25 Ways Wood Offcuts Can HELP you!

Offcuts make great spacers! Particularly if you want to evenly space out slats as I did for the lining in a drawer for my dog bed's toy storage.

Small scraps are great for a number of reasons. One being runners for drawers or filing cabinet boxes for suspension foolscap folders.

While I made a chicken coop for ITV's Love Your Weekend, I used a small block of wood as a catch to open and close the door when needed.

Instead of using plastic pots, I often use a small offcut to mix wood filler and hardener together, or pour wood glue on and dip the wood in. Or use It as a glue spreader as I did in my Z veg shelf cart.

Using my band saw, smaller offcuts are great to rip down strips as paint stirrers or resin mixers.

When building boxes or cabinets, I often use an offcut to draw where the screw holes need to go as I did throughout my DIY mitre saw stand.

Screwing scrapwood offcuts to walls or in cabinets can be great directly under shelves to prevent bowing as you can see here in my heavy screw shelf storage.

To ensure cladding is overhanging the same throughout your shed build, you can mark on a small piece and push it against the shed frame.

Occasionally, I reach for an offcut of sheet material and use the uncut square side as a reference for building things like my plant ladder stand and trellis.

One of my favourite things is using a heavy block of wood to screw a piece of timber down to keep it steady and rip down some wood.

I ALWAYS use them for test cuts - more often than not to work out what router bit profile I want on a project.

Making prototypes before you start an entire project is a great way to save wasting time. Just as I did for my DIY dog food dispenser, which took 3 attempts to get it how I wanted it.

If you're painting something and don't want splashback, I'll often use cardboard or a small piece of plywood!

This is the last resort, but with the untreated small offcuts I no longer have use for, I use them to keep us warm on our narrowboat multi fuel stove!

Jigs are a great way to save time and speed up a manufacturing process. One I was particularly proud of recently was my stepping stone jig. After a few minutes to make one, I could lay my slabs zig-zagged REALLY quickly!

For the old chipboard offcuts I'll never use, I keep them short term as a work bench saver when drilling holes through projects, and the drill can catch the offcut before I hit the workbench.

Offcuts of hardboard or plywood are great as corner gussets to temporarily keep something square when important like when I installed a loft ladder and hatch with my Dad.

I had a lot of OSB that I cut them down into basic boxes to create PPE drawers. Note, the sides aren't all the same height - they didn't need to be!

It goes without saying - if you're making things like bird boxes or, say my bee hotel, trims are great above openings or to secure a felt roof down.

Nailing MDF strips to a sheet of ply is a great way to create a simple bench hook for mitre cuts or Japanese carvings.... or linocuts!

Ripped a screw hole? You can fill it with wooden splints and pop the screw back!

If you're doing DIY alone and need to screw a shelf in, you can either clamp offcuts to prop it up or cut a few offcuts to the correct height you need. OR, clamp a "lip" as I did when cladding my dog kennel alone.

A few reasons you should keep dowels is for homemade dowel pins, plugging pocket hole scars, and how you can make things pivot, like this pull-out chair to step stool!

For your tongue and groove oddments, they're great for cheap and easy bird houses or very small dog houses/kennels - or lap panels for bird table rooves!

Recently, I needed to spray paint some hair pin legs which was initially fiddly. Here's a tip! Screw them to an offcut to keep them steady, then spray paint away. It's easy to cart them anywhere without touching the paint work and the excess paint will go on the offcut!