Alternative to briquette press

[Albert Lee]

Ever since I bought my AD951 I have an issue the disposal of my wood shavings.

Obviously I dont want to pay for someone to come and take it away when I can sell them - I only used kiln dried, untreated timber.

however the speed to sell them is a lot slower than the production speed of the shavings - I make 250 litres(slight more than a standard oil drum) of shavings in 30 minutes when I am in thickness/planning mode.

A briquette press seems to be a logical answer but to buy from my machine dealer, I am looking at $30,000 USD delivered for a Felder unit.

To import a new Italian briquette press its about 9,000 Euro + shipping + custom clearance + duty(tax)

Is there any other ways around this?

[Peter Christensen]

Search Alibaba for one and see if one from there would be less costly. They had lots in all sizes when I was seeing what a small one cost.

[johnny means]

We fill a dump trailer and go dump it at a mulching facility when it gets full. They let us dump for free, in exchange we make sure our waste is clean and free of metal.

[Yonak Hawkins]

Albert, I don't know to whom you sell your shavings but, I couldn't possibly keep up with the number of people who want to buy my shavings. I sell to horse owners and certify that there are no walnut shavings within. Actually, I sell to only one owner of a horse farm of 40 head who has made me promise I will sell to no one else so that he can have a steady supply. I have friends, neighbors and other horse owners asking for my shavings all the time. I sell them for enough to cover the bags I put them in and a little bit for handling ($1.00 / 44 gal. bag). Have you put an ad on Craig's List ?

[William Hodge]

Given the value of wood shavings, I do better selling what I'm making in my shop. I have a shavings trailer that collects from the jointer, planer, shaper, tenoner, table saws, and rip saw. The central vac and fine dust go into a separate cyclone and 55 gallon drum. The resulting shavings good enough for an organic meat farmer. He comes and takes the trailer away, winter and summer, for free. I don't waste time selling shavings.

In the winter I start fires in the masonry heater with a five gallon bucket of shavings, twice a day. That's 1700 gallons of shavings over a winter. I compact the shavings with a glove, probably the $3.00 kind from Home Depot.

[Art Mann]

Where I live, there are small sawmills and planer mills all over the place. Any one of these would be more than happy to give you all the shavings or sawdust you want for free. I couldn't imagine anyone paying for them. I guess that is the difference between my location and yours.

[Albert Lee]

Yonak, thats incredible, I have a bit of competition here for selling wood shavings, I have to encourage them by putting a line in my advertisement saying bring your own bag, any size of bag, only $10 a bag.

I guess low population is one of the reasons, I am in New Zealand. we dont have CL here. but we have something similar.

[Albert Lee]

I dont have the separating cyclone so everything is mixed, I dond mind to give them away, I used to give them away until a month ago, back then I didnt have any capacity to store them. I now put them in large covered waste bins so problem is resolved for now. but long term. would need something proper.

[Joe Calhoon]

I have a briquette machine. I installed it under our old Murphy Rodgers DC outside. It worked well for a while until a part came loose and ruined the cylinder. Not the mfgs fault, we should have kept it inside to keep an eye on things. We got it fixed and and at the same time upgraded our DC with a closed loop system to a 14 yard dump trailer and putting the briquetter inside with piping to switch back and fourth to the trailer in case one system went down. At the time we were a busy 4 man shop and would say the closed loop system was more cost effective than the briquitter. The briquettes burn nicely in wood stoves and heated my home for a while.


Locally we have high end horse people and old time ranchers. The horse people were always excited to get a load but never called back for more. They said ours was too dusty. Most likely from the wide belt. The ranchers though love it. I never charged anyone, just glad to get rid of it.


Lately a local Hydroponic farm has been requesting our waste and pay us for it as it’s a 30 mile drive. Our waste is all natural timber with no sheet goods and very desirable to them.
It’s and interesting operation. In simple terms they raise fish to provide fertilizer for growing greens without soil. They use the sawdust to grow mushrooms and this provides CO2 for the greens. They prefer hardwoods and I am thinking they could use briquettes just breaking them up for the growing. Easier for them to store and I would not have to deliver.
A few pictures from last week when I dumped.

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[Martin Wasner]

I looked into a grinder and briquetter for my shop. I kinda figured I'd have $100k into it by the time I got done if I went new. I still might get a grinder, but the briquetter is out

Do what joe is doing. Airlock it into a transfer fan, then blow it into a dumpster or dump trailer.

A couple of weeks ago there was a gooseneck, tandem axle, dual wheel dump trailer for sale on Craigslist. 8' wide, 8' tall, 22' long box. I'm kicking myself for not buying it. ~50 yards of capacity, and my quick and dirty weight of sawdust google search told me it and my pickup would be about maxed out for weight when it was full. Would've been perfect for sawdust, just enclose the top and cut some holes to let the air in and out. I bet I could go almost three month before dumping it too.


Joe, do you get much leaking out of your setup? Any issues with water soaking in and being a pain?

[Brian Holcombe]

I give mine away, often to Horse farmers or chicken farmers. My waste is mainly shavings and very little sawdust.

Horse farmers seem quite particular about this stuff. There is one literally neighboring my place and they won’t accept it at all and prefer to use hay.

[Joe Calhoon]

I looked into a grinder and briquetter for my shop. I kinda figured I'd have $100k into it by the time I got done if I went new. I still might get a grinder, but the briquetter is out

Do what joe is doing. Airlock it into a transfer fan, then blow it into a dumpster or dump trailer.

A couple of weeks ago there was a gooseneck, tandem axle, dual wheel dump trailer for sale on Craigslist. 8' wide, 8' tall, 22' long box. I'm kicking myself for not buying it. ~50 yards of capacity, and my quick and dirty weight of sawdust google search told me it and my pickup would be about maxed out for weight when it was full. Would've been perfect for sawdust, just enclose the top and cut some holes to let the air in and out. I bet I could go almost three month before dumping it too.


Joe, do you get much leaking out of your setup? Any issues with water soaking in and being a pain?

Martin,
tandem would be ideal. I am kicking myself for going single axel. I did a poor job of engineering this was greedy with the box size not taking into account the weight of sawdust. I have had some hilarious and sometimes dangerous adventures dumping this at the local ranches that are usually on a slope. The one that sticks out is dumping on a slight hill with snow on the ground in my old half ton Chevy. Parking brake on, in gear but I forgot that it sometimes lifted the back end of the truck a foot off the ground with a full load. I’m standing there holding the remote button dumping, the back end comes up and the whole works starts sliding down the hill towards a new fancy barn. Luckily as it was dumping the back end came down and stopped just short of the barn. I felt pretty foolish!

I have a few leaks outside as my plywood box ages but not serious. Inside I have Norfab pipe and it is clean. Water getting in can be a problem as it will freeze in winter and cause the load to stick while dumping.

Best setup is tandem axel with a steel box. That is how the local cabinet door mfg does it.