Storage of Consumerables, paint, etc & off cuts.

[Peter Bell]

The one area I struggle with in woodworking is shop space. I do not think it is because I do not have enough. Well, one can never have enough but really, it's not what you have got but how you use it.

My shop is a shed that is about 20 feet by 25 feet with a usable space for my use of 20 feet x 18 feet. I have nearly all the tools I would want. My shop is much larger that what many of my friends have that are hobbists not the professionals.

I have an interest in a lot of things not just wood work. I like to Carve, so have a designated Carving station. Not just caricatures and small carvintgs eigther, I would like to do Chain Saw carvins. I have the necessary Chain Saws etc but they and the rest of the equipment take up valuable space.

When I do a virtual shop tour, eigther on the internet, in forums or in special edition Wood magazines one thing stands out. And that thing that stands out is where my main issues lie.

1. I have loads and loads of consumerables, the glossy mags do not seem to. Sure, they might have cupboards and drawers to hide things, but not the amount I have.

2. The offcuts. A continual ongoing problem for me. I have put them in round bins, I have stacked them on overhead shelves. The one thing that stands out to me is because my intersts change so do my offcuts. I went though a period of making model wooden toys of which some I have entered in our local Shows.

The amount of consumerables I have and offcuts are my main problem. The better quality wood were used for Pen Making and other small turnings. But these things are like that old Movie " The Blob " they just keep growing and completely overwhelm the shop.

Each system I put in place seems to work for awhile or not at all and then I am back to where I came from. The shop tours do not appear to have this problem. If I dumbed all my consumerables and offcuts and went and purscased more each time I needed something I would be broke.

Infact, that is what I used to do many years ago. Then I went through a stage of buying in bulk rather than small blister packs. I am getting the benefits now because I have a well stocked shop and seldom do I have to go to the big box stores for anything.

How do you guys solve this problem?

Pete

[Anthony Whitesell]

How do I solve it? Not very well. My main WW shop is 7'x11' and some space (12'x12') shared with the outdoor equipment.

One thing I notice in most walkthroughs, is there are only one or no projects in process. As for me, I have atleast a half dozen already and just started on a monster (36"x36"x36" generator shed)

I try to keep my consumables in a "pantry" type area, together and away from where I'm working. When I need something it doesn't take that long to get one or get the pack and return it when finished. As for scraps, if it's not right for a pen blank and it's too small to be safely cut on the table saw or router table (to test bit heights), it goes. Otherwise it's categorized and stored. I sort my scrap by shape, including long, square, sheet, or setup block. Everything else is scrap and is packed in a banana box from the grocery store to be taken to my father's wooden burning stove. It goes in the stove box and all.

[Chris Tsutsui]

I used to have a pile of scraps, but I begin to realize that they are in fact "scraps" and expendable so I tossed most of it.

If you look at the scrap bin of some fine woodworking commercial shops you will see all sorts of large scraps of nice wood. This is beacuse when they get a new job, they buy new wood and don't rely on non-inventory materials.

Ideally, this is sort of how I'd like to handle things.

[Jim Andrew]

I have a wood stove, and cutoffs come in real handy. They are dry, and I can use my cutoff saw to cut them to lengths that fit in the stove.

[Peter Bell]

Thanks for the replies. I think all three of you have summed up the dilema I am in. Anthony is closer to where I am at. Chris explains what commercial woodworkers do. I realise that because my wood club would not exist if it was not for the large and sometimes expensive offcuts they donate to us.

Jim believes in the slash and burn policy and as such I suspect is the model for the glossy mags. In an ideal world that is what I want to do But in reality, that is only one part of the equation. What happens to your consumerables.

Surely in those clean shops they must have some or do they live in that utopia of a world that the consumerables fit into the "slash and burn " policy.

I live about 12 miles from the nearest hardware or big box store, that is why I prefer to buy in bulk so I do not have to run to the store every day. What I pay extra in materials I save in diesel for the 4wd.

Maybe what I do is different to your normal home shop that just pushes out furniture. I am fortunate that I have a couple of good mates that hate sharpening but like tinkering with broken down machinery , old power tools and electrical equipment. I have realised that sharpening and old hand tool restoration is something I like and after spending a fair bit on a hand tool course which included a high percentage of learning to restore and sharpen old saws, planes and chisels that I can now do better job than many of my more experienced and better qualified woodworking friends.

So, I generally do the work on theirs and they inturn help me with my machinery etc. I have tried all sorts of avenues to tidy up the shop, some work, some don't, some are good ideas in the wrong time frame of where I am at a particular time. Sometimes it is funny that what i did when I had no space is where i feel I might be gravatating to for the next few months.

I have been given a few heavy duty stackable plastic containers and have tried to group my consumerables together and label the boxes accordingly. Strangely, by removing some things off my shelf and one particular cupboard has opened up a whole lot of space. By doing this, it has enabled me to reorganize my floor space as well and put things iIhad on the floor into the shelves.

This has given me approximately 15% to 20% more floor space just by removing some things that only get used occassionally. The devil is in the detail they say. I expect, if I have too many stackable boxes I will forget where everything is. I have more promised to me, so, so far at this stage in time my enthusiasm is up.

But, I know that this will probably come to grief also and that is why I asked the original question of " Where you store your consumerables and wood offcuts."

Pete

[Ben Hatcher]

Before I put OSB on my shop walls, I stored a bunch of my finishes on small shelves I built between the studs on the walls. I used rope and bungee cords instead of putting edges on my shelves. They were much faster and made the shelves more flexible for different size containers. Now that those are gone, I keep most finishes in a cabinet. I found that the key to having enough storage is to store less stuff. So, whereas before I might have had 10 or 20 different finishes, I decided on maybe 5 that I like the most and use them for all of my projects.

As for cutoffs, I follow the slash and burn policy as well. I'll keep smaller pieces of nicer woods in vertical bins. The rest gets tossed or burned. I realized that I made mostly large pieces and those generate much more scrap than I consumed for boxes, jigs, etc. I found, too, that the better organized my scraps were, the more likely I was to use them. So, I try to keep them orgaized by size and species as best I can. Storing them vertically instead of horizontally helps keep more options visible, too.

[Matt Meiser]

"Usable" cuttoffs I have big rolling plywood bin and a smaller rolling hardwood bin. Some of the pieces have been in there for years. I keep the bins in front of the big rollup door which is otherwise pretty much wasted space.

Paint, etc. I keep in a metal cabinet in my finishing room.

In general I have too much "stuff" I'll never use and have been working on weeding it out. Of course the stuff I weed out is the stuff I wish I'd kept and the stuff I keep I never use.

[Matt Day]

I can't help it - it's "consumables", not consumerables. I may not be able to help with the OP's question, but I can at least clarify the term!

[Neil Brooks]

How do I solve it? Not very well.

Me, too/either.

Cutoffs are a big problem, and mine are poorly/barely/un-organized. I think you have to take a realistic approach, and figure out how big a cutoff has to be before you REALLY WILL use it. Everything smaller, or too oddly shaped ... goes in a heavy-duty trash bag, and gets pitched.

The remainder -- in my case -- are everywhere, for now, but ... eventually ... will live in bins, separated by size, more or less.

My shop isn't big, but it's a quarter of a fairly large basement. In another quarter are shelving units, so ... my finishes are stored there. If it weren't that, I'd probably ring the shop with French cleats, and hang cabinets to store the finishing supplies.

Never enough square footage......

[Peter Bell]

I can't help it - it's "consumables", not consumerables. I may not be able to help with the OP's question, but I can at least clarify the term!

Sorry about that. I usually reread and edit my post but on this one for some reason the EDIT function was not working and I could not do. besides I do not think we have a Spell check function on this site.

Still, I take your point and I do try to write as correctly as I can.

Pete

[Ole Anderson]

I have a 4 drawer steel file cabinet that works great and doesn't take up much floor space. Each drawer will hold 6 one gallon paint cans. And they work great to hold old paper manuals, patterns and books. I keep a lot of smaller stuff in the top drawer. Check CL or area office supply recyclers for a good deal.

[glenn bradley]

I have four types of cut-offs that I keep around:

- 1 to 4 foot in a vertical divided bin.
- 2 foot and shorter narrow stock in a sectioned cubby under the outfeed table.
- Little stuff in a cubby hanging from the cleat wall.
- Little odds and ends of exotics in stckable bins behind the jointer/under the lumber wall rack.

These items have to be assessed on some sort of interval, usually between projects when I have used all my space and created snowdrifts of shorts and cutoffs all over the place During these intervals I have to approach it like the hosts do on those "hoarder" shows; take a real hard look at the value of the piece versus the room it takes up. During these purging intervals my dad gets a lot of hardwood kindling for his stove and LOML gets a lot of scrap for her outdoor fire pit. I get my shop back . My advice is to take a Saturday and dump a few containers of scraps out on the floor and give them a brutal sorting out; repeat as required. If you can't lose 50% of what you have you are either much more discriminating when deciding what to keep in the first place or are not discriminating enough when deciding what to toss.

[Peter Bell]

I have four types of cut-offs that I keep around:

These items have to be assessed on some sort of interval, usually between projects when I have used all my space and created snowdrifts of shorts and cutoffs all over the place During these intervals I have to approach it like the hosts do on those "hoarder" shows; take a real hard look at the value of the piece versus the room it takes up. During these purging intervals my dad gets a lot of hardwood kindling for his stove and LOML gets a lot of scrap for her outdoor fire pit. I get my shop back . My advice is to take a Saturday and dump a few containers of scraps out on the floor and give them a brutal sorting out; repeat as required. If you can't lose 50% of what you have you are either much more discriminating when deciding what to keep in the first place or are not discriminating enough when deciding what to toss.

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Thanks for all your replies. I think we have a winner.

Glenn has summed up all your replies which all actually are the right answers. Glenn's suggestion to be like the Host's on a Hoarders Show is a bit cruel but he is right. I have to eat some concrete and harden the hell up.

But somehow, I always find an excuse not to. In reality, now is the perfect time to reduce my offcuts. When I do so they usually go into my offcut fire wood stack for our wood heater. But oddly. I have an overabundance of firewood here now due to a large blackwood tree losing some big limbs during a storm and I now have enough firewood for two years, plus, a friend, bought over two ute loads of offcuts from a portable sawmill which gives me sufficient wood for a while.

Now, I hate throwing out potential firewood because it is so expensive to buy and I scrounge what I can get. Fortunately, I live on acreage so I can store it for a few years, it gets it out of my shed but clutters up space elsewhere. Boy, am I ever going to be happy.

Ok, had some concrete for breakfast and off to clean up the shed. I will remember the Hoarder show but please tell me that I am not as bad as some participants on that show, but I think their were signs that I might be a potential candidate in the not to distant future.

Pete

[Van Huskey]

I can't help it - it's "consumables", not consumerables. I may not be able to help with the OP's question, but I can at least clarify the term!

Although, it is not a word YET if you really think about it it makes a pretty good melding. Not a great word to describe scraps but a great word to describe the piles of consumables we BUY in bulk and have stacked around. My stores of abrasives are well described by "consumerables". I like it.

[Jim Andrew]

I used to be concerned about saving every scrap for a future project when I might "need" that piece, and built up a huge pile of scraps. The best thing I have done is buy a hobby size bandmill, and now I can afford to burn my scraps, but still have get the good out of them, hence the wood stove. As for finishing supplies, I put plastic wrap on the cans before tapping the lid back on, helps keep varnish and such from drying out. And I store the stuff in a metal cabinet, which seems to keep the odors of finish inside.