I have a dust collection system with a cyclone attached to a 30 gallon drum. I have to empty it every so often and have just been throwing it in the garbage. A friend told me about some videos on YouTube where sawdust is mixed with paper and water to make a slurry of paper pulp and sawdust. Various videos show some easily made presses to compress the slurry into bricks. Has any of you done this? 

Edited November 17, 20178 yr by Ron Dudelston
tags added

If you are going to make bricks to burn why not try this?  Making the bricks takes some time.

 

 

Edited November 11, 20178 yr by HandyDan

I'm surprised Mathias didn't have a gear driven conveyor to move the sawdust into the stove. 

My sawdust feeds the desert. 

I've composted true "dust" (shavings like off a planer are harder to use since they don't digest as well) when I was using a shop vac for control.  Now that I have a DC, the larger volume of material is harder to compost at a gulp.  If I took a bit out at a time and mixed it in, it would work.  If I had that kind of patience, ....  I'd be somebody else.

Around me the farmers buy it (very expensive I'm told) for their livestock feeding operations. There are always animals that get culled, or die from other causes. The larger operations have a building where these animals are laid on the floor and covered with sawdust. 6 weeks later there is no dead animal, just some ripe sawdust that gets scattered on the fields (grows mighty tall corn). Of course this doesn't help guys like us out, since they buy the sawdust from mills in 20 yard trucks. Me, I have been sending it to the landfill (regrettably) but with out last move I'll be piling at the base of some of the Arborvitae tress we have surrounding the place.

I tried this a couple years ago.  It is a lot of work.  I tried it with paper from my shredder, and planer shavings.  I made a press out of scrap schedule 40 pvc with holes drilled into it, and used a 6 ton bottle jack I had on hand.  I made pucks to get them to dry faster.  They all fell apart as they dried.  My 2nd batch, I added some all purpose flour as a binding agent.  They stayed together, and when I lit them up, they smoldered for about 15 minutes each.  I concluded it wasn't worth the effort.  I like the above solution.  I may have to try that in my wood stove this winter.  Leaving it in the paper bags/boxes looks like a reasonable solution. 

use to turn mine into pellets for pellet stoves for everybody's home heating...

2 hours ago, Snailman said:

I tried this a couple years ago.  It is a lot of work.  I tried it with paper from my shredder, and planer shavings.  I made a press out of scrap schedule 40 pvc with holes drilled into it, and used a 6 ton bottle jack I had on hand.  I made pucks to get them to dry faster.  They all fell apart as they dried.  My 2nd batch, I added some all purpose flour as a binding agent.  They stayed together, and when I lit them up, they smoldered for about 15 minutes each.  I concluded it wasn't worth the effort.  I like the above solution.  I may have to try that in my wood stove this winter.  Leaving it in the paper bags/boxes looks like a reasonable solution. 

I forgot to add, that what I did find effective, was to mix the shavings with paraffin  wax and made fire starters.  I melted a couple pounds of wax at a time in an old electric dutch oven, and added enough shavings to get them moist.  I used a muffin tin for a form, and bought the paraffin in 10 lbs blocks online.  Those worked real well. 

The Russians found a good use for sawdust. They add it to the bread dough!

John

3 hours ago, Stick486 said:

use to turn mine into pellets for pellet stoves for everybody's home heating...

 

collect sawdust...

feed it through a magnetized grate to remove metal..

sift to remove chips and chunks..

send sifted sawdust to to the mixer...

send chips and chunks to the grinder..

re-sift grindings...

send sifted sawdust to to the mixer...

raise MC of sawdust in mixer till it just clumps/binds to it's self..

send dampened sawdust to the extruder/pelletizer...

pelletize...

send pellets to the drying room..

empty pellets into a large container...

sell pellets, cheap, to ever needs/wants them...

customer bags/boxes/containerizes their own...

 

magnetized grate came from a grain mill's scrap pile...

sifter was a home made vibratory type...

the original mixer was a salvaged cement mixer which was replaced w/ a mortar mixer...

the grinder was from the meat packing industry..

the pelletizer was a found on the net - used and abused... cheap.. about 700P/HR...

drying room was a large closet w/ racks to hold the drying trays  and a dehumidifier...

drying trays were metal tube frames and hardware cloth...

So THAT's how you made your millions!

John

34 minutes ago, HARO50 said:

So THAT's how you made your millions!

John

 

yessir!!!

and millions and millions.......................... of pellets...

Edited November 11, 20178 yr by Stick486

sawdust gets tossed.  mistakes get tossed or burned.  projects that survive my hands get used or given away.

16 minutes ago, DAB said:

sawdust gets tossed.  mistakes get tossed or burned.  projects that survive my hands get used or given away.

Izzat a "circle of life" thing?!

I have a small block of "woods" in the back yard, a 1/4 acre with playground and picnic/firepit area.  I scatter my sawdust and shavings along the walking paths.  And burn the larger scraps in the firepit.

Cal

I give the dust that I collect in the DC to the local county waste transfer station. they use it to absorb fluids when they sweep the tipping floor. This way it gets repurposed and I get rid of it too. what I sweep up off the floor and larger stuff either goes into the wood stove in the winter or the fire pit in the summer.

 

I emptied the cyclone and dust collector last week.   Since it had a bit of walnut in it, I could not use it for horses or garden.   The garbage man will be surprised when he finds my 90 gal tote almost full of sawdust Tuesday.

Keith, most of my sawdust has been walnut. I've been scattering it around outbuildings and along fence lines. It does keep the vegetation down making mowing easier. 

 When my big shop vac gets about half full, I remove the dust bag and go to my latex paint storage area. There always seems to be  a can or 2 of half used latex paint. The recommended disposal of latex Is to mix it with sawdust. It absorbs the paint, hardens quickly and is landfill safe.

19 minutes ago, Ron Altier said:

 When my big shop vac gets about half full, I remove the dust bag and go to my latex paint storage area. There always seems to be  a can or 2 of half used latex paint. The recommended disposal of latex Is to mix it with sawdust. It absorbs the paint, hardens quickly and is landfill safe.

And, much cheaper than kitty litter or cement, which I was advised to use.

Edited November 12, 20178 yr by Gene Howe