WWA Info Exchange

They say that the first step in recovery is to admit that you have a problem.

Hoarding disorder is a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them. A person with hoarding disorder experiences distress at the thought of getting rid of the items. Excessive accumulation of items, regardless of actual value, occurs. Hoarding disorder – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic

I’m afraid that I might be a wood hoarder. I used to think that I merely had a wood storage problem, but now I think that it may have progressed to something larger. My shop is becoming choked with offcuts, surplus, and bits of scrap that I’m sure to find a need for, …someday.




The aggravating thing about this problem is that I often do find a need for a piece, and a piece for a need, thus justifying the existence of my growing collection.




It’s getting to the point where I’m hoping for a long cold winter that will tempt me to stoke the wood stove with some of it.




Maybe I can find a support group of similarly afflicted folks that I can share my pain with.

Cheers,
Tom

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"There is no path to peace, peace is the path."
Mohandas K. Ghandi

TMS: I understand the feeling, if not your actual situation. Remembering the 40's and the need to save everything. The paper drives, cutting both ends from canned goods to save the metal for a drive to say nothing of limited finances, sustenence gardening and on and on. Making sure the meal plate was clean and no food was left uneaten and the leftovers prepared for another meal. Spending a childhood with loving parents who had undergone and survived the great depression ingrained a certain mind set to never dispose of anything that might find a next use. So, consequently, I also have a stash of odd bits and pieces leftover. Icecream buckets full of nuts, washers, bolts, straight recovered nails, coarse and fine thread screws, machine screws and odd pieces of leftover or reclaimed hardware. I'm not in the full blown hoarder category yet and my "stuff' is reasonably well sorted and organized and as you have pointed out recognizing and admitting to a problem is a first step in recovery. So, I'm encouraged to start, slowly, the process of use, donation or disposal. Good luck in your quest and thanks for making me think about the condition

In viewing your photos I find myself thinking of a box fitted for the storage of a deluxe set of building logs and/or blocks. The box made of exotic cutoffs and fitted with immaculately crafted "LINCOLN LOG" or LEGGO" sized type building blocks would be a whimsical executive gift to show in your window.

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Everything was new once.
newtooth 311
Rochester, MN

yes, my friend, you do have a problem. Not unique of course, but it's a problem. I have a similar issue, though with less space I have to deal with it a little more often. A couple of things I've observed.
1. While one periodically finds a use for some piece or another that was stashed away, the amount of time spent looking for that piece (which is only found a couple of times out of say ten tries) probably far outweighs the value of the piece. As you are trying to make a business of this, your time spent looking for that odd piece is probably worth more than the piece itself.
2. I spend way too much time trying to keep the piles neat in hopes of being able to find what I need.
3. The clutter is dangerous, to some extent

Solutions that work, sort of.
1. Just put it in the burn pile. Not sure I can think of a time when I looked for a piece and realized that something I cut and threw in the burn pile would have worked.
2. Take it to the local woodworkers club meeting. There's always some hoarder who will take it off your hands. You feel virtuous and now it's his problem.
3. Design some small, low-cost impulse buy item for the store. Start making it. Then realize that you already have enough off-cuts and such to make enough of whatever it is for 100 years, so you can through away 90% of the CRUD and start collecting new offcuts and still have enough for the rest of your life.
4. Which brings us back to the burn pile.

as to those end-rolls of heavy duty sandpaper:
I finally figured out how to splice sanding belts. I was really after splicing wraps for my drum sander - nothing worse than having a burn or tear in a small part of the wrap and having to throw out the whole thing.
Get some Weldwood water-based contact cement (in the green can). Cut backers for the splice from Tyvek. Make a clean cut in the wrap (or for a belt), then coat the back of the sandpaper (should really be X or Y weight cloth) with the contact cement for about 3" either side of the splice. Coat the Tyvek. Let it dry for about an hour (that's what the can says), then stick it together and use a roller to give firm pressure.
This doesn't save any money if you're actually buying sandpaper/cloth to do this, but if you have those roll-ends lying around, you can save a buck or two and get one more thing off that debris pile. Even better if you've ruined the last foot or so on a sanding drum wrap, cut it off and slice a new piece on to make a functional wrap again.

(BTW - big-box epoxy won't work. It softens at temperatures the belts reach and it's too messy. You put the liquid epoxy on the belt, add the backing, clamp, and you will force epoxy through the seam and onto the face of the belt. Similar problems with cyanoacrylate).

I am in your support group.

I will say tomorrow I am putting one of my 3 portable planers that I bought on CL into my brother's trunk and we are driving to CO to visit my nephew. I am gifting him the planer and I hope it doesn't find it's way home! He needs it more than me..........................plus I need the space to store other tools and fishing gear

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"To all those who work come moments of beauty unseen by the rest of the world." Norman Maclean

It's a common affliction, Tom. Not life threatening but common. Once winter sets in I find a good use for my pile(s) of scrap wood when I fire up the wood stove in the shop!

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Nullum Gratuitum Prandium

Cheers - Dennis

Okay, I'll join the "I'm guilty" club here also.

I think we all do the same thing to the point of being laughable.

What does everyone do with their sawdust?
I make a huge amount of sawdust!! And I don't have a vacuum system.
Just a shop vac and a leaf blower that works pretty well actually.

I shovel mine into wheel barrows and dump in the gardens for mulch.

Zulu

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Zulu's website
http://www.jmelledge.com

Zero shop discharge - all shavings & sawdust go into the compost bin or mulch in the garden as well. Amazing how many pen blanks I've collected so far!

_________________
Nullum Gratuitum Prandium

Cheers - Dennis

I'm talking serious sawdust on a regular basis!
Zulu

_________________
Zulu's website
http://www.jmelledge.com

You win! (grin)

_________________
Nullum Gratuitum Prandium

Cheers - Dennis

Mine goes into the corral for the horses. I had gotten to the point where the whole corral had 3-4" of sawdust, then I expanded the corral more than tripling the area, giving me plenty of room for more sawdust.
The horses seem to enjoy the softer ground.

I once made the mistake of dumping some on the snow. You do know that they used sawdust in the old ice houses to keep the ice through the summer?
I had snow under the sawdust for a month or two after it had melted everywhere else.

Hey Drstrip,

Be careful with putting sawdust down under horses. Some woods, notably walnut, can cause laminitis of the horses hooves.

Cheers,
Tom

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"There is no path to peace, peace is the path."
Mohandas K. Ghandi

thanks for the heads up. Apparently this problem is limited to walnut and related species like butternut, from the Juglans genus. Fortuitously I have been working with oak, cherry, and maple when dumping sawdust in the corral. I'll be careful not add any walnut. We just got over a major colic event which was stressful enough without adding laminitis. (Nearest horse vet is about 125 miles away and the horses are barely domesticated rescues mustangs - hard to handle.)

I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM!!!!!

SWMBO disagrees

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"It is not a mistake it is a learning experience"
Monte

Wow Tom

Impressive scrap pile. I dont have the room in my shop for a lot of scrap. So It gets to a point (quickly) where I just have to cut it up and get rid of it. It bugs me having to do that. But in order to have a small shop where I can walk around in and actually do something in I have to.

But before cut it up, I look for uses, building storage boxes, dividers for drawers, things to help organise jigs, just about anything i can think of .

But in your case Wow, I wouldnt know where to begin.

There are also quite a number of woods that can cause respiratory ailments in horses.
I was recently speaking with someone regarding "safe" woods for horse stalls when I was told this.
Unfortunately I do not recall which species were the risk factors.
If I owned horses I would definitely look further into it.


And, yes, I have a wood storage problem very similar to Tom's.

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~Dan.

Tom what you got there I look at as btu's , would maybe heat my shop for a week. I can't keep scraps like that around, don't have the room for it, hence into the stove it goes.

Thanks for sharing your concerns. I've looked a bit into this and the key word in describing this issue is "stalls". Sawdust as bedding in stalls is known to create respiratory problems, just like sawdust does in your shop. It is exacerbated when the horses lie down to sleep in the sawdust, placing their prodigious noses with their huge air flow right down in the sawdust. In my case, I am using the sawdust in an outdoor corral, where the horses spend 15-20 minutes a day, unlike horses kept for most of the day in stalls in barns. All the fine particles have long since blown away in the wind or been trampled into the ground.

My horses roam freely on 150 acres. We feed them in the corral just to keep them socialized. There's more than enough in the fields for them to eat without our help.

Hey Tom,

a old friend of mind and my mentor used to take scraps and make decorative office trash cans (kind that go under the desk) He sold them for people who gave them away for Xmas presents. Heck you could make a entire desk set, pencil/ pen holders, card holders, for kitchens , napkin holders, Ipad stands etcthey would make nice Xmas presents and gifts for good/returning customers to.

Small shelves to hold knick nacks van dykes restoration hardware has a variety of small brackets. I made a couple for my house. H-ung them over the doors put some do-dads on them
https://search.vandykes.com/search?w=sm ... 20brackets

I have a freind who makes small wooden wagons, even the spoke wheels.

I was looking at your dock chairs, why not make some matching foot rest for them, small matching table with a matching tray for drinks?

Just let yer imagination go wild and get creative

When Im done with big projects I use the left over wood for little things.

Lots of things to do with that much wood,

What do I do with sawdust?

I make fire starters from edge planer and thickness planer sawdust. Table saw sawdust is too fine. I use cardboard egg cartons, just the "bottom", not the cover. I pack them with sawdust, pour melted candle wax in each compartment. When solidified I cut them with the bandsaw. I pick up candle wax for pennies on the dollar at garage sales.