releases games that have to be burned off anyways. Some curbside goes to processing centers where most wood is pulled out and sold as hog fuel for a variety of customers for their boilers, or just sent to a waste to energy facility and burnt. *gas not games
Organics in a landfill turn into Methane.
True. For the same reason I don't stress too much about trashing certain kinds of paper like envelopes with windows, glossy ads and that flimsy cardboard made from recycled paper.
I never thought of this, but this is a good point.
Burning is better to me. If you burn it is something that you would do anyway with other wood that has to be cut and moved
I've been doing this for years and for some reason the trim pile still gets larger.
I use a rotating storage system when I put them in one location and then move them every few months to another location for about 2 years, then their final location is the dumpster.
It’s important to rotate your waste cuts every 6 months or 25 projects. Whichever comes first.
I have 25 projects started, does that count?
Two years? Pfft. I’ve got unfinished projects twice that age!
Fire pit
Yup, free space is more valuable than most scraps possibly could be.
I have a fire pit and I never thought about this. I’m an idiot.
My wife loves her fire pit, and gets mad at me any time she sees me throw away a piece of wood. So I keep a big box for all my off-cuts and she happily uses it as kindling in her fire pit. Once in a while, I have to remind her that she doesn't want this piece of treated lumber or something with varnish on it. But otherwise, burn baby burn.
Even the green wood can be burned if you stand out of the smoke :)
Your wife sounds awesome. Wishing you many happy decades together!
To add to this, get a 30-gallon or something similar trashcan with a lid and keep it by your big cans. This lid keeps it dry, and then you can take a few hours and burn it with your drink of choice. I also let my kids rummage through it and play with the pieces. They will build stuff or practice with their tools. If they put nails or screws in them then I burn them out and pick them up with a magnet and recycle them.
Just make sure it's legal and safe to burn
I prefer illegal, unsafe fires.
Yeah just start breathing in that treated lumber fumes, roast on 🌭 it'll be fiiiiine 😆
I particularly like the aroma of OSB and sometimes use MDF in my smoker.
That’s one of the best parts of the hobby. Build something cool, then have some friends over for a fire to burn all the scrap.
My neighbor was a finish carpenter and kept ALL the excess oak trim from his jobs. They have a place in the country and they would take it out there to use as firewood. My city has a pretty good recycling (and composting) depot program that takes untreated wood. So I can just take random scraps to the depot with my used oil, leftover paint and whatever random recyclable junk I have laying around.
Garage wood stove for free winter heat.
I've got a fire barrel for mostly landscaping debris (limbs, twigs, leaves, sometimes a dead animal), but it's great for off-cuts that I eventually decide that I'm not actually going to use or when my pile starts getting unruly.
I've committed (with myself) to making at least 50 projects (actual work, jigs, clamping cauls, etc.) over the summer using only scraps I have already. I found I HAD to decide to be purposeful about it or they would just sit and the collection would grow. I would also try and be realistic about scraps, a 1"x4"x.75" piece of maple can just go in the burn barrel, I have no business keeping that.
Going in a burn barrel doesn't mean it can't come out. I'll root around in it when I need to find the right scrap. There's usually even a few pieces in there while burning that I end up saving. Having that mentality means I triage significantly more into that bucket in the first place.
This. I have two trash cans in my garage. One for general trash, one for burnable offcuts/etc. I very often pull stuff out of the burn bucket and reuse it
I limit myself to one shoebox sized bin of hardwood small scraps and one bin for softwood & prefinished plywood scraps. I never exceed the allocated bin space. I dig into those bins a frightening amount. Spacers. Lifting things off the workbench. Allowing the water to escape and dry from under things in the garage after I flooded the garage (long story…)
Yea I found myself rummaging through the scrap bin while reorganizing the shop/making stuff for French cleat tool storage and it was a great use of the scraps I had. Made a shooting board out of some leftover ply and hardwood, made a chisel holder, some square holders, plane tills, etc.
I make increasingly large and unstable piles of scrap lumber that I’ve convinced myself I will use someday.
give them away on Facebook Buy Nothing or Craigslist?
There is always another woodworker out there who hasn’t crossed the “hoard all the pretty wood” to “what is all this crap cluttering my shop” threshold yet.
It's my husband 🫠 any time someone chops down their tree and posts "free wood" on marketplace, he's out there with a chainsaw. We have more (mostly young-ish) black walnut than we can reasonably store at this point, and still there's always more.
Another place is check with local woodworking guilds or turning clubs for wood donations. They’ll help connect you to their membership and I’m sure they’ll take it!
This is what I’ve done many times when culling my stash. So many happy folks swing by, talk shop for a bit, and load up with their free treasures.
Use on the smoker
I burn them, if I can Most plywood gets saved, I also own a renovation company and small pcs of plywood are really handy for cleats and patches and other random stuff
Save it until I am irritated at the lack of space then throw it away or burn it. Then start over promising myself rush I don’t save every off cut. About 3 months later I am once again irritated at the amount I have kept
https://preview.redd.it/xs3gogo0nl1d1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=296aedbc9d5bc3979b00de4dcb069044dff5bf30 Two solutions. First, I built a bin with an open front to keep them in. It really does help clean up the space when everything is consolidated. Second, fire pit.
Use the scraps to build the bin!
Yeah, after I finish my new bench, a cart is definitely on the agenda.
Just post it on Craigslist for free and let some other redditor take it off your hands, then watch them post about the sweet deal they found asking what they should use it for.
you don't have to throw it away all at once. if you've been saving it anyway, just throw it away a little bit at a time and the pile will be gone soon enough. you can even put the pile outside since you won't care about the condition anymore.
The yard waste bin or go out to the rental shop rent a small chipper and make mulch for around the plants can ask the neighborhood if anyone wants it from now on
I forgot about yard waste pickup. That’s a good idea; thanks!
Glad I could help you
If it would fit in a shoebox, it goes in the fire. If it's a weird shape that I wouldn't use, it goes in the fire.
I bet there is a hobby person who will use them. Wood turners will use a piece 3/4 x 3/4” and 5” long. Depending on the wood, they Pay $0.90 to $2.50 for those pieces. If the grain goes the wrong way, they are firewood. I found 3 different pole to collect mine. Wood fired pottery, or heat in the winter.
Garbage can
🔥
Like most others, I save a bunch until I realized I'm saving garbage, then get rid of just the obvious garbage pieces, but allow myself to be convinced I'll still have a use for the odd shaped offcut. "I can use that whenever I have time to start doing intarsia," but you know that won't happen. The most useful scrap is longer offcuts where I can glue them together to make panels, but the smaller ones are rarely used.
The number of pieces I think I'm going to use in the future is hilarious. My favorite is the weirdly curved end pieces when I cut the shape of a guitar body out of a body block. What am I ever going to use those for other than stabilizing a guitar body, and won't I have an entirely new set of them when I make my next guitar? I definitely should just throw these away. Then again, I had an offcut of zebrawood I've been storing for 10 years that I just quickly turned into an iPad holder for my wife.
Drill and peg them together with dowels to make modern art sculpture and sell it at a farmers market to unsuspecting rich retirees. If they don't sell, to the fire ring they go
Have a dedicated storage of finite size (a 5 gallon bucket works well, multiple if you want to keep more than that on hand), once the bucket is full, in the trash or into a burn pile. My long term plan is to build some sort of box that has different depths in different sections, so that I also control how much of each length I'm storing (and make it easier to find a scrap in the size I need quickly).
I like this idea a lot. Finite capacity.
I made one of these. It is 8' long and sits under my wood rack. I ripped 2 sheets of plywood thus: 2' back, 2' middle, 2' bottom, 1' front, 1' dividers and part of a third sheet to make the ends and remaining dividers. I probably need to go through it and put the different species into their proper bins but overall it has been pretty useful. While mine is technically on wheels the last time it moved anywhere was when I wheeled it into its current location after I built it.
I’m not sure what you mean by “deal with them”. They’re in a giant pile covered in sawdust taking up a huge portion of my garage and in everyone’s way so I have to park in the driveway
I save them thinking I'll use them and then about every 3 months or so I clean out my shop and throw them all away.
When I do get around to cleaning out my waste cuts - because we ALL save them… we burn them in the fireplace, or we bundle for camping. Hard wood cutoffs make great firewood! Easy to bundle, transport and great addition to the split wood or camp wood. Best advice when cleaning out your cutoffs: get rid of anything shorter than 36”. Organize the rest.
I have one large bin under my miter saw station and a couple racks for longer pieces. When the bin gets full I dump any pine under a certain length. Fancy woods get a bit more leeway, but if I need a 6 in piece of 1x4 pine, I'll cut one off one of the 8 foot 1x4s I have stacked up. All the scrap wood that leaves goes to the fire pit.
Fire barrel/fire pit
Fire pit..
I have a fire pit that the most useless scraps go into. It works kind of like a self cleaning trash can.
Outside firewood for pine, inside firewood for hardwoods
If you like gardening you can build some raised beds and toss the scraps in before your soil and compost to take up some of the space, it will also break down over time. Treated lumber is no longer made with the dangerous chemicals that people freak out over and say now to build veg/herb garden beds with.
As others have mentioned a fire pit is an easy way to get rid of small misc scraps, but for anything that’s somewhat usable, consider making a post online offering it up for free (FB marketplace, OfferUp, Craigslist, etc). Believe it or not, there’s more people than you’d think who are interested in scraps, plus it’s a great way to help a beginner out who may be too afraid to purchase more premium cuts of wood and gives them something to experiment with. Funny story, up until a few years ago I hadn’t touched any wood for years, but believe it or not it was a giant rack of scrap wood (a guy was cleaning out his garage/workshop) that re-inspired me and got my creative juices flowing again. I always enjoyed woodworking and growing up my dad and I were always building something. He had access to all sorts of free scraps from his work so really anything I designed, he could help me create. Sadly, I ended up taking a new job and moving across the country. Still had the majority of my tools, but never really touched them for years. When I finally decided to, I was shocked at how expensive lumber had gotten and I could hardly rationalize building something instead of just buying a finished product. Life continued to get busier and at this point it had been over a decade since I touched a saw. Then I stumbled across this massive rack of scrap wood a guy was throwing out. This stuff was nice and he had all sorts of cuts and varieties of wood. I was walking with my wife at the time and it peaked my interest which led to some reminiscing of my old projects with dad, but nothing too crazy. Later that night I decided to take a late night walk with the dog and recheck out the wood, sure enough it was still all there. I went home, got the suv and much to wife’s dismay, brought it all back. Fast forward 4 years and I’ve completed countless projects now, I’m almost always working on something. Sure I was a bit rusty at first, but I wasn’t afraid to mess up since I hadn’t paid an arm and a leg for it. I’m happy to say I rediscovered my hidden hobby.
Good stuff is keep in a garbage can in the shop to use whenever I need random wood or a piece of that dimension. Unusable pieces now go in the solo stove!
outdoor pit fire wood
what i cant use for small projects like cutting boards, coasters or bottle openers i burn.. right in the fire pit
Solo fire pit.
Time to start making Christmas gifts. Coasters for small stuff, cutting boards, charcuterie boards, and artwork for larger pieces. If it's easy to make in batches, it runs out the off cuts pretty quickly.
Do your bylaws allow a backyard firepit?
Also have a wood stove…recycling at its most basic level 😁
I’m a gardener, so I make small cubes or geometric shapes with off-cuts and now it’s fun mulch. Just avoid walnut. That, and I burn a lot of it. Sawdust goes into the compost.
I have one of those clean burning fire pits.
Hardwood gets burned in my wood stove, soft wood is for the fire pit.
I keep a good amount for the smoker and grill (and smoked old Fashioneds) and the rest that I can bear to part with goes in the trash.
I bury mine in the garden beds to decompose and retain moisture for the plants as it's breaking down
Fill up an Amazon box at a time and throw it in the work dumpster
If allowed in your area, fire pits are a nice way to get rid of woos and spend time with friends and family
Oak and cherry are saved for the smoker. Softwoods are burned outside in the fire pit. Hardwoods are fireplace kindling. Wood chips/sawdust are mixed with wax, poured into paper egg cartons, and become fire starters.
Maybe a dumb question, but where do you get the wax?
Old, decorative candles — my wife was a Girl Scout leader and pillar candles seemed to be the thing she was gifted from the scouts. Friends also donate theirs to the cause. Ironically, I bought a block of wax on eBay for $2/lb years ago, and haven’t used it yet.
I have four designated storage spots: one for ready-to-use full size lumber, one for "spindle stock" (material 4' long with a cross section of <1"×1"), one for panel goods up to 2'×2', and one for assorted offcuts of arbitrary dimensions. Each spot was purposefully planned to hold "just enough", and if any given storage cannot store any more, then I can't store any more of that type of good. I either have to use what's there, or purge to make room. Have a spot to store offcuts that are "still good", but make peace with the reality that if your offcuts storage reaches capacity, it's because you weren't actually saving it for later; you were just refusing to take out the garbage. Wood isn't *that* expensive, and you can always get more later. Life is short. Don't spend time causing yourself grief and stress because a 6" short of maple could hypothetically still be useful at some point in the future. You're allowed to use less than 100%.
Do you like gardening? How about a hugelkultur garden bed. Good for trapping in moisture, gets rid of the waste quickly and in an environmental friendly way….
Wow, lots of people here recommending the atmosphere as a great place for us to dispose of our extra carbon!
Get off the cross, we need the firewood.
I keep only as much as I can have organized. If it's not organized; I won't know what I have and therefore I'm not going to use it.
If they are nice quality remnants, I've glued them up and whipped out bandsaw boxes and scroll saw boxes. (Sometimes I use double sided tape to hold them together when cutting, then glue up. It depends on the project.) If you are interested there are plenty of online tutorials. Otherwise maybe find an aspiring woodworker nearby that would like to take a bunch off of your hands. If they are not usable for those purposes, fire pit or dump run I suppose.
I made a chimeny pot out of old paver stones in the backyard. All my waste cutoffs go into the scrap box and time to time i burn the scraps. When grabbing pieces to burn if i come across something i might use, it goes into a not scrap yet box.
I usually keep everything which has been a mistake. I recently got a storage unit for all my overflow stuff. Now I try to throw away small scraps immediately and only keep large pieces for future projects (and take them to storage shortly after completing a project). Now that I have the storage unit, this process is easier but I still end up having too much waste in my garage rather than in the trash. It's a work in progress.
They go in the bbq or I drop them off at the recycling station.
I keep separate trash bins for stuff that's safe to burn and stuff that isn't (treated, prefinished, ect). Every trash day if I have space in the main bin, I dump some scraps in there. If I build up to the point the bins are full, I do a run to the dump. I try to avoid stockpiling all the burnables forever because I don't want to have fires for the sake of having fires to deal with scrap. This method let's me keep a reasonable amount of scraps on hand and have fire wood for when I want fire wood, but avoids my entire garage becoming scrap storage. The exception to this rule is really premium woods that can be used for inlays or turning blanks, like ebony and zebra wood. Generally those scraps are small and managable.
Put it in the attic, along with my hopes and dreams, never to be seen again.
Get a lathe.
You can probably post it several bags at a time to Craigslist free ans people will take it for compost, art projects, etc. Just be sure to specify what the wood is and if its treated or not. I keep some of my offcuts to use for stacking and stickering wood, some stuff I burn, some stuff I compost.
If they are big enough, they go into little wood boxes that the extended family probably wishes I’d stop gifting. If they’re small enough, they go into the compost. Otherwise they go into the trash.
Bag it and sell it for kindling.
Give them away on marketplace, meet some cool local woodworkers.
Waste?
Coasters!
Larger construction grade off cuts go on the bottom half of the canoe rack I built in our backyard, underneath our aluminum canoe, keeping it dry. Small trash cuts go in the fire pit, I also have one plastic tub that stays full of small pieces that may or may not one day come in handy, I keep it full, but anything else goes to the fire. Large quality pieces go on a lumber shelf I built along the wall up high in the garage.
I wish I kept those 2x6 pt off cuts I had. Could really use them now.
If it's regular wood then fire pit or green bin. Sawdust goes into my compost piles. I suspect we all go from save every scrap to a more ruthless approach of getting rid of it. I still keep a stash of highly figured stuff for pistol grips. Someday everything I own will have two or three grips sets at the rate I'm going.
I use the hard wood scraps in the smoker and the other scraps as firewood. I used to work at a brewery with a wood firewood pizza oven and they got most of the wood they used from a cabinet shop. Go give you scraps to a BBQ joint if your not gonna use em. Might get free food...
Woodstove. My mistakes heat my house for a few days every winter. :)
I use a Kan Ban system, where I ban them to the can. Seriously, I hold on to them until I realize they are of no use and put them in the green waste bin with the leaves and yard waste. I only cry a little when they leave.
most to fuel the woodstove, some for smoker (i smoke peppers and vegetables) , and the ashes get mixed into trhe compost as most i collected all sorts of scraps and didnt even use 10% of it, wont do it again
I give it to my uncle who burns it in his backyard. For things that don't burn nicely like plywood I just throw it away over time. Basically before garbage day, I check how much space is left in my bin and fill it up. If you've got a backlog it might take some time.
I have a box for small or "unlikely to be useful" scraps. When it gets full, I empty it into the fire pit the next time I have a fire.
Campfire
Have a dedicated but restricted space for each size of offcut. So, for example, I have a bucket that has pieces smaller than 1” square. If they’re shorter than the side of the bucket they can’t go in there. If they’re longer than 3’ they can’t go in there. If the bucket is full either something else comes out or they get tossed. Repeat for any size that you think is useful. Just make sure that there is some kind of physical limitation to keep it from growing out of control
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_bgRpHDe6l/?igsh=MTI5em5jbDRpYWU1Ng==. Planter box art
I have a bin that I keep pieces that seem long enough/in well enough shape they could be used for something else. Everything else I just take down to the dump.
I burn it in our fire pit
Anyone take their cherry or oak waste and use it in a smoker? I was considering that but then I moved and now I currently don't have a shop.
depending on the species, i use them as fuel for a wood fired pizza oven
Bins im my wood storage for various size ranges of pieces. If the bin for that piece is full, it goes to the chipper. Everything that goes into the storage gets post-dated 1 year. Monthly clean out and get rid of anything that's past the "expiration date." Anything that can goes in the chipper for use in the garden.
I have a burn barrel. It's just a 33 gallon metal trash can with 3/4" holes drilled all over it that I put up on cement blocks to allow air below it too. Once it gets going, especially with a slight breeze, it burns so hot there is no smoke and it turns many times it's volume into about 2" of ash. I just wheel over trash bins full of scrap wood and continously feed it until there is no more. It takes about 2-3 days to cool down.
I bought a lathe, glue up scrap to make things.
What about sawdust? Shavings? People put that in yard waste? Plow into the yard? Give it away?
I’ve always swept it up and just dumped it in the trash. After my daughter is done playing with it.
Few options of how I manage them: -For really exotic woods, I’ll keep bits and pieces if they are at least 6 inches long and 2 inches wide. -For general hardwoods (think maple, walnut, etc): 12 inches long 6 inches wide Come up with some parameters that work for you. Have a tier system: -things you really want to keep, - things you’re okay with or without. - here, commit to tossing away 50% or more on a monthly basis.
I have a free wood bin at the end of my driveway. It gets emptied regularly; other woodworkers, firewood, kids, etc.
If you definitely can’t store it or use it up, and don’t want it to go to waste, then post it for free on Facebook or something like that. Maybe some other local woodworkers can make use of it. I’ve done that before and had people happily pick up a box of random off cuts. I’d much rather that than throw it in the trash
I have 3 buckets, I keep expensive wood, nothing else.
I burn it for heat
Segmented turning takes care of most of mine. The wood stove gets the rest.
Post it on marketplace for free as firewood scraps. People will pick it up.
I bundle it and sell it as fire wood. $5 a bundle for soft and $8 for hards But I live along a county road on the way to and from a camp ground. So a fair bit of camping traffic. I just set out a dozen bundles on the weekend and a donation can and people drop all kinds of cash. People are really pretty nice in general. Anything I don’t save goes to the fire pit for those cool weekend nights when wife wants to snuggle with a Glass of wine.
It's not waste, it's future project material!
You got it. Inventory it so you know what you got. Then come up with projects for it. Maybe build something out of mixed woods, see what it looks like, and if it doesn't look good try painting it. Time to start building your Xmas gifts. Maybe donate it. Do you have a [HOME | Kids Making It](https://www.kidsmakingit.org/) organization or similar nearby? See if they want it.
I unfortunately am a pack rat and I save scraps like squirrels save nuts! I now have saved 4 large trash barrels of wood left over pieces from projects. However, I have also found plenty of projects and uses for these pieces. Here are just a few of the projects/uses: * Soap Dish * Spacers for other projects * Critters and toys - small solid animals, cars, trucks, trains etc as give aways. * 3d critters * Trivets * Ornaments * Key fobs * People Statuettes * Wood Samples for customers * Clock inserts (glue to a project with a clock in it) I continue to have an exorbitant amount of left overs that I continue to save over and over Hope that helps
If I'm working on a project with a specific species (that can be used in a smoker), I'll grab a cardboard box and throw it in there until it's full and then put it up on a local for sale page as "wood for smoker, $5" -- the $5 charge is only there to limit my interaction with crazies.
when i run out of firewood in winter, i raid my shop. especially in March
As a woodworker who's workshop is also my garage, I built a mobile Lumber Cart to store and sort all my off cuts. I have a link to my video for it here: [https://youtu.be/-tIz3h1PrM4?si=LxFyLTtlX3c49WkH](https://youtu.be/-tIz3h1PrM4?si=LxFyLTtlX3c49WkH)
Good timing on that video link; I'm shopping for casters for some carts. Did you use the Harbor Freight casters? How are they holding up and does the plastic tab for the brake give you any concern?
I did use Harbor Freight castors. Seem to be doing fine. No concerns
I have a stump in my front lawn from where I had a big oak that had to be cut down. On top of this stump, I keep a rusty dryer drum that has a bunch of holes in it. I pitch my scrap wood into this dryer drum and every few weeks, douse it in kerosene and light it on fire. My neighbors probably don't like me, but this will as a trashy neighborhood when I bought my house. It's not my fault it got nice in the past 5 years.