I do design work for a Retail Display company, and we have our own prototype department, where they create mock-ups of displays - Everything from basic wood to lighted acrylic, and even welded metal uprights.
They throw out an abundance of material, that I’ve been dumpster diving and storing in my garage.
I feel like I’m really fortunate to have a bunch of 3-4ft x 2ft+ pieces of clear and frosted acrylic, and even similar sized Sintra PVC board in various thicknesses at my disposal.
I’m just wishing I had ideas to use it for before the stack eats up all my garage space, lol.
Anyone else fortunate enough to have this problem? What kind of good finds do you get your hands on?
Not sure how many others I may speak for, but you may kindly suffer a debilitating injury of your own fault that leaves you in moderate pain and unable to feel schottenfreude.
Hate is too strong a word, but we dislike you and your flaunting of privilege. Good day, sir!
I have a friend who used to have a kitchen design shop. She has loads of samples of different kinds, marble, Corian, solid wood, exotic wood panels. I have stacks of it that will take quite a while to go through. My slip fit boxes are from the sample door materials.
I got a couple hundred pounds of cast acrylic 1/4" sheets from a lighting company that couldn’t use these offcuts. It will last for quite a while.
I also have old while oak barn wood from when I took down a small shed on my farm. I’ll never get through that. And I have a buch of 5/4 white cedar that covered a house once upon a time. They added on and enclosed a exterior side. I have a big stack of this stuff. You can’t find wood this nice any more.
Way more material than I can ever use. Hence, my user name.
I just got a line on some free or pennies on the dollar old wood cigar boxes. A guy I know buys at storage auctions, and over the past two years, has amassed a collection of over 500 wood cigar boxes, that he is willing to trade to me for some stuff I have had for years and do not want.
I’m going to carve designs into them and start selling them at our local festivals.
My neighbor collects junk. He’s a disabled guy and can’t work (poor dude can barely walk) but he somehow manages to toss stuff in the back of his truck when he finds it on the side of the road. He gave me some polyethylene core aluminium clad pannels that he found. I’m guessing this stuff is used to make road signs or something - I really don’t know. Makes a great printer frame though and is way easier to cut on my MPCNC than the 1/4 inch aluminium that I was planning to use…
One project I would do with that is to make an ON AIR sign. My wife asked for one, to mount outside her office as a fun way of saying, don’t bother me right now, I’m working.
