burning sawdust

[firewatcher]

I thought I read on here in one of these threads that you could place sawdust in a brown paperbag and burn it with no problems. I have like 2 inches of sawdust sitting around my table saw, thought I would scoop it up and burn it. Please advise...

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

sure, makes a great firestarter, im assuming that its clean wood that is not toxic, and im also assuming you would not just add a firebox full of paper bags and saw dust... it should be used as a firestarter are in small amounts, its not like your going to get any kind of burn times out of it, just a small blast of heat,.

 

[MALogger]

Hey why not compress the sawdust into firelogs. There is a company that does that.

http://www.bmfp.com/jumbologs_faq.asp

those are made out west from fir and pine sawdust imagine how good they would be made from hardwood sawdust!

Business idea maybe?

Craig

 

[Martin Strand III]

I saved some of the sawdust from my hickory floors and jarrah (E Australia, talk about 'hard'!) decking. I load up multiple small depression areas with old paraffin and the hardwood sawdust in a cheap muffin pan, heat for 20 or so minutes at 250* and, presto, small muffin sized firestarters emerge. They store easily in a box in the pantry.

They light quickly, burn intensely for about 5 minutes never yet failing to start the fire, are cost effective, contain less calories than cookies and make a mess in the kitchen.

Besides sawdust, I 'recycle' cardboard tubes inside empty TP and paper towel rolls the same way.

Aye,
Marty

 

[kevinmoelk]

Sawdust is great for soaking up oil and paint spills. I've spread sawdust over my lawn too with surprisingly good results.

-Kevin

 

[latichever]

And then there's the dedicated sawdust stove, easily made out of a paint can. Google "sawdust stove" and you will find an example like this:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Gree...December/How_To_Build_And_Use_A_Sawdust_Stove

There was also some company that manufactured sawdust stoves, but I'm not sure they're in business now, maybe because they're so easy to construct yourself.

 

[hstraf]

Hey why not compress the sawdust into firelogs. There is a company that does that.

http://www.bmfp.com/jumbologs_faq.asp

those are made out west from fir and pine sawdust imagine how good they would be made from hardwood sawdust!

Business idea maybe?

Craig

That's very interesting. I actually live not too far away from a little sawmill.... the owner has said I can take whatever sawdust I want. I wonder if there's a way to make these "jumbologs" myself?

 

[MALogger]

on that site they dry the sawdust to around 6% moisture content the it is compressed into the log form under extreme pressure.
1 log generates alot of btu's and burns for a long time. There is no adhesives of any kind added very similar to making wood pellets except it pressed into alot larger form.

I would think with a heavy cylinder and a 20 ton shop press you could fill the cylinder and press the crap out of it!

maybe? It would be interesting to try if one had the spare time!

Craig

 

[latichever]

Check this out, "Briquettes from Wood Residue," a 1964 paper from the Dept. of Agriculture.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplrn/fplrn075.pdf

And there's this high school project to produce a viable machine for $600. I don't know what happened to it:

http://web.mit.edu/inventeams/teams/2006/johnson.html

And here's a forum thread in which someone who has a 20 ton hydraulic press is wondering whether it will compress sawdust into logs. The whole thread is about home-made sawdust logs:

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/10/31/44342/588

 

[DavidV]

That might have been me. I have a small wood shop and end up with more sawdust and shavings than I know what to do with. I took a bunch of shavings from air dried walnut and bagged it and used it as firestarter. shavings from the planer and jointer work great. I have swept the floor once or twice when it had lots of shavings on it so I got some sawdust as well but I don't know how well it would work if it was just sawdust. If you didn't try to pack it I suspect it would be fine but packing it down tends to deprive it of air.
Handed the wife one of these bags tonight while I was trying to finish my Honeydo list. She got the fire going nicely.

David.