Advice on useful blank sizes

[JoeWilson]

Hi all, I'm processing some wood from my property - Russian olive, boxelder, Siberian elm, and often have offcuts of walnut, curly maple, etc from larger projects that I work on.

Outside of pen and bowl blanks, does anyone have suggestions for common blank sizes that are useful? Are there typical sizes for knife scales, duck calls, and these sorts of things? Are there any other common objects I should be thinking about - spoons, bottle stoppers, etc?

Often times when I'm milling a smaller log I cut it for pen blanks but I always end up with some odd-sized pieces that I'm sure could be better used for other projects, I just don't have a good idea of what the most useful sizes are.

Thanks - and sorry if this is a common question covered somewhere else.

 

[hokie]

This post on woodbarter.com might be helpful... https://woodbarter.com/threads/list-of-nominal-sizes-needed-for-blanks.9499/

 

[Woodchipper]

Blanks are nominally 3/4x3/4x5. This is what I use for DIY blanks. Small odd pieces can be used for segmenting. Are you considering using larger pieces for bowls, plarres, etc.? Sounds like a good ix of wood species.

 

[JoeWilson]

This post on woodbarter.com might be helpful... https://woodbarter.com/threads/list-of-nominal-sizes-needed-for-blanks.9499/

Thank you so much, this is exactly what I was looking for. This is very helpful.

 

[Edgar]

I either start out with bowl or spindle blanks. For bowls, I make the blanks as large as possible & cut whatever is leftover into pen blanks.

For spindles, I generally cut as many 3x3 or 2x2 as I can, then move to 1.5x1.5 and cut the rest into pen blanks.

I don't do peppermills & such, so I don't usually have a need for 4x4 spindles unless someone wants me to cut some of those for them.