Sawdust as a fuel?

Don't know what you're turning, Andy, but I burn my lathe shavings in a standard stove. If you're talking sawdust-size pieces you're certainly not turning the way I do.

No, but

Some potters need it for pit-firing and I also using mine as mulch in the flower beds

G'day Andy, My Father mentioned sawdust stoves, during the war and early 50's. I'm not sure how they were built but he swore by the amount of heat produced. From what I can gather they were made from a drum, with a steel pipe in the centre. The pipe was full of holes. Apparently the sawdust was packed in the larger drum around the smaller pipe and lite from inside the pipe. He said that a 12 gal. drum used to burn all night and keep a Nissan hut with 12 beds in very cosy. You may be able to find some info in the library or on the net. All the best John

...you mean over-kiln?

Beehive burners were used a lot in Western Canada. Still see them today

-- very few though.

In the late 50's, I worked in a picture frame factory on Chicago's North Side. The wood frame operaion generated tons of pine and hardwoodsawdust. One of the owners got tired of paying to have it removed. He bought a commercial sausage-stuffing machine and stuffed the casings with the sawdust. The resulting pellets were fed into a furnace and used to make steam for heating the factory.

Ted

Be carefull with FINE sawdust. It can explose when it is in high concentration in the air or when you pour it in the fire !

It is not a joke.

S.B.

"Andy McArdle" a écrit dans le message de news:

That is what I thought, same danger as grain elevators. Grain dust is a huge fire hazard.

"SBO" wrote in news:bZLre.4074$ snipped-for-privacy@news20.bellglobal.com:

So roll it up in a large newspaper 'doobie', and put that in the stove.

The way I do it. Though when disposing of sawdust, it helps to have a good bed of coals to keep unburned portions from becoming one with the ashes.

A very good point. I'm aware of it, it's one of the reasons I was after plans rather than simply trying to prototype my own, but it certainly doesn't hurt to have it clearly stated for anyone else who might be following this thread.

FWIW, a very nice bloke e-mailed me a URL

He has my heartfelt thanks, although I won't mention his name as he didn't post in this thread and I'll assume that's for a reason.

This burner is similar to bee-hive kilns in that it's loaded once, lit and then left alone until it burns out. As you can't just top it up like a pot-belly the dust problem's avoided. It looks to be a lovely bit of kit and I can't wait to get started on buil;ding it as winter's just starting here!

- Andy.

So _that's_ why Northern Tools list sausage machines in their catalogue, along with chainsaws and workshop kit !

Do you know if this works for plain sawdust ? I'd heard that some of these pelletisers added wax too, as a binder.