Lathe alarm

[Toolmaker51]

Ingenious as ever Marv,
I always use stiff cardboard trays which are easily replaceable and will squash if things over travel, also easy to pick up and dump the swarf. I find the best source of said cardboard is beer boxes which also makes good templates if needed.
I never throw anything away until I can think of no further use for it.

Well, immature and humdrum as it sounds, I get more cereal box cardboard than beer cartons. It is great tray stock, oh yes. Good pattern material and the thinnest variety is duck eggs for checking grinding wheel profiles, sharp corners in particular. Hold the bare [unprinted] face forward to direction of wheel. Inked side reduces the fuzzy resulting edge. If you clamp in a small vise to 'burn' the shape [kept steady], it's not bad at all against squares and radius gauges.
And avoid spendy buys like optical comparators.
BTW, the bags are great moving small parts around, not tearing as easily like sandwich bags. Sharp stuff will penetrate yet doesn't usually instigate rips. I keep one in the car for rain; good security for the cell phone. Another is combo raincoat-envelope for my ever present clipboard.