You have covered my methods Steve. Stack it, pile it and box it ;-))

 

yup same here

 

Yup, same here until it's under 6" or spendy stuff or knoty, then it goes in the wood stove.

 

Looks like some of your stock is laying on a concrete floor. If so the bottom of the pile will take on moisture. I always sticker any wood that is laying flat on concrete.

 

Steve.

Since I primarly do scrollsaw work. Small is what I do. If it's thick enought you can use the bandsaw and rip them in half then glue them up and make them a little wider then it got some stock for say. Ear rings. Key chains or other small cut outs of your liking.

Handi

 

Good point. I always get lazy after the January floods and end up plopping wood anywhere. Ug…

 

Steve… my system is remarkably like yours (great minds, eh…..)
I have a system mounted to the wall for long pieces

http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/flyfisherbob/wood%20storage/?action=view&current=dragonboatswoodstorage006.jpg

a rolling cart that is divided for pieces in 3 lengths (short ones 6" to 18". medium lengths 18" to 3', longer 3' to 6 or 7'long).

http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/flyfisherbob/wood%20storage/?action=view&current=dragonboatswoodstorage005.jpg

Then I have the bucket/box system for cut-offs.

http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/flyfisherbob/wood%20storage/?action=view&current=dragonboatswoodstorage007.jpg

After that… its to the fire ring for a nice relaxing fire to sit around & enjoy a cold adult beverage

I even have a rolling dolly with a dimiishing load of maple shorts that I got for a steal a while back, and have been using the maple like pine or fir for about anything

http://s286.photobucket.com/albums/ll101/flyfisherbob/wood%20storage/?action=view&current=dragonboatswoodstorage004.jpg

 

Greetings Steve:..... Here's my answer to your question…. works for me, and has for many years…..
Sorry about the pixs… don't know what happened, but you get the idea…..

 

Here is mine… empty and full.

 

Mine's a whole lot worse than that. I'm trying to get organized, but I'm sharing the workspace with a massive Elliptical exercise machine (combination life extension and medieval torture machine, depending on the day of the week), and the laundry room, etc. I'll post the pix I took when I can. BUT, Steve, seriously, if you have good wood below 6 inches long, I'm interested, as may be some others. A lot of what I make is that small. I've been threatening to post some projects, and I guess I'll have to do so to convince you not to burn what might be good for another. Seriously, a US Mail shipper or FEDEX box might provide you some chump change above the firewood value.

Oh, yeah- if you lay wood on the garage floor long enough termites WILL eat it. I've even seen termite trails eaten through supposedly acidic PAPER that was left on a concrete garage floor in "dry" southern California.

 

I blogged about my clean up recently and most of my scrap..

ended up here..
do not fret ….I will have more scrap soon.
I spent nearly one hour looking for a piece of timber to match a job when I was short..It costs me money to do this.. Way cheaper to cut new piece than waste time looking for something that I did not find in the end anyway…
Check out this blog for how I stack my off cuts…

 

Hi! My name is Dustin and I am a Wood Hoarder!

I must say, so far everyone responding to this thread is way more organized then me! That being said, I will answer the original questions:

Do you have a "structured" plan for saving smaill pieces?
-Thought I had a plan in the beginning…. maybe

Do you have a size limit before you will save a piece?
- No size limit. I guess it just comes down to giving in and finally letting go!

And of course, how do you save and sort all these chunks of wood?

- I have 7 industrial shelves for stock 1' thru 3' sorted mainly by species.

- I have 2 lumber racks just below the ceiling that holds figured boards 3' - 8' long.

- I have 2 corners of the garage that hold any "average" boards 4' - 10' long and sheet stock.

- The garage rafters hold hundreds of 6' - 8' long exotic Veneer sheets

- I have 2 shelves in the basement that hold veneer cutoffs or my best veneer sheets

- And I have one 10×10 shed that holds shorts up to 2' long, sorted by species, and stored in large industrial shipping plastic bins.

- I think that is everything…..

 

Charlie yours is great you are realy organised

 

The scrap-mo-tron 9000 handles all my scrap for me. http://lumberjocks.com/projects/31146

a few bigger pieces of ply get leaned up against a wall, but for now, this guy has really helped me out. Having everything on wheels makes the space issue work out better too.

 

Unfortunately, most of mine ends up piled in the worst place it can be. It ends up in places such as:
On top of my table saw (largest flat surface other than the floor)
Workbench (second largest flat surface)

I have a wall mounted rack that I built for storing this stuff. Unfortunately it is so hopefully overfull, that it isn't usable any longer.

As for what determines a scrap that I keep or one that I throw away, it depends on the wood. A piece of rosewood or mahogany or any other nice piece of wood, I would keep almost anything 6" or longer. For a piece of pine or poplar, it will go in the trash bin if it is under 12"-18". I used to save virtually everything, but finally decided it just wasn't worth it, but I still can't bring myself to throw away small pieces of a really nice piece of wood. The unfortunate part is that I don't have a means of organizing these little pieces so that I can find them when I need them.

To make it even worse, I have a tendency to pick up "throw away" wood. Just yesterday, I saw some shelving someone was throwing away. I scored 6 1×10 pieces of very nice straight douglas fir about 3 ft long out of it. I intend to use it for the outside of a case for a wall mounted tool cabinet. It will look nice and the wood was at the best price possible. However, I tend to accumulate a lot of pieces of wood that way.

The only thing that is organizes is the garbage can that I use for the throw away stuff. I actually don't throw it away. I save it and my 2 sons use it to have an occasional bonfire. I think I have created a couple of pyromaniacs.

 

I use a series of different sized trash cans and stand the pieces on end. I even have an old vacuum cleaner drum that I store some in.

But, in spite of that, my shop is still a mess.

 

I think we need a 12 step program for wood hoarders, not so much as to cure us from this, but to teach others around us to deal with it and maybe threads like this that let us brainstorm on ways to organize our wood, so we have room to keep more. When my wife gets on my case for all my scrap wood and I have been known to stop and get wood out of peoples garbage ( got some nice walnut like that just the other day.) I tell her it could be worst I could be a cat hoarder.

P.S. I'm not a wood hoarder I am wood collector
Joey

 

Im with deGoose.. except I got a dumpster… neat thread…I quit "collecting" about 10 years ago .. took a week and a couple of dump trucks to 'remove my collection…

 

I need to follow Larry and Charles example I have wood stored under my out feed, in big plastic bins .in modified trash cans with wheels on them behind my joint and still more. I think when I do my clean up I'll donate it to my local high school wood shop.

 

I have it stored alot the same as most, except each winter I sort thru the pile and I hate doing it but it has to be done, anything thats got a good layer of dust on it or is really not as good looking as when I first decided to save. Gets cut up for kindlin for the woodstove. I never get rid of exotics or say a good piece of oak or clear pine that may end up as a rail/style but other then that its up in smoke.

 

Well, seeing as I share my work space with the washing machines and the dog I don't have too much room. I have a corner full of long pieces, just stacked. I have a small space for molding. The rest I store in the ceiling between the exposed joists. I put in some 2×2's for holders and stack the wood up in the spaces between the joists. I saw someone else on TV do something like that and it really works.

 

I do a lot of small projects, so I start with small pieces and end with smaller pieces. I have paid for smaller pieces then some of you have burned, lol. The husband of a friend of my mother's is a woodworker, he had done a scroll saw project and used some padauk and purpleheart. his wife was in the shop as he was about to thow the "scraps" in the burn barrel. She stoped him and said that she thought Katie might be able to use those pieces. I got a bag full of his scraps; he was cutting out circles, not super effectly, so I have some awesome 2 inch curved triangles to make into what ever I want.
I save almost every piece of "pretty" wood. I use plastic shoe boxes to sort out sizes and potential usefulnes of different pieces.
One day about a week ago I was in the shop and as I was cutting a piece of purpleheart it split off part of the end and landed on a piece of maple. The piece was maybe 1/4" x 3/4", but was calling out to be made into a pendant. So I sanded it up, cut a piece of maple to compliment the shape and color, then sold it to a co-worker for $40. So i guess my obsession with small scraps will pay off.

 

Toss it in a corner. However, I'm running out of corners and need to build a rack like the one shown.

 

I never met a piece of wood I didn't like or so you would think. I can't even seem to bring myself to get rid of saw dust. I'll sweep it up into a nice neat pile and then it will stay there untill it gets kicked around. I'm not absolutly sold on the idea that I don't like throwing any thing out I think my problem is pure laziness. Schloemoe

 

Degoose: I'm with you. These crazy bins and storage units are just space-taker-uppers and time wasters. I use a wood stove and get rid of as much as I can. In the summer I box up my scraps in similarly-sized boxes and store them in the basement. I rationalize storing scraps this way because once they make it into a cardboard box they're no longer materials, they're a future heat source.

But I don't automatically burn every scrap I produce. I'll save scraps from a project until that project is done and out the door. After that- ADIOS!

I guess this is one of the things that differentiates woodworkers for hobby and woodworkers with businesses. Hobbyists don't mind a little extra hunting for that scrap piece they know is somewhere. Woodworkers in business for themselves need to work efficiently and quickly. There's money to be made here.

But I'll come clean. There are a scant few pieces of wood that just cannot make it to the stove. They're unique and destined for greatness. But they're not in some elaborate storage system. They are hung on nails and screws on the wall. They look good just like that.