# Sawdust/Shavings disposal



## PokerG (3 Oct 2007)

I have the Scheapach dust extractor for my big tools, how do you guys get rid of the sawdust and shavings?

I guess some of you burn the shavings in the workshop heater, some of you sell the shavings to pet stores/horse owners, and some of you just bag them and stuff them in landfill. (Only option for the fine stuff I believe)

I am about to produce a rather large amount of oak shavings (mostly from my planar/thicknesser for now) and was wondering how to get rid of it? I already have 3 plastic bags full and I am running out of room in the shed!

With bin collections once every fortnight is my only solution to bag it all up and take it to the dump every now and then?

G


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## PokerG (3 Oct 2007)

Just to reply to my own question, can I compress them into wood blocks without mixing any chemicals in there, and burn them in the wood burner in the house?

G.


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## Woodmagnet (3 Oct 2007)

Not sure about compressing it G but allotment owners/gardeners might use it for
putting around plants, as slugs hate the stuff. :wink:


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## Kane (3 Oct 2007)

Depending on the wood use it for smoking meat/fish


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## Stu in Tokyo (3 Oct 2007)

The priest at my local Shinto Shrine takes it for his compost, he has 5 big composts set up, mainly leaves from the grounds of the shrine, and the wood shavings, sawdust help put some air into the compost, as the leaves all just compact down, so he loves to get my sawdust/planer shavings.

Tour of the shrine *here*

Cheers!


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## Waka (3 Oct 2007)

Mine goes to a chap that keeps horeses.


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## PowerTool (3 Oct 2007)

My local "household waste recycling centre" has a skip for recycling timber - they accept sawdust/woodshavings,as long as it's clean (no bark,and no other material in it)

Andrew


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## devonwoody (3 Oct 2007)

Waka":1o4vh5xs said:


> Mine goes to a chap that keeps horeses.



Thats strange some timber dust is carcogenic?


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## Bean (3 Oct 2007)

You can compress them into pellets for fuel, burn well on household fires, but for that you will need a press and a mould, expensive unless that is your business. There may be someone near who makes wooden pellets who may take the waste from you.
Try your local scouts, I burn most of my waste at the scout hut when we have fires. Other than that it is my own fire at home or the compost and some of the other method mentioned earlier apart from the Shinto Temple, our village doesnt have one


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## Waka (3 Oct 2007)

devonwoody":2bpth9qt said:


> Waka":2bpth9qt said:
> 
> 
> > Mine goes to a chap that keeps horeses.
> ...



I think he uses it for bedding in the wnter.


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## motownmartin (3 Oct 2007)

I've managed to compost mine, I mix it wiyh the grass cuttings and prevents the compost going all slimey. I don't think thats going to happen through the winter with no grass cuttings.


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## devonwoody (3 Oct 2007)

Isn't the practice of using it has compost likely to create a dry rot situation in some instances (or even wet rot)?

I read a gardening tome once that advised against this practice.


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## NickWelford (3 Oct 2007)

Those composters should bear in mind that walnut shavings (there may be others) is a natural herbicide ......


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## motownmartin (3 Oct 2007)

devonwoody":1zydb956 said:


> Isn't the practice of using it has compost likely to create a dry rot situation in some instances (or even wet rot)?
> 
> I read a gardening tome once that advised against this practice.


I'mnot sure john, it's only about 10% - 20% of the actual compost.

Will this harm growing vegetables :?:


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## NickWelford (3 Oct 2007)

Notwithstanding my comment above, I have known people with heavy clay soils dig in shavings directly in order to lighten the soil and improve drainage. (Obviously not walnut shavings though :wink: )


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## Gill (3 Oct 2007)

I'd love to buya Bradley smoker. However, the cost of the wood pellets they use discourages me. If anyone does know how to make pellets for them from shavings, I'd be _very _interested.

Gill


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## Nick W (3 Oct 2007)

Currently I have a big wheely bin which my local waste contractor empties, adding my sawdust and offcuts to thier ginormous composting plant. However they are starting to get a bit antsy about my irregular habits (sometimes it takes me 2 months to fill the bin, sometimes 2 days). So I have been wondering about getting a briquetter for my sawdust. 

However the machines seem to start at £5k plus, and be capable of processing 30Kg per hour both of which are too much for me. Does anyone know of smaller machines, perhaps even DIY plans for a small unit? Or have I spotted a business opportunity?


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## NickWelford (3 Oct 2007)

In my long ago youth, there was a character in a comic called, I think, Wilson, who made briquettes from sawdust, coaldust and cement in a railway arch somewhere. I believe he was also a world class athlete, footballer and cricketer, although my memory may be playing tricks......


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## PokerG (3 Oct 2007)

Nick W:
If you do come up with a briquette solution then I would be your first customer. I was hunting around the web for a while and couldn't find anything other than an industrial size thing. There must be a market for a hobby workshop sized briquetter, even if its just hand operated.

Gary


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## Bean (3 Oct 2007)

Gary
you could make the briquette's with a simple and cheap workshop press and some simple tooling. The down side would be that it will be time consuming to do and very uneconomic if tried to do this commercially. But for your own use ...... well that would be up to you.

In terms of the press I would imagine that the tonnage would be quite high to compress the shavings, once compressed I expect that a stripper :shock: would be needed to remove the briquette from the mould, unless expensive split tooling was purchased. 

Nice to try though, i will see what develops this afternoon


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## tim (3 Oct 2007)

Waka":2ds5veb3 said:


> Mine goes to a chap that keeps horeses.



Bear in mind that Walnut is properly poisonous to horses. 

Cheers

Tim


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## j (3 Oct 2007)

I'm not sure what's involved in actually binding the bricks together, is it just pressure or is there some glue aswell.

Some kind of solid fram and a car jack should work nicely as the basis of one of these machines. It would be interesting to see details of any experiments people conduct.

For the amount of dust/shavings I produce, I find them helpful in getting the BBQ started, and the rest gets spread on the garden and dug in.


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## ByronBlack (3 Oct 2007)

I give them to SWMBO for drying bulbs, compost and lining plant pots to keep slugs at bay and to help with frost.

The rest just get tipped at the dump once a month. However, I think we should all give them to our local Shinto Temple! That is some seriously good Karma!

The only thing I have near my is one of those new nigerian evangelical 'churches' in an old commercial building, I don't think they would need any of my sawdust, but I could always ask, they seem to really want me to go to their church, I get their leaflets at least 4 times a week


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## dennyk (3 Oct 2007)

Hi Nick.

If my memory serves me well wilson was a welder and a runner 

the comic I think was called either the ROVER or the HOTSPUR, in the 1940's it was, those were the days of a blissful childhood, apart the bombing of Liverpool in WW2


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## NickWelford (3 Oct 2007)

Must have been a later edition - perhaps when the Hotspur was relaunched in the mid 60's - I didn't get comics before about '65. Hell, I wasn't born in the 40's!
I distinctly remember someone in there making briquettes in a railway arch somewhere......


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## DaveL (3 Oct 2007)

As I have said when this question has come up before, I use sawdust and shavings as fuel for the wood burner. I never throw them away. Shavings are good for lighting the fire. 
I have fitted a long handle to the shovel for loading them into the stove, the technique is to place them in, not toss or throw them, this stops the problem of flash back with fine dust. It is still not a totally clean load process and I have the stove on paving slabs which get swept after each reload, probably not clean enough for use in the house.
I have heard of people packing cardboard tubes and boxes which are then burnt on the fire, makes the handling neater.


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## Nick W (3 Oct 2007)

j":1n479pdf said:


> I'm not sure what's involved in actually binding the bricks together, is it just pressure or is there some glue aswell.



No extra glue is needed. The increased pressure causes the lignin within the wood to 'melt' and bond the stuff together. What I am not sure about is if pressure alone is enough (and how much pressure is enough), or whether the heat caused by compressing the shavings at a high enough rate comes into the equation too. 

Hmmmm, time for some research/experiments. Don't hold your breath though - I don't have that much free time, I waste too much of it here...


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## staffie (4 Oct 2007)

Here's my 2 penny's worth.

Years ago there was a company that made a hand held compacter to make brick shapes out of wet newspaper to burn in stoves and open fires. I don't know what it is called but got one from a friend a while ago and I use this to make bricks out of the sawdust for burning.

I put a layer of newspaper in the bottom and sides, fill it with sawdust and chips. put the cover on and dip this in a water and flour solution for a few minutes then close the handle to compress it a bit and leave it to dry for a day in the workshop. The water and flour solution acts a bit like glue, just holding the outer 1/2 inch layer of the sawdust together. 

When I take the bricks out of the mould I store them on an open shelf in the workshop for a few weeks until they are dry. Sometimes you need to turn them over if its really damp outside. Even started putting spacers between the bricks to improve drying times.

There flour and water mixture does not seem affect the burning quality and does not create smells or smoke unless the brick is still damp.
Very slow going, one brick a day, it takes about 20 days to empty a bag of sawdust this way. 

have a great day

jock


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## Gill (4 Oct 2007)

Great post, Jock - very timely  !

I was cogitating on the possibilities of using a flour & water paste to bind shavings together and pressing them in a potato ricer. They might even come out at the correct size for a Bradley smoker.

Gill


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## Another Dave (4 Oct 2007)

j":29zvg4gs said:


> I'm not sure what's involved in actually binding the bricks together, is it just pressure or is there some glue aswell.
> 
> Some kind of solid fram and a car jack should work nicely as the basis of one of these machines. It would be interesting to see details of any experiments people conduct.



There was a local company producing the product "Blazers" which were "logs" created from woodchips from softwood waste in the form of chips and dust. They used a very expensive briquetting machine using a screw extruder and if I remember correctly the pressure applied was 300 tonnes! No additives were required. They sold out to Bryant & May the matchmakers.

Another company I have seen doing it on a huge scale is Binder Hols in the Austrian Tirol http://www1.binderholz.com/Wood_fuel_composites.4.0.html?&L=1 who provide superb guided tours of their ultra-modern sawmill and wood fuel plant.

So if you're ever in the area ......


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## Taffy Turner (4 Oct 2007)

Guys and Galls,

As the owner of 10 horses - I would VERY STRONGLY advise you not to use hardwood sawdust or shavings of any kind as bedding for horses or supply it for this use.

Horses have very large and very sensitive lungs - using hardwood sawdust as bedding is a bit like playing Russian Roulette - you may get away with it for a long time, but eventually you ARE going to get a problem. The problem is not so much one of toxicity (although this is a factor - horses do eat their bedding sometimes), the major risk is one of an allergic reaction. Two of ours had just such a reaction to a type of mould that sometimes occurs on grass under certain specific atmospheric conditions, which found it's way into their hay. They both very nearly died, and indeed would have had I not been fortunate enough to have been standing outside the stable and heard them both collapse within seconds of each other - it was only the very rapid arrival of the Vet with syringes full of steroids to stop the anaphalaxis (spelling??) that saved them. Finding out what had caused the allergic reaction was a long and very costly process. :roll: 

Our horses are bedded on sawdust, but it is softwood from a local fencing panel manufacturer, and so far has not caused a problem.

Regards

Gary


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## Roy Clarke (4 Oct 2007)

Gill":3u5qyzkg said:


> Great post, Jock - very timely  !
> 
> I was cogitating on the possibilities of using a flour & water paste to bind shavings together and pressing them in a potato ricer. They might even come out at the correct size for a Bradley smoker.
> 
> Gill



This is very nearly a starch paste, or wall paper paste. It takes so much energy to dry the mixture that it's not worth the effort, unless you live in Africa.


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## Gill (4 Oct 2007)

Am I to assume you've tried this, Roy? Do you have any alternative suggestions?

Gill


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## Bart (5 Oct 2007)

Waka":35gdh7vf said:


> Mine goes to a chap that keeps horeses.



Make sure you never give him any walnut shavings they are poison to horses.


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