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View Full Version : How big is your sawdust pile?



Kent Adams
10-10-2015, 10:03 AM
Check this one out near me. He's giving it away for free, but not sure what you could do with it that would be cost effective.

323090

Julie Moriarty
10-10-2015, 11:27 AM
Looks like what I had left after my first woodworking project.

Bert Kemp
10-10-2015, 4:51 PM
I use to work at a sawmill and people came in daily to buy the sawdust. They used it for many things but I guess the most use was stalls in a horse or cow barns. If theres a person around with horses or cows they might be interested in that pile

Frederick Skelly
10-10-2015, 8:54 PM
You could use some of it (maybe a pickup load) in your compost pile.

Brian Elfert
10-11-2015, 11:06 AM
Obviously, if there was a profitable use for it the owner wouldn't be trying to get rid of it. Maybe they already sell it and have more than they can sell?

In Minnesota sawdust is often burned on-site in boilers to heat buildings. Not so much need for that in North Carolina. Andersen Windows used to dump truckloads of wood cutoffs at Boy Scout camps to get rid of the wood, but I don't know that they are doing that so much now with their Fibrex windows that use the sawdust as part of the window frame.

Gary Yoder
10-11-2015, 4:42 PM
We make lots of sawdust at work every day, and it goes in dump trailers and taken to local dairy farms. All shavings and bigger wood scraps go to an electric power plant.

Bill Neely
10-12-2015, 4:28 AM
I don't know how big my pile is - I need to sweep the floor. :)

I worked in plywood and hardboard plants. We bought sawdust and shavings for the hardboard, several chip trucks a day. We had a truck dump - chained the rig to a lift, hoisted it almost straight up, dumped it and shook that bad boy. The piles were enormous, way bigger than the picture above. We burned the fine stuff off our 4 head Timesavers in the power plant.

Allan Speers
10-12-2015, 4:48 AM
Check this one out near me. He's giving it away for free, but not sure what you could do with it that would be cost effective.

323090


A good source for home-made MDF?

That pile would make a whole LOTTA' shop jigs!

Justin Ludwig
10-12-2015, 7:42 AM
A couple trash bags, some triple 13 fertilizer, lye, and water and you'll have yourself some compost in a month.

Duane Meadows
10-12-2015, 7:58 AM
A couple trash bags, some triple 13 fertilizer, lye, and water and you'll have yourself some compost in a month.

Doesn't triple 13 fertilizer kinda defeat the reason most folks use compost in the first place(it's normally organic)?

Brian Ashton
10-13-2015, 3:06 AM
Years ago I used to have my shop on a farm. When doing a large turning production runs I could have a pile out back of the shop every few days that was 6' high and 8'. When the pile got to that size, at the end of the day I'd light a small fire and take the coals and bury them in the centre of the pile and go home, you couldn't even see the smoke. By the next morning there would be nothing left. Even if it was a very rainy day I could burn the whole pile away.

I had to take down a few trees on a property I had that was situated in the middle of a fairly dense subdivision... I used to bring the sawdust home and kept feeding a smouldering fire for about 3 weeks to get rid of all the brush and logs. No one ever knew, the smoke off it was barely a trickle.

It's amazing how much material can be consumed by a smouldering fire.

Ian Moone
10-13-2015, 11:15 PM
http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/96ba4a8071e54c2eb0358c5fd481d675/compressed-wood-chip-and-sawdust-pellets-in-a-log-basket-ready-to-c5w107.jpg

http://bayhayandfeed.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/feedstore-044-300x225.jpg

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Sawdust-2.jpg

http://i01.i.aliimg.com/photo/v1/1827149321/Metal_sawdust_briquette_compress_machine_SBJ_200.j pg

My daughter manages a couple gas stations & they sell these man made compressed sawdust 'fire logs' by the bag in winter time for people with slow combustion wood stoves/heaters.

They get ~ $17 for a 35 pound bag of compressed sawdust 'logs'.

That pile of sawdust alone, would probably pay for the machinery, to turn it into a profitable "sideline" such that getting rid of it in future is no issue!.

Preferably put it all up into a sawdust cyclone / hopper arrangement, to feed the plant efficiently labor wise tho!.

One mans trash is another mans treasure!.

Justin Ludwig
10-14-2015, 7:45 AM
Doesn't triple 13 fertilizer kinda defeat the reason most folks use compost in the first place(it's normally organic)?

It's for making a quick compost in 1 month in a trash bag. Doesn't really defeat the purpose, just a lazy man's way to get a decent bag of compost without breaking the bank or waiting 6 months and having to turn a pile with a pitch fork.

http://extension.illinois.edu/tog/compost.cfm Is where I read it.