bits and bobs

[Irish Rover]

Got a stupid question,

What do you guys do with all the cut offs and scrap bits and pieces around the shop?
In a barrel, a corner in the back, near the door to chuck at the neighbors or do you sell the junk quick before the pile grows and takes over the shop floor?
{I'd need some sort of artillery, catapult or cannon, to chuck things at my neighbors, and they don't hold still either!}

I've seen all kinds of answers to that question but haven't found the best one for me yet.

[rstegman]

If you get into sand casting, or other crucible work, you can melt it down and make raw materials for more projects....

I remember HEARING that the old blacksmiths would work the bits and pieces into a new piece of iron, adjusting the content of each type of metal to meet the needs.

[cal-k]

Melt aluminum, etc.
sell steel for scrap

[ThomasPowers]

The small steel stuff I'm saving up to use as media in a tumbler; larger I make different things out of.

[Irish Rover]

I've never thought of using the cut offs as media, neat idea!
For the most part mine gets used too and little is waisted, but where do you guys keep the scrap till the stuff builds up?
I've tried buckets, wooden boxes, and even the back corner of the shop.

[John B]

Old 55 gallon oil drums for outside, (with drain holes in base)
inside shop 5 gallon container for small bits, then transfer to outside drums, take to scrapyard when full or its worth someone's while to come and collect them in a skip

[Marc]

I have difference sizes. A 30-gallon barrel for anything 3ft to maybe 5ft. Longer than that goes back on the rack. Then smaller stuff in a 5-gal pail, and really small stuff in a big coffee can. I'm such a packrat :-)

[jayco]

I have that 'packrat' gene too........I have buckets and barrels outside (no room inside) filled with bits of 'stuff'.....The only problem is, I usually don't have enough to justify the 20 mile trip to the recycling center.....and the stuff is too small to be of much benefit in the shop.
A lot of it just turns to rust after a few years......oh well!

[gpworks]

i save mine just in case that might be a new form of currency, not really. i do keep them and when i feel like it like late one nite i weld them together, i know it sounds stupid but its like leggo i have welded them stacked,circular, and in differant arrays,there are 5 on the wall .soon as i get my digi camera back i will show.all are abstract and really mean nothing significant but thats what i do with my drop offs.

[orgtwister]

well i have saved and saved every buddy gave me crap about it but last spring it paid off me and my buddy took over 30,000 pounds to the scraper when the price was up i think it was 16 dollars a hundred at the time

[Irish Rover]

30,000 pounds?????
I have the pack rat thingy too but My God thats more then my company recycles in a year!
I've got to come over to your house an play!!!

Thanks every one for the ideas.

Edited November 21, 2008 by Irish Rover
sp

[adam cyphers]

well for the most part i keepmy stock and scrap bits together in an old ladder the bottom is screwed to the floor and laid flat. the top is raised up about 4' or so....it gives me a good place to store all the different lengths and shapes...and for the teeny drops a box at the ladders base.

[David Einhorn]

Pieces a foot or two long go into two buckets.

Shorter pieces of angle and stubs I make into jigs. I tend to use up most small pieces.

What I can't use because it is smaller than 1/2 long, I toss.

[Mills]

I allow a 55 gal drum for scrap. when it is near full I cull the inside stock for too short or no longer valued. Such as rebar pieces or bits of tubing. Then I haul it off and am done with it. It doesn't make me money, it is the overhead for running a clean shop.

[Ernesto Brown]

Hello,my mentor throws it into the scrap pile and says '' We'll find a use it for something''.

[Canska]

I'm a pack rat, I keep all scrap bits. Mild steel bits go in one box. Carbon steel scraps, if I know what type they are, get labeled with masking tape and tossed in another box. Unknown bits have their own box.

They're the first place I check when I make anything. Why chop up new stock when an old bit will suffice?

[Michael]

I toss all the little pieces, chunks and off cuts from when I square off stock, like the tapered left over after I cut off a leaf, into the slack tub/bucket. I was using a big washtub, but the addition of a buffalo forge blower on a stand took up too much room in my corner of the patio. Now I've got a galvanized bucket for a slack tub. I'd like to find something a little bigger, maybe kind of oblong shaped.

But the scrap too small to for much else goes in the bottom of slack bucket.