Sawdust

[gigglybug]

My friend who is a carpenter would like to be able to make his sawdust into pellets that he can burn to heat his home, does anyone on here know how he could do this?
He cant afford to buy one of the machines that do this, as they are about £4,000 and huge!

Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks
Amanda

[Odsox]

Tell him that I make briquettes with wood shavings/sawdust by wetting it with a weak mix of Unibond and filling old margarine containers.
It takes 3 or 4 days for it to dry out enough for you to be able to remove them.
It also helps to either line the containers with a piece of polythene or spray with a light oil (WD-40) before filling ... makes it a lot easier to remove !

[gigglybug]

Thats great! I will pass it on!

Thankyou

[Big Al]

Tell him that I make briquettes with wood shavings/sawdust by wetting it with a weak mix of Unibond and filling old margarine containers.
It takes 3 or 4 days for it to dry out enough for you to be able to remove them.
It also helps to either line the containers with a piece of polythene or spray with a light oil (WD-40) before filling ... makes it a lot easier to remove !

Never thought of sawdust........ thanks for the tip...

[cuttertree]

I have a load of wood shavings which i want to use for the wood burners. I was considering using the weak unibond idea and then compressing the wood shavings in blocks with my paper logs compression tool. Anyone tried this? Also using a weak glue, will it damage the burners? Not keen on having to spend hours cleaning residue off the glass.

[Odsox]

I have a load of wood shavings which i want to use for the wood burners. I was considering using the weak unibond idea and then compressing the wood shavings in blocks with my paper logs compression tool. Anyone tried this? Also using a weak glue, will it damage the burners? Not keen on having to spend hours cleaning residue off the glass.

Yes, I do this all the time ... see my post above.
I can confirm that it doesn't black the glass on my wood burner.
However, as I had loads of sawdust/shavings to do and Unibond ain't cheap, I now use a weak mixture of cement which also works very well and is a hellovva lot cheaper, and that doesn't soot up the glass either.
I use a couple of handfuls of cement to half a bucket of water .... give a good stir and fill with shavings. Then press into margarine containers and leave in the (at the moment) unused greenhouse to dry for a couple of weeks.
Never used a compression tool but it sounds like it ought to work better than my idea

[MuddyWitch]

Good old flour & water paste works too, but you need to burn the logs quite soon after they've dried or the go mouldy. Not a commercial option I fear.

MW

[theabsinthefairy]

Try stuffing toilet roll tubes with sawdust and then burning - they burn slow and hot and keep the fire in overnight in our Rayburn.

I also loosely stuff old cardboard boxes from cereal packets etc, with the horrid glossy magazine paper that all of our supermarket fliers come printed on, and then shovel a bit of sawdust on top to start the fires with.

But I love sawdust and use it in all sorts of things - for example:-

as part of my potting compost
chicken shed flooring
quail cage flooring
raked over the muddy driveway to help dry it out and make a lovely powdery soil in the summer that I shovel off onto my flower beds
as the base around the killing tree to collect blood and then into my potting compost
around the base of trees in autumn to create a lovely leafy mould base - don't know why but something my uncle always did and he grew the best pears and apples

[snapdragon]

seems to me that a pelletiser is a bit like a mincing machine - I wonder if mashing the sawdust with a little water and forcing it though a mincer would work - should come out pelletIsh