When I’m building things, I like to have a good-sized scrap pile on hand. Because when I have to test something-whether this glue will stick to this fabric, if I tap it and screw in the screw, how much force it will hold, if it is reinforced with carbon fiber and epoxy resin, it Will break-I’m glad to have some problematic materials on hand just for experimentation. So I took a big chunk out of the waste pile!
But the waste pile cannot expand forever. We all know that “too many good things” is one thing, right? The waste pile needs constant pruning. You actually only need a few aluminum extrusions, so when you start building excess inventory, it’s time to scrap them. I mean, throw it away.
One corollary of this that I only recently started to realize is that if I limit the amount of material I am using, it will be much easier to control the waste pile. This is simple math. If I use 20 different materials, that would be 20 piles of different waste materials. However, if I can solve all the problems with one weight of glass fiber, then a pile of waste materials can accomplish double or triple tasks. As an added bonus, I already know how the material works and may even have old test samples on hand.
Indeed, I am a garbage maniac, and it is almost painful to start using new materials and have not built a waste pile. I am always reluctant to cut into a beautiful square stock just to test something. But this is also part of the cycle of life. By not testing beforehand, I can almost certainly mess up and produce scraps that I hope will become finished products. Look? no problem! The next version.
what do you think? Are scraps, scraps, and their close relatives-test pieces and samples-worth staying in your store? Do you have a disciplined approach, or do you just throw them in the corner? Clean by project, or only when XPS foam piles up?