Briquette making

[jimmybigfoot]

Hi, does anyone know of a cheap solution to making briquettes from my old wood chip to heat the workshop. They all seem expensive but I was wondering if there is a cheaper alternative.
Jim

 

[dc_ni]

Although its not something I've had to build or use myself your question piqued my curiosity so I decided to have a look myself. I found the following videos after a little looking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lCvd4UkNuQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZvlBvc852E

hope this helps.

 

[dzj]

Sans glue, it requires a lot of pressure to form.
If using some kind of adhesive to hold the particles together, the resulting briquette isn't very dense and burns pretty quickly.

Not worth the effort on a small scale. Better to use a wood chip stove.

 

[siggy_7]

Having experimented with wet-formed briquettes, I just fill paper bags and cereal boxes with sawdust and shavings and load them on the stove, it's by far the quickest way unless you are spending a large sum on an industrial sized pressing machine. A chap on Matthias Wandel's site made one himself out of a hydraulic log splitter, but there was a lot of custom control gear and fabrication on that and it's definitely not a job for the uninitiated.

 

[dickm]

+1 for sticking the stuff in a box/bag/envelope and bunging it straight into the stove. And if you have a multi-fuel stove, I find it helps to mix in a shovelfull of chainsaw chippings with ever shovel full of anthracite or whatever used with wood.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Chippings and sawdust are all good for damping the stove down last thing at night - you can virtually smother it and leave it.