I’ve stated categorically before that there’s no such thing as scrap. Here’s proof.

Woodworkers tend to hoard favorite stock, using it only for special projects. I’m no different, and I have several like that in my lumber rack. But by far the oldest, continuously used piece of wood I own is a remnant – not scrap! – of a hefty zebrawood plank. If memory serves correctly, I got the board sometime in the mid ’90s, probably around 1994 or so.

I keep going back to it when I need something special, resawing and using a little bit of it, and then squirreling it away again. In planning a Christmas gift for my daughter, I knew immediately what wood I wanted to use and so I dug it out once again.

I’ve never actually counted the projects I’ve used this for, but I know I’ve made three boxes with it, used some thin strips for accents in a laminated workpiece for a couple other projects, turned probably a dozen pens, and some really tiny offcuts became a set of earrings once. That’s just off the top of my head; I’m sure there are many more.

After 25 years, that remnant measures 5" x 23" (ignoring the missing chunks), but I think it was originally a bit more than 7" wide and maybe a full six feet in length when I got it. So, I now have less than a third of what I started with. Even so, I think there’s still a lot of woodworking life left in this small treasure.