Should You Keep Scrap Wood Cutoffs?
This topic is one that I think about quite often as I quite often have cut offs in my shop that I must make the tough decision - keep or throw away.
Generally speaking, anything less than about 4” wide and 16” long gets tossed into the trash. However, that varies largely. One of the variables I consider is the species of wood. For example, If the piece is Yellow Pine, I will immediately throw it away. Pine is cheap to source and I would just rather grab a new piece of material. However, if the cutoff is an exotic piece of rare wood, I may keep it.
Sometimes, however, I will keep cutoffs that are super small in size. Even though a leftover piece may only be 1” wide and 1/4” thick, It still gets saved. These pieces are used for inlays, decorative accents, and edge banding.
When deciding to keep a cutoff piece of material, I also consider it’s shape, size, and condition. For example, if I have a decent size piece of material but it is full of defects or rough surfaces, it gets trashed. I will spend more time and effort milling the material on the jointer or planer than the material is worth for me.
Contrarily, I will keep small blanks if I plan on finding a use for the cutoffs on a smaller project. One example would be if I plan to make an ink pen on the lathe or a knife that requires wood scales (handles).
As you grow in the hobby of woodworking and begin to collect more and more tools and machines, you will find yourself also collecting more and more cutoff scraps. If you weren’t a hoarder prior to becoming a woodworker, you will find yourself subconsciously hoarding everything in your shop! Not only will you save every inch of wood material, you will also find that saving random screws, bolts, and other hardware is a regular routine.
No piece of wood is too small - there are many uses for small pieces of leftover material:
Dowels
Knife Scales
Game Call Blanks
Ink Pen Blanks
Hole Plugs
Inlays
Accents
Edge Banding
Corner Splines
Knobs
In conclusion, If you have the space in your shop to save and collect small pieces that are cutoffs from other projects, I recommend saving them. You never know when you will hit a creative streak and find an excellent use for those otherwise-trash pieces of wood.
Do you have any good ideas for projects that can use cut offs, leave your ideas in the comments!