What to do with saw dust?

[Anthony Whitesell]

I know that shovelling sawdust into a fire just doesn't work. Has anyone thought about trying to compress it and make homemade wood pellets? They might not be as good as the store bought ones, but free is free.

[Ben Martin]

Make a sawdust cannon like on Mythbusters!!!! :D:D

[Keith Christopher]

Excellent compost. depending on the species of course.

[Michael Heffernan]

I would be hesitant to burn sawdust or compost it, unless you cut only natural, unfinished wood. If you are like most of us, you cut various types of wood products; plywood, MDF, particle board, etc. I doubt you have more than one dust collector, so everything is mixed together. The glues and chemicals certainly can't be good for burning or for the garden.

[Bill Huber]

Excellent compost. depending on the species of course.


You sure don't want to do that around here, you would have so many termites you wouldn't know what to do...

[harry strasil]

people come get mine for animal bedding, no walnut tho, it will kill horses.

[Paul Atkins]

I looked into pellet making machines -expensive - for ones that work. I don't use anything except raw wood on my lathes and can create 60 - 80 gallons of shavings a day. Not every day though. Anyway I thought of a sawdust burner for heat, but haven't seen anything except huge industrial systems. Look up liquid bed. I found a system for cooking and heating in third world countries using a doughnut shaped 'prestolog' made by packing with a plunger in a mold. Nice system but not good for heating in closed space. There's gotta be a way, I agree.

[David DeCristoforo]

Get a coffee can and make a hole in the bottom the size of a paper towel tube. Stick the paper towel tube in the hole and pack sawdust around it until the can is full. Carefully slip the tube out and insert a twisted up piece of newspaper. Stick the whole thing in your wood stove and light the paper at the bottom. Make sure the can is on something (we used to weld little legs on the can to keep it up and inch or so from whatever it's sitting on) so that air can get under it. The sawdust will burn from the inside out until it's all gone. Fun to watch.

[Glen Butler]

Sawdust cannon gets my vote.

[Rod Sheridan]

I live in a large city and I put mine out as yard waste in those large kraft paper bags.

The city picks it up and composts it.

(That's after I have mulched all the flower beds).

Regards, Rod.

[Yitah Wu]

I pack it tightly into milk cartons and burn it in the fireplace

More recently, composting in the garden

[Mitchell Andrus]

I mix it in with my dog's food. The next day I've got something that burns quit nicely in the fireplace.

just checking
.

[Brian Tymchak]

I live in a large city and I put mine out as yard waste in those large kraft paper bags.

The city picks it up and composts it.

(That's after I have mulched all the flower beds).

Regards, Rod.


Me too. In fact, I just experimented with using the paper bag in place of the plastic bag on my DC. Worked! Here's the thread: http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=122859

[Mike Cutler]

I know that shovelling sawdust into a fire just doesn't work. Has anyone thought about trying to compress it and make homemade wood pellets? They might not be as good as the store bought ones, but free is free.

It's probably easier to compress into a brick shape, and it works very well. Unless you have tons of it, you'll have to make your own brick mold and use a 25-30 ton press of some type.
Google "Bio Bricks" and you'll see what I mean. It's large scale operation but could be scaled down easily. I use Bio Bricks to supplement the wood stove and start it quicker.

[Kevin Godshall]

I have a few families that are looking specifically for Red Oak sawdust for their blue berry plants.

I separate all the walnut and bag the rest of whatever into drum liners. Never an end to the chicken/pig/cow farmers around here that want it.

I see at TSC a 40 lb bag of shavings is going for between $5 and $7 dollars.

With the pellet stoves going in everywhere, farmers here are having trouble even getting sawdust or shavings. Local mill up the road put in a shaving mill and are now cutting trees for the sole purpose of making shavings. Selling em by the tractor trailer load....... and not keeping up.

[Bruce Volden]

I mix it in with my dog's food. The next day I've got something that burns quit nicely in the fireplace.

just checking
.

No pictures = it never happened!!!:D :D

Bruce

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

make your own paper

[Mike Cruz]

I second that! I did it and OMG, termites galore before I knew it! Don't use it as mulch or compost it. I throw mine in our manuer pile and it gets magically taken away...

[Matt Meiser]

I use mine as mulch around some trees that are a ways away from the shop and house, or I dump it on the trails we mow in the back part of our property.

Regarding walnut and killing horses--for a while, until I started doing the above I took it over to my neighbor who has 6 horses. I asked him about walnut and he said no worry. He said even if I took him a whole drum of walnut, by the time it was mixed with the truckload of sawdust he buys, it wouldn't phase them. These are harness-racing horses, so they obviously need to be at their peak.

[Keith Christopher]

I second that! I did it and OMG, termites galore before I knew it! Don't use it as mulch or compost it. I throw mine in our manuer pile and it gets magically taken away...

I'm not talking about a compost pile, but I have one of those drums that you rotate.

[Anthony Whitesell]

I was thinking of using a hydraulic ram inside a piece of pipe. They would come out as wood disks instead of wood pellets. If the ram had a 12" travel, cut a slot 5" long in the top of the pipe and 1/4 the way around for the dust to fall into and slot in the opposite end and side on the bottom for the disks to fall out of.

P.S. OK so things were a little slow at work.

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

If you are like most of us, you cut various types of wood products; plywood, MDF, particle board, etc.

Any thoughts on PVC dust, from Azek (and similair materials)?

[Sean Hoag]

I cut mostly mahogany and Western Red Cedar as of lately and they both seem to light up pretty good in my fire pit out back. I do have to keep turning the piles though otherwise the lack of fresh air makes it smolder. Larger quantities I just tag and bag for the regular garbage pick-ups.

[Mitchell Andrus]

No pictures = it never happened!!!:D :D

Bruce

I'll just keep you guessing.
.

[Joe Mioux]

I mix it in with my dog's food. The next day I've got something that burns quit nicely in the fireplace.

just checking
.

that was funny!

my wife asked why I was giggling, I read what you wrote, she said "i wonder what would happen if his wife fed it to him?"


joe

she meant the sawdust.

[fRED mCnEILL]

Well, if your daughter raised and trained horses and you had a barn with a chip shed you could just plumb the dust collector directly into the chip shed. But then you would need a daughter who raises horses and a barn and--and--


Fred Mc.

[David DeCristoforo]

"I pack it tightly into milk cartons and burn it in the fireplace"

Brilliant! Get's my vote for the best answer.... OK the cannon is a cool idea too but this one's... well... useful....

[Mike Cruz]

Uuuummmmmmmmm, Black Walnut dust is EXTREMELY toxic to horses. The dust is fatal when inhaled. Your neighbor has some screws loose (sorry to offend, but this is common knowledge...not that your neighbor has screws loose, but of Black Walnut's toxicity...).

I don't know how he has gotten this lucky this long if he has used it repeatedly. :eek:

And, no, I am not incinuating that you have any screws loose. I'm sure yours are nice and neat in jars on shelves right where they are supposed to be. ;)

[Mike Cruz]

Ahhhhh.....

[Mike Cruz]

Matt, also, you may want to be careful about putting fresh saw dust around trees. As the wood deteriates, it robs nitrogen from the soil. Over time, you could kill the trees. This is a major reason why mulch has to "cure" properly before use. "Green" mulch is not disirable. Would it hurt to do once? Probably not, I'm not sure, though. But repeated application could cause problems. Just a heads up.

[glenn bradley]

I live in the burbs. We have a green barrel for the fines and they like the larger chips in the recycling barrel.

[Scott Perkins47]

I mix sawdust with the used motor oil taken from my vehicles
in a wheel barrow and fill a 40 gal trash can with it.
During the winter I scoop some into 5 gal drywall mud buckets
and add to fire in wood stove with small shovel.
Works terrific and gets rid of oil and wood waste

[James White]

I once read on a gardening web site that hardwood mulch needs to be composted for 6 years. I don't know if it is true but I was shocked.

James

[David Keller NC]

I once read on a gardening web site that hardwood mulch needs to be composted for 6 years. I don't know if it is true but I was shocked.

James

Umm - no, not even close. Provided you're not piling it around your house (the termite issue), raw sawdust makes excellent ground cover for gardens to keep the weeds down and the moisture in the soil. I't strue that mixing in a lot of uncomposted sawdust/chpis/shavings directly into the soil will suck up a fair amount of free nitrogen as the wood decays, but that's very easily corrected by adding elcheapo 10-10-10 fertilizer at the time that you mix it in. Moreover, while the wood will take up nitrogen as it decays, that's returned back to the soil as decay proceeds.

I've done this for many years (mixed in sawdust and fertilizer into the garden soil, and used it as ground cover), and there are no issues with vegetables failing to grow or have a high yield. And after years of doing this, the soil is as black as coal and you'll sink up to your ankle if you step off the garden path. Typically, my squash plants grown in this soil are about waist-high, and I get several tens of pounds of squash per week out of 5 or 6 plants during the height of summer.