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I just wanted to post a couple of things I do with the scraps I end up with.

When I build my small arcade boxes (I sell these to support my tool hobby/obsession), I always end up with small cutoffs. A lot of guys would throw these in the wood stove; they're usually small (2 1/4" x ~7"). Instead of throwing them out I make small cauls for gluing up my boxes. I have the bucket about half full.

And from ripping boards to width, I usually end up with long offcuts. I rip these to 1/8" strips and then cut to 8" lengths for finish stirrers. They really come in handy.

Thanks for looking!

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Neat! Do you have any pics of the arcade boxes? I'm not even sure I know what an arcade box is! Is that like a pacman gaming console?
 

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Sort of! These are built for current consoles. I just build the cases, the user supplies and installs the parts.
Here's a walnut case I made:




I use loose tenons to put them together:


I enjoy building them and they help support my woodwokring hobby/obsession, so I'm happy! :)

I'm waiting to get mine done so I can post it as a project.
 

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Great use of scrap. I keep little cut-offs like that around for a variety of things. One of the main reasons is so my kids can have something to sand when they want to do something in the shop.
 

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Thanks. The cauls I've been doing for a while, the finish stir sticks came from me going through the freebies from the borgs too quick. I figured I make a ton of these narrow cutoffs, time to put em to use! :)
 

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Nice idea, I am always in favour of putting scrap pieces to good use.

Taff
 

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You sound like me. I don't throw Anything away!! I have been self employed in woodworking for 20 years and back in 2001 I had 100bdft of FAS grade soft maple come up missing. Come to find out employees were "Throwing out" good lumber as scrap and coming back n the middle of the night to fish my lumber from the dumpster. So I got rid of the bad apple employees and soon realized, we didn't need a dumpster anymore as some of our products have pieces as small as 3/4 X3/4X3/4. And we also actually rip long off cuts into 1/8" thick strips for installing lining in caskets. I like your ideas on using small pieces for clamping cauls.
 

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Glad you got rid of those guys! :mad:

I don't have an overabundance of wood, so I don't mind holding on to scraps. It's refreshing to find new uses for them.
 
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