Just ran the numbers on wood waste in my shop last month and I'm kinda sick about it

I kept all the scraps and offcuts from a single kitchen cabinet job for 3 weeks and weighed them. 47 pounds of wood went into the trash or the burn pile. That's like throwing away $30 in material every job, how do you guys deal with small pieces that are too short for anything?

2 comments

2 Comments

luna_wells5716d ago

Oh man, I feel that pain in my wallet. I saw this one guy online who started a scrap bin system sorted by size and uses them for shop fixtures, jigs, and small project giveaways. It won't save you the full $30 but at least you get something useful out of it instead of just watching it burn.

patricia38516d ago

yesss i started doing this last year and it honestly helped a ton. i sort my smaller scraps into those cheap plastic shoe boxes from walmart and label them by size. like anything under 6 inches goes in one box, 6-12 in another, etc. then when i need a quick jig or a spacer i just grab from there instead of cutting into a new sheet. also gave some of the nicer offcuts to my neighbor who does epoxy river tables and he loves em for test pours. not gonna lie i still waste some wood but way less than before and it makes me feel less guilty about the whole thing.