Hi Marilyn ~ I am a compulsive keeper and it seems that doing so at
my bench is a very good thing, And, like you know, those bits of
sandpaper are as irksome as they are handy.
When tracking them becomes too much of an exercise in minutia, I put
the little bits and scraps into a ziploc plastic container that I
keep at the back of my sweeps drawer.
While I use folded and rolled pieces, I also contact cement some
strips to soft wooden sticks, such as frozen treats handles, or tongue
depressors, coffee stirrers, and strong toothpicks. I wrap fat and
thick ends of chopsticks with it, cementing some of them… some held
with a rubber band.
It’s fun to see how much mileage I can get out of one piece of
sandpaper, sawblade fragment, bit, bur or charcoal block.
marilyn - every now & then i pick up one of those old wire record
racks - probably for 45 records - and folded or smaller pieces of
sandpaper fit into those close wire loops, in decreasing or
increasing grit number for easier finding. it has been so long
since new sandpaper has been bought and yet the need for more racks
to hold it grows that it's possible the dust, loose pearls, small
rocks, and tools with unknown applications that probably belonged
to quasimodo have been multiplying after dark.
there is a big grin on my face from reading this. I do devise ways
of organizing things but I hardly ever sort through them after that.
I probably have whole populations of gremlins living amidst my
piles. I do use a tray thing meant to contain ins and outs. I have
whole sheets of sandpapers in this. It’s the bits and pieces that
are scattered that don’t seem able to contain. That and of course,
bits of this and that.