Getting organised: organising scrap

As part of my quest to establish a new world order, I have been writing mostly about getting organised, especially how best to organise my tools and workflow. 

In this blog, I'd like to talk about getting organised – again – but this time nothing about tools. I want to talk about the most overlooked items or substance in my workshop: the materials (wood)... and scrap wood in particular.

Woodworkers are notorious hoarders of scrap wood. Some pay tribute to nature, mindful that each piece of wood came at the cost of a felled tree, a life ended. Others simply want to save money. But the general assumption remains that every piece of wood will serve a purpose one day.

You can imagine that at some point scrap wood takes over the shop. Therefore, going through the pile of scrap wood every now and then is a good – but deeply disturbing – habit to maintain a functional workspace.

I follow this practice myself. Every 12 months or so, I sort through my piles of scrap. There's a rule of thumb I learned from a woodworker on YouTube – though I've forgotten who – that every piece smaller than your fist must go. I also bin the pieces that I've used as sacrificial pieces to protect my bench-top when cutting or drilling holes.

Somewhere in this cycle of clearing and accumulating scrap, I tend to build up various smaller piles in every empty space I can find. I felt it was time to bring more order and centralise the emerging chaos of scrap wood

So, I decided to build a "scrap cart". 

I did some research and looked at how fellow woodworkers designed their scrap carts. Here is a collage of some examples.

Many of the examples were made for workshops that are ten times the size of mine. So, I decided I needed to think this through more carefully to develop a solution that would fit my workshop size, rather than just winging it.

On one of my travels, killing time at 30,000 feet, I started doodling, what this scrap cart might look like. I tried to keep it as simple as possible. It had to be strong, provide enough space and ways to organise my oddly shaped pieces of wood and boards of varying sizes. 

I soon discovered I could achieve simplicity by making basic sketches with clean lines. 

Here are a couple of my first ideas.

As I continued sketching, my ideas evolved and took shape. I focused on designing a self-supporting structure where the form itself would provide the necessary strength.

The design evolved into a concept with a compartment at the bottom for miscellaneous scrap pieces.

I imagined what the cart might look once loaded with scrap pieces.

I was pretty confident this might actually work in practice. So, I started further detailing the design, thinking through how actually to construct it, where to put the screws.

It actually became a joyful exercise in design through drawing and spent some more time improving my drawings.

When I got home I did a final design.

Then it was just a matter of cutting and assembling. I decided to make this cart out of MDF (medium-density fibreboard). It's cheap and easy to work with. If at some point I want to change the design radically and discard this version, it will have only cost me a few euros.

Finally, I added castors - everything that stands on my workshop floor must be on wheels so I can easily move things around.

Here is the final result.

I was actually surprised that this cart turned out to be quite a beauty – despite its purpose of housing scrap wood and off-cuts.

Just as an object – when not considering its function – I think this is quite an interesting 'sculpture'. Like some of my other sculptures, it would deserve a place in the MoMA or Tate Modern, I believe.

Here is a picture of the cart in use.

After using this cart for a couple of weeks, I decided to add a drawer – in the bottom compartment – for smaller pieces of scrap. Although I follow the rule that everything smaller than my fist must go, I've noticed I use many of these small pieces for my tool holders.

It was an enjoyable process designing and building this cart. It made me realise that everything is worth organising, even seemingly worthless scrap. And everything we make can be a piece of beauty, even when it's built to contain scrap and crafted from cheap materials. 

That's where, I believe, the true craftsman distinguishes himself from the handyman or occasional dabbler – by taking pride in making even the simplest things beautiful and, as Richard Sennett reminds us, 'doing good work for its own sake'. This mindset, exactly this dedication to craft, will help us create a new order in a world that is progressively going crazier. We definitely could use more statecraft for sure!