Scrap pieces 14 gauge

[jakedog]

What do you guys cut for "small items", have a lot of 14 gauge corners and such from bigger pieces. Hate to waste it, why not make a couple bucks off it..... thoughts?

[thatboystevo]

Bottle openers, letters and numbers for house addresses, business card holder could might fit

[acourtjester]

One of the members posted a jig he used to hold small pieces for cutting, very helpful if you slates are spaced farther apart then the small pieces sizes.
With some of the 3D type wall hangings I have made there were many small parts that could be cut from drops. Some of the 1/4" cut jobs I have done had waste between parts that I save as they are like small bars (1/4" X 1" X 5") for other projects.

[Bobkovacs]

The challenge is balancing the time required to set up a small piece, zero the machine in the right place and execute the cut vs what you can sell the piece for. If I've got some time with nothing else to do, I'll cut a pile of bottle openers or small state outline Christmas ornaments if I can get a few out of a piece of scrap (say something around 8"x12"), but anything smaller than that isn't worth messing with, IMO

[abmetal]

3D art. When we finish with a 4x8x14g sheet, we use up all the little places left over for making alligators, bison, eagles, motorcycles, etc. When we're done with a sheet....THEY AIN'T NUTTIN' LEFT!

Allen

[motoguy]

The challenge is balancing the time required to set up a small piece, zero the machine in the right place and execute the cut vs what you can sell the piece for. If I've got some time with nothing else to do, I'll cut a pile of bottle openers or small state outline Christmas ornaments if I can get a few out of a piece of scrap (say something around 8"x12"), but anything smaller than that isn't worth messing with, IMO

This, which I learned the hard way. The time spent trying to "salvage" cost more (at shop rate) that simply cutting from a new sheet. I'm trying to put together a catalog of small items, which I can simply nest in with sheet (or other part) cuts, so they'll cut from the sheet at the same time.

[Dana gear]

We send to the scrapper literally thousands of pounds of 14 and 12 ga hot rolled drops and sheet skeletons, just not worth the time to reuse any of it. We nest as close as we can get to achieve the least amount of scrap but the reality is there are some larger drops that just go by way of the scrap boxes.
One man shops maybe it would be worth it, labor machine time, etc just does not make sense for us to fool with it.
Only time we keep the larger drops is from 3/8"plate and thicker and even then we are taking like 8"x10" , 10x10" etc as with the price of that stuff is worth it at times to set up for the occasional one offs , some of it gets donated to the schools.

[Maadman]

Good idea - donating to school. I have always tried to cut the little items as I am cutting the larger ones. We do a lot of craft shows, so we have the need for them. We sell 6 inch rusted letters and numbers, I can fit a lot of those in on scrap. Also do snowflakes, they sell like crazy in a lot of different colors. The amazing grace cross fits in on a little larger pieces. All of these patterns I have gotten from Plasma Spider.
BUT, we are a small shop. Little pieces that are not done during the first cut, SCRAP. Not worth the setup time. Don't try to fill in too tight, it's nothing but a PIA. I also sequence my cuts so that the piece I am cutting, is cut first. Then I cut the extras.

[tcaudle]

When I closed my shop for plasma cutting after several years of cutting decorative pieces I had boxes and boxes of "Do-Dads" I had cut to try and not waster material. All the spaces on a sheet between a series of round or oval cutouts were filled with everything from stars to letters. I even kept interesting shaped drop outs that I had used to make "free form" wind chimes . I made me feel better not tossing all of the scrap then but little or none of the pieces ever sold or were used. We went to a few trades day events and ONE ag expo where we had to pay for a booth and sold enough to buy lunch. I would clean and finish some of the small pieces and hang them on a display board and price them at 10 to 15 bucks.....only sold two or three. I looked at my costs to save, build, finish, tote and tote back those small cutouts and decided I needed to stop spending any time or consumables on cutting out smalls. Your market may vary and times may have changed in the past 8 years but it may not be worth trying to salvage material unless you are doing it as a hobby and giving stuff away.

[_Ogre]

in our shop we have standard small pieces that we use in house
when drawing the part i infill any small area with these pieces