shoulda burned them when I had a chance..

[ed kerns]

So maybe something only another wood guy could understand. I'm doing some rearranging of my shop. I have two workbenches, one of which has long served as a catch-all for all manner of junk, so I've decided to get rid of the second bench and make a little room. As I'm digging stuff out from underneath I came across 3 wooden boxes, projects that I began a decade ago, hopelessly botched, and threw under the bench. Out of sight out of mind.
Digging them out served as a reminder of the foibles of woodworking and my limitations as a beginning of woodworker. I could probably find a way to salvage the boxes and wind up with mediocre results... but as I said, I should have burned them when I had a chance.

[Steve N]

Plenty of schools of thought about this. Some guys use them to feed the firebox to stay warm on a wintry day. Some guys saw them up, and make smaller projects out of them. Probably a number of other possibles too. Each guy thinks he's right. Sounds to me you are the person who puts something he doesn't think he needs in a box. If you don't have a burning desire to get it out of the box in one year, trash it

[EricU]

I've got some boxes like that, but they are all in service doing something. I don't see why a box holding something like batteries has to be a work of art

[Guest]

I'm a compulsive saver of every scrap, stick, cutoff and miscellaneous piece of wood that shows up in my shop. It's in boxes, cans, tubs and on shelves; and it's slowly squeezing me out of a place to work. We had a flood recently and, during the clean-up, I bit the bullet and tossed about half of it in the trash. Wow! I feel a lot better, and, so far, I haven't missed any of it. Must resolve to do that more often, flood or not.

[jteneyck]

I've reached the point where I can hardly move around my shop because it's stuffed full of wood and a few unfinished projects I just know I'll need - sometime. A couple of weeks ago it finally got to the point that I had to do get rid of some of it, so I started cutting it up into pieces that have been feeding the wood stove for several days now - and many more to go.

I'm also selling a couple of machines. Between their departure and a couple more weeks of wood purging I might see real progress.

John

[K. L. McReynolds]

What ya oughta do is to fix them.

By now, you have developed some skills in correcting mistakes.

[med-one]

I say burn em. This way you will be happy.

[EricU]

give them to goodwill

[Steve K]

As a wood turner, I have a shelf of shame. When something doesn't go quite right, it goes on the shelf. Those pieces remind me of where I've come from and now and then where I'm at. The shelf is constantly recycled as current projects sometimes replace older ones and there really isn't any room to spare.

[ed kerns]

Good to know I'm not the only guy to keep a few old failed projects around. As someone mentioned, I could fix these things and considered it, but the greater joy is just letting them go. These were a series of 3 recipe boxes. I built them all at once and made the same mistake on each. The boxes were supposed to have miter splines cut with a dovetail bit, I guess to mimic the look of dove tail joints. Sadly, each time the bit wavered during at least one cut. Not really structural and certainly fixable, but making for a sloppy joint.
Not a waste by any means. I have consistently learned more from my failures than my successes. These things taught me something.