What to do with the odd board out

[JoshNZ]

I'm wondering what you guys do with those odd boards that don't fit into the packets you're working on. I often find I've had to flip a cant and with the flattening cut I wont quite get a 2" board like I'm after, but I'll get a perfect 1" board let's say. Adjust the numbers to suit. I quite often find particularly when milling black walnut I end up bringing home a few ~16mm boards in my 25mm flooring. I can't bring myself to throw it out so it gets it gets leaned on a wall, then put on top of another stack, then moved somewhere else when it's in the way there, and so on.

Eventually warps because it never got stacked properly and ends up being trashed.

Does anyone keep a "mongrel" stack? Particularly talking about high value species. I've got into a habbit of just tossing what doesn't fit and I know there'd be woodworkers out there who cried looking at my waste pile.

[taylorsmissbeehaven]

I have the same question. I often lean those boards on my shed to "deal with later" and find them twisted up down the road. I agree that there are a lot of woodworkers out there that would cringe to see my burn pile! Id like to know what others do as well, Brian

[doc henderson]

those are what I use or share with friends who work wood.  I also sticker by the log and that makes it easier to deal with same width but varied thickness boards.  If you are commercial and trying to not get slowed down by the little things, then this may not work for you.  I also use the odd board to make stickers in my stacks.  almost always one rouge board will sticker the whole log.

save, saw, sweep, stack, sticker, secure, and dry one log at a time in Drying and Processing (forestryforum.com)

[kantuckid]

The largest mill in my county which saws millions of BF a year, place offcuts into 1000MBF bundles of all hard or softwoods each which are bought mostly by KY Bluegrass area horse farms for stable construction and some local contractors & farmers. I built a chicken house with a bundle some years back, was cheaper than I could saw it myself. Pallet wood is another area off cuts are used. 
My own off cuts are like above-sit around until junky or actually used by myself in crafts or sticker wood.   

[DMcCoy]

One problem butchers never face, if it won't make steak then it will make hamburger.
After getting all the extra exercise involved in moving boards like for years on end, I 'wince' and toss them on the firewood pile right from the start.  I have rationalized that firewood is not waste.
Then it goes into the house and my wife see's it.  Good luck,

[moodnacreek]

In plain sawing there should only be 2 thickness boards to stack or in the case of all 1" being cut 1 thickness to stack. Those jacket boards you didn't want should be enough of them to make a course in the pile but that never works out so have some scraps or stickers to use as spacers to finish a course or go get dry boards to put in there.

[Percy]

I have a 5 dollars per board pile and throw them there. Any "deal with it later" boards get chucked there. As word got around, customers come regularly to check out the pile or grab a piece they seen previously. Works good for me

[moosehunter]

Whenever I finish cutting and the stack comes out perfect I have a little party. Almost never happens!!
I also set those extra boards aside to deal with later. Then throw them in the slab pile when they warp / mold.
mh

[JoshNZ]

Sounds like the problem is not uncommon! I like the idea of a $5/board pile, I just know the kind of treatment a pile like that would get around here while taking up space..

I do try to avoid it of course but sometimes a cant moves more than I thought it would, maybe I'm sized to saw to the deck, e.g. have flipped a cant and it is a multiple of board+kerf thickness + the last board, then the middle lifts off the bed. Flattening it eats into the last 25mm board, I either throw away a piece of waste that is 25mm at the ends and 20mm in the middle, or I flatten the 5 off then take the 20mm board below it, but I don't want the 20mm board in my 25mm pile. So it comes home to the shed to die a slow death in another pile instead.

Sometimes I'm cutting 2" stock and I don't even have a 1" stack, so the waste volume is really bad.

Seems a waste to toss it but unfortunately, that is what I do too at the moment. Ive given up trying to save it all. But I remember as a youngster how much I'd love to have had a piece like that to play with.

[caveman]

We stack them every week or so.  We use them for ourselves to build pallets to stack lumber on.  We probably have enough to make a good start on our next solar kiln.  Some also get sold from time to time.  

[Redhorseshoe]

I put them into what I refer to as the "boneyard".  Just a stack of odds and ends that don't have home but are too good to toss in the actual s**t pile.  Someone always comes along looking for some cheap boards, usually for a bunch of random farm/ranch projects, and I sell 'em the whole pile pretty cheap.  I keep it simple though, they have to take the whole pile, and I pick to whole thing up with the loader and dump it on their trailer.  No extra handling, sorting, etc.  It's easy for me and inexpensive for the customer so both parties are pretty happy in the end.  I actually just sold my current boneyard pile yesterday.

[customsawyer]

I will take a couple of boards off the layer below the one board. Put them up on the top layer of stickers with the one off board. All I need is a enough to make the flat surface to put another pallet on top.
Years ago I would sell them out of a $5.00/board pile or let customers get "scraps" out of the burn pile. Had a guy ride over with another customer one time that said he had seen some of my lumber over at another guys house. Said he had decided that my lumber wasn't very good based off of what he saw. I ask if the guy mentioned he had dug it out of the burn pile for free. Nope, never got mentioned. So from then on I figure out a way to put it in the stack or burn it. No discounted or free scraps around here. Now if someone ask for my scrap pile I just say I sell it to Home Depot and they need to go ask there. ;D

[Andries]

Well Jake, now I know where all the crappy wood in HD comes from!
😁

[alan gage]

When I started I was going to be smart and utilize every part of the log but I soon found this was more difficult than I'd anticipated. Like others I ruined lots of odd thickness boards because they weren't taken care of properly. I realized it was a lot less work to throw them in the scrap pile right away rather than moving them around for 6 months and then throwing them away.

If I was saying a nice log and for some reason I ended up with an odd thickness, and it was a thickness I thought I could make use of,  I'd saw enough of them for one layer in the stack so they could be stacked with the rest. I tried to put them on top of the stack to make them more obvious when unstacking later.

If I didn't have enough for a full layer I'd sticker  them on top of a stack that wouldn't have have another pack placed on top of it. This helped protect the full layer below or and at least gave the odd boards a chance of drying flat. It worked better for narrower boards.  If I could remember I'd flip them over every few days to even out the drying on the faces a little.

Alan

[Sixacresand]

If I am in the clean up mode, the "deal with later" leaners are placed in the slab pile. 

[Don P]

When the saw or log isn't cooperating I try to saw heavy. If I saw scant I try to save them up. Both of those lean up at the end to go over to the planer and I'll thickness to target on the heavies and try to pick a common thickness for the scants. On commercial scale none of that makes sense. Then onto a stack. The shorts get box piled in the stack or up to the barn loft for boxes. I've meant to, but never done it, have a pallet and chainsaw handy and make short wood stacks. That stuff currently hits the burn or firewood piles.

[Jeff]

I build stuff.


 

 

[Brad_bb]

Since I cut mostly beams, I have a good amount of jacket boards.  I have the disease of not being able to throw any good wood away- 2ft, 4ft, 6ft.  So I have 4ft and 6ft lumber pallets to stack on in addition to normal 8ft pallets.  I have more thin boards, that I set aside until I get enough for a layer.  Sometimes they can cup before I can properly stack them.  I am working on building some drawer boxes and processing that thin and shorter length wood into 1/2" thick material for the 4 sides of drawer boxes, and can use that or plywood for the bottom.  I end up having more use for that stuff than you'd think.  Some of it has prettier grain too- like the pieces from the butt or crotch flare that is cathedral grain etc.

It took me a long time to get on board with trimming boards to fit the lumber pallets, but the loss of 10 inches or a foot here and there has proven to be worth having neat lumber pallets that fit where they need to. 

[terrifictimbersllc]

My shop is full of little boards I felt sorry for. These are dry and ready to use. 

The good stuff is outside not ready to use and getting eaten by bugs. 

[DanMc]

With no place to store large amounts of random wood, they go next to the mill and anybody that comes along gets them for stopping over to say hi.  

[Daburner87]

Currently burning them all in my 6x4 fire pit which still isn't big enough.  If it was Walnut or something really nice I would keep it on top of the stack, but I need to build one of those racks for cutting firewood size pieces with all the odd cuts and what not.  With a manual operation and no forklift or skid steer to move this stuff around I can't be picking it up and moving it all the time. I mill near my fire pit and those cuts go right on top of the pit as they come off.  I'm still pretty new at milling, but I see how quick this stuff builds up, and just made a sawdust catch to help assist in the burning process.   Still practicing on getting better at knowing what I want out of a log before I start.