Keep or throw away

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
edicehouse

edicehouse

Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2011
Messages
3,517
Location
Suffolk, VA
So how many half blanks, messed up drilling, unhappy with how it turned out blanks do you have sitting around. I have a small 5 drawer shelf that is now about full with those blanks that "maybe one day"

Do you all just trash them or keep letting them pile up?
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
What's this "throw away" thing you speak of? How do you do that?

InvisibleMan (certified pack rat. SWMBO thinks my work space is going to be featured on Discover Channel some day. Not one of those happy shows wither - the other kind)
 
I tend to let the pile grow and once in awhile go through the pile. I try to make 3 piles, being realistic. First is the keep pile, second is useable pile that I'll give away and the third is the fire wood pile.

Tastes and styles change, what you might have loved when you started out might be too boring or not suitable for what you currently make.

Unless you purge often I bet every single person here has 'boring' blanks that they'll never use.
 
Last edited:
I messed up on some nice mesquite not wanting to throw the other half away I added about 1/4 inch of true stone turquoise to make up the difference for a serria pen and it sold the first time I showed it. Now that is one of my best sellers.
 
If you mess up a cigar because your didn't use the bushings in the correct order, you can make a secret compartment keyring.

Oh, and for the record, I have several 1/2 blanks just waiting for an inspiration.:confused:
 
lol...I've got boxes of either screw ups or unsatisfactory blanks lying around. Not to mention countless bottlestopper and pendant blanks from leftover resin pours.

I usually let it pile up till I get tired of looking at it and put an ad here as give-aways.
 
For the show I was in last weekend, I made up a bunch of bobble stlyus. They only require a 1" section of blank. Sold out of them the first day! I know what I'll be doing with my scrap blank pieces now!
 
Andrew_K99 said:
I tend to let the pile grow and once in awhile go through the pile. I try to make 3 piles, being realistic. First is the keep pile, second is useable pile that I'll give away and the third is the fire wood pile.

Tastes and styles change, what you might have loved when you started out might be too boring or not suitable for what you currently make.

Unless you purge often I bet every single person here has 'boring' blanks that they'll never use.
Click to expand...

That is the same way I do it. Acrylic of course gets tossed unless it is something I keep to glue up in a blank
 
I use mine for accents, having a little piece thats cool can save a blank that tore out on the edge. Most of the pens I have with accent striping are ooopsies.

I seem to have a small box of PR, bigger one of animal products and a slightly bigger one of wood. I use enough of each that they dont ever seem to get overly full.
 
I usually collect a box of things like that and then use it when I go camping for fire starter. Just sort out the acrylics types and burn it all. If you keep saving them you will just have them forever and they just waste space.

This is just my opinion and worth every penny you paid for it.:biggrin:
 
Keep - they are useful for key rings, lamp or shade pulls, finials of various sorts, or to repair holes in the bottom of bowls where you inadvertently turn too far and end up with a hole that you hadn't planned on.

You never call those mistakes - they are opportunities for creativity.
 
I've used a few for lamp pulls. But there's only so many lamps in my house and I still have a bunch on 1/2 blanks laying around. :)
 
I toss 'em unless they are usable for closed end accents or oops bands. etc., usually solid color pieces. The cutoffs, i save for saccrificial support or to use on closed end pens to glue on the tail end as a tail stock support.
 
Last edited:
I have taken these remnants and made Woodcraft Retro pens from them. The Woodcraft Retro (do not confuse with other Retros from other dealers) use two very small pieces, so cutoffs sometimes work as well as blanks with partial blowups. I have even taken contrasting pieces of wood to make one. ( For instance, Osage Orange and Redheart) The style is is definitely old school, but the kit is cheap at about $6 or so for the chrome. Turns your throwaways into something of value, and if you need to give a few pens away, I have found that despite the unusual style, people like to write with them.
 
I have a small bin where pens go to be dissassembled at some point in the future and a big cement bucket that cutoffs and orphan blank halves get tossed into.

The dissassembled pens mostly get turned into spare parts or the blanks are turned/soaked off and the pen rebuilt into something new. As others have mentioned, cigar blanks can be repurposed as secret compartment keychains. 7mm pens can be repurposed into stylus dongles or rifle cartridge pens.

Cutoffs are used to make keychains, stylus dongles, fridge magnets, teacher pens, etc.
 
I save cutoffs for segmenting, key chains, fridge magnets, beads, doll house stuff, and segmenting.

I save drilled/tubed mistakes for not any good reason, at all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom