Sawdust

While cleaning up the shop today, I had a bunch of time to think. (Sweeping requires very little mental activity.) So, while shoveling pilefuls of saw dust into a bucket, I started to wonder about uses for it.

Could the sawdust be glued and pressed to make particle board? It's got irregular shapes, and it's not all the same species. Here's a get rich slowly scheme... Drive to neighborhood shops and collect the sawdust from them. Then make boards. I know I had at least a 1x12x3' worth of sawdust under the saw. It only took 4 months.

About that press... Most people have something that weighs a couple tons in their own driveway. Maybe a car could be used to run over the boards a couple times to pack it nice and tight. (Or make a really heavy man hopping mad?)

How about using it for fire starting? I know it won't burn well by itself (the top layer burns, but the bottom layer gets choked out.) A little sawdust, some alcohol, and some pressure, and you've got a free fire starter right?

Well at least it's something to think about next time you're sweeping up the shop.

Happy sawdust making,

Puckdropper

Reply to
Puckdropper
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Start to grow mushrooms. About any hardwood is suitabe and that way you can eat your waste.

seismo malm

Reply to
Seismo R. Malm

I use it for the occasional accident while changing the oil. The rest goes to a guy I know who does auto repair work in his garage.

Reply to
Limp Arbor

I am not a pest control expert but was told that saw dust attracts bugs and insects. They eat the fungus that grows on the saw dust.

I know from experience that cockroaches like saw dust. At one time I would not bother to clean up the saw dust every time I used the tools. It accumulated and I got a significant cockroach problem in the shop. I cleaned up the saw dust and the cockroaches left. I have kept the shop clean since then.

Reply to
Keith Nuttle

Exactly the basic stuff used to maufacture charcoal briquets, Add a little glue and coal dust for color. Mold it, dry it, bag it, and ship it. Bob-tx

Reply to
Bob-tx

For making fire starters you mix it with paraffin wax. Fill a muffin pan with the mixture and let it set, or do it in muffin papers.

Bill

Reply to
BillGill

Or cardboard egg cartons...

Reply to
Dave Balderstone

Or pound a wax coated milk carton full of saw dust. Makes for an excellent firelog.

Reply to
jim

We looked into using sawdust, especially planer chips for mulch a year or so ago. Several extension services were not big on sawdust because it doesn't provide much soil nutrition as it breaks down. It also tends to attract termites. However, they did suggest trowing an inch or two between layers in a compost bin. It would add bulk and absorb some of the nutrients from the surrounding compost matter during decomposition.

RonB

Reply to
RonB

We looked into using sawdust, especially planer chips for mulch a year or so ago. Several extension services were not big on sawdust because it doesn't provide much soil nutrition as it breaks down. It also tends to attract termites. However, they did suggest trowing an inch or two between layers in a compost bin. It would add bulk and absorb some of the nutrients from the surrounding compost matter during decomposition.

RonB

I've read that you compost it until it turns grey, *then* add it to your garden, beds, whatever. Something about the initial decompostion process actually leaching the nutrients out of the soil if you don't compost it first?

jc

Reply to
Joe

Or do this with it.

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Reply to
basilisk

That only works if you use PVC for dust collection...

Reply to
Limp Arbor

Before the innovation of ground foam, dyed sawdust was used to mimic grass and weeds for model railroads and dioramas.

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

The sawdust leaches nitrogen until it is composted. So the idea is to add nitrogen.

I use it in a pee bucket in the shop. Put some sawdust at the bottom of the bucket, add a few handfuls every time you take a leak. Does not smell and urine adds nitrogen. Into the compost bin when it's full. This idea came from Doug Stowe here on the Wreck many years ago.

I also mix it with grass clippings in the compost bin. Works really well in creating nice compost rather than a smelly mat.

Luigi

Reply to
Luigi Zanasi

Caution: I would not consider ANY ideas that involve food if the "sawdust" contains ANY plywood, MDF or laminate residue. Moreover, I wouldn't burn such residue and I wouldn't place it anywhere near where children play. As you probably already know, it's not nice stuff.

Bill

Reply to
Bill

How many handfuls for number 2?

Reply to
-MIKE-

Can't you read?? PEE bucket.

What you want is a composting toilet.

Reply to
Luigi Zanasi

Eaaaeeew-ah. Do those exist?

Reply to
-MIKE-

Luigi, are you trying to resurrect the pee/sawdust/mulch thread from back in 1998? ;-)

Reply to
Nova

A pee bucket thread would be before I joined the group. I joined just before and read all about using dead cats as push sticks.

Either is better than a bunch of liberals whining how bad President Bush was.

Reply to
Keith Nuttle

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