I’ve built up a pretty good pile of small scraps of wood I just can’t bear to toss over the years: verawood, ebony, rosewood, mahogany, purpleheart, but even just some nice maple, sitka spruce, red cedar, walnut, etc. I started carving some into pendants this winter, and some look pretty good, but I’m looking for ideas for really small or weirdly shaped scrap – everything from 1/2" lathe ends with a hole in them, to long 1/2" x 3/8" x 4’, a small clip of the pile under the picture.
I’ve heard a few people just throw them into baggies and sell/give to crafty folks, which I might do in the end. But I figure if I can make stuff to give away as gifts or sell at a craft fair, all the better… but outside of jewellery, not sure what else to do. The are NOT big enough for endgrain cutting boards, and most have a couple rounded or uneven edges.
I’ve got a length of 4 inch PVC pipe for a mold that I fill with the scraps, then fill with epoxy. Once it cures I pop it out and slice the “log” in to coasters on the band saw. The cross sectional cuts turn out pretty interesting.
Could you try doing the epoxy thing with them? Place it all in a x by x rectangle with enough depth so you can cut it in half after you epoxy.
So create a flat cross section of the random wood and hope it looks cool.
If that makes sense?
Ohhh, I hadn’t even thought of that, and I have done some small epoxy projects before. I guess the question would be then what after that… But at least it would be a bigger chunk to work with.
Dice?
Plumb Bob is always useful!
Guitar fretboard inlays, maybe?
That leaf could make an excellent money clip.
