Scrap

[Gary W. Graley]

A good friend of mine was telling me that he used to think there was such a thing as scrap...talking about in leather working but could translate to knife making as well, until he was at a trade show fair, he was sitting and making belts to put up forsale, as he was punching out the holes for the buckle's tongue to pass through, a fellow came up and asked if he could have those small round pieces he was punching out, he had collected 40 or 50 in a small cigar box as he was doing it, didn't want them to make a mess on the floor at the hall he was in.

Well my friend said, ~What on earth do you want these small round pieces of leather for?~

The guy stated that he was a Clock maker and found that those small pieces of leather were just PERFECT to glue onto the Stiker, it made the Tone sound excellent!

My friend was amazed that what he thought was pure scrap would be put into a hand made clock! And that gave him a new perspective as to what he had previously put off as scrap! So now, some of us are pack rats, no doubt, but now you can give some thought to how you might put what was thought before to be scrap, into some other project you might NEVER have thought of!

G2

 

[Joss]

Pretty cool!

 

[NGK-Webmaster]

Very true statement, I have learned in remodeling my old house to keep every little scrap of wood, you get into stuff sometimes that you need to shim out or brace and instead of cutting up a new/good board those little scraps come in handy, they are also nice for playing on the lathe or testing a stain on. Everything can be reused somehow, it's all just how much room you have to be a packrat, my poor basement looks like a scrap lumber yard.

 

[ddavelarsen]

Gary, what occurred to me immediately as you were writing was they'd make great feet for wood boxes... Goes to show you there really isn't much scrap. Much of what a lot of us use comes from recycling centers, someone elses scrap.

I save stuff that, in my quite moments, sometimes embarrases me. I have curlies that came off my lathe, wedges of all kinds of steel from cutting out blades (that someday will become "Frontier Damascus"), every old screw I've pulled out of anything, myriad brass, NS and copper chunks and pieces. It all pays off, though. But it brings to mind George Carlin's routine about "Stuff" - I will eventually need a bigger shop.



Dave