Find the Right Plywood Offcut Instantly by Labeling It Before It Goes in the Rack

The Problem

Offcuts accumulate faster than any other material in a shop. A rack of sheet goods ends up holding a dozen partial pieces, all standing on edge, all showing you nothing but a thickness.

So every time you need a piece, you pull sheets out one at a time, lay them down, run a tape over them, and put back the ones that don't work. Four or five minutes of handling heavy, awkward material to answer a question you already knew the answer to when you made the cut.

The edge is the one part of a stored sheet you can actually see, and on a bare offcut it tells you a thickness and nothing else.

The Technique

Label the offcut at the saw, while the numbers are still in front of you.

1. As soon as a cut leaves you with a usable remnant, measure it — both dimensions, to the nearest half or quarter inch.
2. Write it on the edge in marker, along with the thickness and what the material is. Travis's format is exactly that: 21 x 40.5, 3/4, black — width by length, thickness, then the material and finish (three-quarter black melamine).
3. Slide it into the rack, labeled edge out.

Now the rack is a list. You read down the edges of the pieces, find the one that's big enough, and pull that one out.