Shavings mill

[Bruno of NH]

Has anyone owned or ran one to make shavings to sell?
I was thinking of a small one to take debarked white pine to make horse shavings .
Any thoughts.
I can get all the 4ft white pine for free.

[Ron Wenrich]

I worked around a couple of them.  The one guy actually bailed his and those had to be dry shavings.  He did it with a series of heat light and it did it in a short amount of time.  Another guy used a clothes dryer to dry his until he built a rotating bin that used a salamander heater and removed the dirt.  Both mills used 4' bolts.  I've also seen ones that used 15' logs.

You can pretty much fill them up and let them operate on their own.  You just need a method of removing the shavings.  A small conveyor can handle the material.  I do know that dirt was a problem.  It will dull the knives rather quickly.  Also, the dirt will be in your product.

I would suggest you figure out how to dry the shavings.  A much better product.

[Mooseherder]

My lunchbox planer makes a lot of shavings.  Even small projects the bags pile up.
The side of my driveway recently from a small project.



 

[Southside]

My advice. Buy a kiln and a moulder first. You are a lumber producer, not a horse person servant.

My experience. Owned a Salsco, a home made machine that came out of Missouri, and we built one with 4 heads on it. Had a Verville 4 station bagger and a 60' triple pass dryer. Not to mention a ton of support equipment.

Green shavings freeze into clumps, they mold, and Princess won't like that. The only shavings market in the Northeast in summer is the show circuit and those are dry, bagged, delivered, and cut throat priced. So your equipment will sit unused for more than half the year. 

You think you have maintenance headaches now? You ain't seen nothing until you start dropping frozen, bark on, logs into a giant jointer. Knife grinding and replacement is a huge expense.

The only way you make money in shavings is if they are a true holon of your business.  IE, you got paid to produce them from lumber that you sold for a greater profit because it was value added.  The shavings in that case are true profit, any other way they are simply negative cash flow. 

Don't be fooled by the flashy ad videos that show mountains of perfect, curly shavings just rolling out of the machine.

Seriously, look at a moulder. 

[A-z farmer]

Bruno 
One of our butchers in Greenwich New York has a shaving mill I know he has a timberking bandmill But I forgot the name of his shaving mill.He grinds up pine trees into shaving for the local horse and beef farms .He does not dry it just straight from the mill into dump trucks .I will ask my son tomorrow what brand it is .

[mike_belben]

I would bag them up off a planer also and see that there are buyers first.  


Planer noodles and waste vegetable oil is the best stove starter ever.  Might try selling that to firewood customers.  5 gallon complementary buckets with a load?  

I use zero kindling.. Just 3 scoops of noodles inside a tunnel of full sized firewood, takes right off. 

[thecfarm]

I think he wants to make shavings for bedding?
I've only seen it done at a woods expo. Only stopped to see it work. I have no idea how it would work out.

[mike_belben]

Right but southside is saying that market might already be locked up. 

[Gearbox]

google Pine Product. they make shavings as well as using shavings from Potlatch stud mill.

[Peter Drouin]

Bruno,, We have two com Pine mills no far from you and Me that put out Pine shavings by the bales every day. What are you thinking?

[Bruno of NH]

I heard what 
I needed to hear.
I have 3 horse farm customers asking me about it.
I will wait till I get a planer and moulder and all ready make the shavings. 

[customsawyer]

I blow the shavings from my planers into a shipping container and sell them for 5 bucks a scoop in the skidsteer bucket. I can drive the skidsteer into the container and get the shavings out. I have a horse training place 2 miles from me that takes all the shavings I can make. I thought about selling to the public horse folks but they like to show up when I'm going to bed and only want one scoop. Thus not worth the hassle. I had hoped I could increase my sales by getting them in the gate. When they show up that late I'm not in the mood to show them around. They also only use them at certain times of the year and I'd be stuck with them the rest of the year.

[Davek603]

As Peter said you have big mill competition plus you have Trow's planer mill in Sunapee that sells his shavings as well by the truck load last I knew  

[moodnacreek]

Set up a circle mill and you will have lots of sawdust.

[Bruno of NH]

The circle mill is on my list to add to the band mill.

[moodnacreek]

The circle mill is on my list to add to the band mill.

I always thought about getting a portable bandsaw mill [used] and putting a flat conveyer belt under the head for a resaw.

[Crossroads]

I'm a the lead Millwright/ planer man at a CLT factory. On a good day we run 180,000 bd ft through my 3 planers. It's all clean kiln dried lumber and makes nice clean shavings. We do okay with it because it's a by product that we can sell. I think south side offered some pretty sound advice. 

[Bruno of NH]

Yes I'm waiting till I have a planer and moulder set up.
I'm also going to add a swing mill or Mahoe type mill.
I will sell the saw dust from that mill.

[trapper]

My stepson and my friend both use some of my bandsaw sawdust as oil dry After soaking up oil spills they throw it in their woodstove to dispose of it and help heat their shops.

[jay_d]

Its pretty big business if you are in an area that grows commercial poultry. My grandpa made a good living selling shaving by the spreader truck load for several years, and my uncle and cousin still do.

They have a mill that uses an old barko loader with a bucksaw, a live deck, and a single head planer with a conveyor that just drops them in another room of the barn. They load with a big wheel loader/backhoe. As far as i know everything about the planer mill itself is home made. 

[nativewolf]

I'm a the lead Millwright/ planer man at a CLT factory. On a good day we run 180,000 bd ft through my 3 planers. It's all clean kiln dried lumber and makes nice clean shavings. We do okay with it because it's a by product that we can sell. I think south side offered some pretty sound advice.

That's a pile of lumber.  180k?  on 3 planers?  Is that just 1 shift or 3?

[Ron Wenrich]

Its pretty big business if you are in an area that grows commercial poultry. My grandpa made a good living selling shaving by the spreader truck load for several years, and my uncle and cousin still do.

They have a mill that uses an old barko loader with a bucksaw, a live deck, and a single head planer with a conveyor that just drops them in another room of the barn. They load with a big wheel loader/backhoe. As far as i know everything about the planer mill itself is home made.

We had a poultry producer that had their own shaving mill.  We sold them softwood poletimber for shaving.  We called it chicken wood.  It was a good use for wood that should be thinned out of forests.  I think that company was sold to Tyson and they may have gotten out of that part of the business.  

[Crossroads]

I'm a the lead Millwright/ planer man at a CLT factory. On a good day we run 180,000 bd ft through my 3 planers. It's all clean kiln dried lumber and makes nice clean shavings. We do okay with it because it's a by product that we can sell. I think south side offered some pretty sound advice.

That's a pile of lumber.  180k?  on 3 planers?  Is that just 1 shift or 3?

That's 1 10 hr shift while we're making long length finger joint 2x6's that vary from 22-36' long. It's an interesting process, but actually slow compared to a lumber mill from the videos I've seen. I've never set foot in a lumber mill, my background is in the paper making industry up until 2 years ago when I took this job.