Waste Products - Sawdust and Flitches and slabs

[Westcoastct]

Sawdust...... what have you been able to do with it? anyone figured out how to turn a profit out of it? if so how? howmuch?

Flitches and off cuts? anything other then firewood? even firewood is a hard sell at times.....

Im trying to figure out ways I can deal with the waste that accumulates from sawmills. Also want to try and produce a profit if at all possible. we cut a lot of cedar and fir, so far I separate both types, and have built to sawdust storage bins out of concrete lock blocks (4500lb blocks) which I also plan to build a roof over to keep it dry. but for the life of me can not find a use.

[longtime lurker]

Is it sawdust or wood flour ie circular saws or bands? Different product with different markets... I've never had much trouble getting rid of circle sawdust with uses ranging from animal bedding to filler in blast holes.

Cut your downgrade out. I pay a guys wage every year out of the downgrade... stakes and landscaping timbers and other low grade rubbish. Other then tht maybe look at a gassifier, but you gotta have enough volume to support it.

[Crusarius]

Compost? Place I pass every day has a small wood rack on side of the road with 40 pound bags of compost. $4 per bag. the rack is always empty. Mix horse manure with the sawdust then load it in bags.

[Sixacresand]

 The best offer I got for slabs was from the local Forestry Service who will charge me $50 per hour to burn it   Funny they offer that, but Georgia law prohibits burning sawmill waste.   

[PAmizerman]

I've never sawn cedar or fir so I'm not sure if it is suitable for bedding. I saw mainly hemlock. The sawdust goes to horse owners for bedding. $25 a pickup load.

The slabs get bundled 4' wide 2' high 
$10 a bundle.

I never have enough sawdust. And now that it's cold out I only have a half dozen seasoned bundles left.



 

I also offer it cut up. 
Build yourself a rack to cut it up.
Makes it a lot easier and faster.


 

[moodnacreek]

In the 38 years I have been sawing the demand for wood has completely changed. A 'live' edge plank brought a scowl from the perspective customer. Horse people wanted fence boards and sawdust. Locust posts where in demand. All the slab wood found a wood stove.  Nowadays I have to dump the sawdust or give it away, burn the sticks and all the soft slabs.  Almost no demand for fence boards or posts.  But there is more $ in what I sell today and no $ in the waste , so the heart of the log has to profit enough to waste the outside.  The question that was asked cannot be answered because of all the life styles in different areas.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I fill in low spots on the place with my sawdust. No market I have found. I used to burn my scrap slabs and flitches but now I sell them dirt cheap to get rid of them ($10-$25 pick up or similar size trailer load & U-Load). If just a small pick up I'll generally charge about $10. Heavy loaded 5X8-6X10 trailer I may $25. Not profitable but somebody gets some use and I get rid of them.

[Mad Professor]

Sawdust makes good mulch and animal bedding.  The cedar sawdust is sold as kitty litter and it repels insects; there is a market for that if you bag it.  Must be people nearby with kittys?  Get some sacks with a cute kitten logo made up and market it.

Pieces with defects I cut into tomato stakes or stickers. 

Slabs/other waste get used as firewood but I cut almost all hardwood.  Edgings are great kindling, any campsites nearby?  Campers want to roast their marsh mellows.  How is supply of hardwoods where you are?  If not much, there should be a firewood market for cedar/fir.  People with OWB won't care if it's softwood as long as it's cheap.

[Haleiwa]

There is a Scandinavian practice of burying wood under topsoil and planting vegetables in it.  Supposedly the rotting wood provides nutrients and retains water for the roots.  Look up kugel garden.

[Bandmill Bandit]

The Burying practice is an ancient one BUT does burn nitrogen in large quantities in the first few years and sometime more depending on how small the trash has been reduced to.  

[offrink]

Depending on how much labor you want to put into it, sawdust blocks. Sawdust, shredded paper, and water mixed and then pressed into block form and dried. A 3"x5"x8" block is suppose to burn upto 20 minutes. 

[BrandonSchiller]

Posted my waste / barky slabs (Hemlock mostly) on Facebook marketplace and had about 6 people offer to take it all. $10 a pickup load. Sold it all in 3 days. As far of sawdust, I have a chicken coop so it all goes in there. Once the chickens "use" it, I compost it and throw it in the garden. 

[Bert]

In our local markets its not considered waste- the sawdust goes to cattle farms and the slabs go for home heating. Now if I could just get rid of that pesky dimensional lumber

[offrink]

Now if I can figure out to delete an accidental post!

[jmouton]

we have tried to sell our slab wood , everybody says they want it but they never show up, so i got tired of looking at it ,,, takes up alot of space ,  so i got 3  fire s going and kept feeding them with my excavator w/thumb,  took a couple of days ,  it s all gone, they were big fires ,,  i think airplanes were using them to land at detroit metro airport,   i gave everybody fair warning i was burning them and got a few takers, so from now on i am burning it all  so i can use the space for more logs or whatever i want,    slab wood is a p.i.t.a.         sawdust i just dump in the  open pastures  , nobody wants that either, wish i could burn that too ,,

                                                                                                                    jim

[FLPINERAT]

Who'll be the first to build a wood burning gasifier and run their mill on it??

[moodnacreek]

we have tried to sell our slab wood , everybody says they want it but they never show up, so i got tired of looking at it ,,, takes up alot of space ,  so i got 3  fire s going and kept feeding them with my excavator w/thumb,  took a couple of days ,  it s all gone, they were big fires ,,  i think airplanes were using them to land at detroit metro airport,   i gave everybody fair warning i was burning them and got a few takers, so from now on i am burning it all  so i can use the space for more logs or whatever i want,    slab wood is a p.i.t.a.         sawdust i just dump in the  open pastures  , nobody wants that either, wish i could burn that too ,,
I once bull dozed a big pile of 15" slabs and covered with dirt because no one showed up. If I put wood on the ground, guess who picks it up?      You can sell fire wood but you can't give it away!
                                                                                                                   jim

[moodnacreek]

Fuel prices have to be real high to do that.  I run on veg. oil about half the year [175 kw gen set] and when I'am making money that is really not worth it.

[WDH]

I sell slabs for $10 per pick-up load or for $20 for all you can load on a 16' trailer.  It generally all moves, but it can take some time.  There ain't no glaciation here. 

[Magicman]

When I am sawing for myself I do this:


 
Put the slab pile beside the street with my FREE WOOD sign.


 
This happens.


 
In one day the slab pile is gone and we are both happy.   ;D 

[WDH]

At least they did not take your sign. 

[Magicman]

Those slabs were from when I was sawing for the Cabin Addition

Several folks walked up to the sawmill to verify that they were actually free.  One guy came up crying and saying that I had no idea what they meant to him and his family.  'Bout had me crying.  Sometimes a little means a lot to someone that has nothing.

[longtime lurker]

Who'll be the first to build a wood burning gasifier and run their mill on it??

Power prices are stupid high here so I've crunched the numbers a few times. I'm either not big enough or too big. I don't have enough free manpower for a smaller manual setup, and don't have enough waste to justify a useful sized autonomous unit independent of the grid.
My waste stream is big enough to run around a 50kVa unit 24/7. I need 200kVa for startup loading and can run on around 120-150, so theoretically I can generate enough power in 24 hours to work an 8 hr day. But you can't store electricity so you end up selling to the grid at off peak rates and pulling it back at peak rates, and the saving isn't enough to make it worth the hastle.
From the pricing I've seen (albeit it may have changed in the time since I last looked) there's some good auto setups available turnkey in the 30-60kVa range... And then not much more until you get to 2500 kVa. I don't have time for another project and if I did I'd rather go fishing.
Now what I'd really be interested in is an alternator hooked up to a big Stirling engine. Wood fired (or solar) hot water with a thermostat and mixer would give a consistent speed to a Stirling, so you get away from the variables of direct heat given variable fuel calorifics

[Westcoastct]

Well yes I would have to agree its been hard to give this stuff away. although I found one guy who took the whole pile once he spent about 2 weeks making multiple loads each day. he was happy and jumped on it as fast as I could say free. Im liking the 4'x2' bundle because that little bit of money could go in a blade or beer jar.... assuming most times it would just be the latter of the two.


I have a bit of hardwood to saw here and there but really nothing of quantity to worry about mixing in here and there. I will check with some local farmers on but I think its a bit to fine for horses, but would be great for chickens and cats. if I put a 5 gallon bucket on my mill once it was full I could just dump it in a hopper with a bag underneath so it wouldn't be to time consuming. wheels are turning now.

My dad loves the slabs but I produce them at such a high rate he cant burn enough each year to really dent the pile. 

we do have some horses around so ive been thinking about adding some in to make a blend it would get rid of some maybe the sawdust from the floor that ends up having a few chunks in it like bark or some broken wood here and there and save the better cleaner sawdust for bagging. 

this has been a very constructive thread thank you guys. 

Ive had many ideas pop in to my head but they all seem to involve some big start up cost and then I say no.

that being said I did think about getting a chipper to run the slabs thru and make a wood chip mulch but again it requires a chipper and time to do it. I have a tree service friend who is going to bring over his chipper oneday and experiment with this. see if it is worth doing and how long it takes I imagine if it was all piled up and the chipper parked beside it that it wouldn't take all that long. and it would make nice ground cover for under the log decks to keep the chance of rocks and dirt away from the logs

[JBS 181]

I think alot depends on where you live. I have a rack I stack the thinner slabs in, band them up and getting $30 Dollars a bundle. Half a cord in the bundle. Take the thicker slabs, as I tend too slab heavy,and run those through a buzz saw. Getting around $ 135 a cord for those. Those slabs really help on my fuel and blade bill. Built a sawdust  stove one time out of a 55 and 30 gallon drum set inside it. Worked really slick biggest problem is you could not add too it while it was in oprration.

[WLC]

Slabs are given to a neighbor, used in the campfire here and even have one friend that gets slabs that I've sawn into firewood length for his daughter to paint on for crafts.  Sawdust all goes in the compost pile and eventually on the garden.

[Brucer]

I give my sawdust away. Customer has to load it. Common uses are:

• Soaking up fuel spills (local gas station).
• Mixing with toxic metal dust (local welding shop). They throw it on the floor after grinding certain alloys, then sweep it up. The moisture in the sawdust keeps the dust to a minimum.
• Traction under vehicle wheels on icy surfaces.
• Garden mulch to control weeds in paths. Has to be replaced each year, otherwise it turns into topsoil.

Slabs I bundle up and sell as firewood. Here's one of my racks, with a complete bundle to the left. I use a pair of 2700 lb. poly straps to keep the bundle tight and easy to handle. Customer buys it by the bundle.



A lot of customers will put ratchet straps around the bundle at 16" intervals so they can saw the entire bundle.



Then they cut part way through (between the straps), roll the bundle, and saw the rest of the way through, cinching the straps as they go. The short bundles can be rolled or lifted into a wood shed.



Bundles are a mix of slabs and edgings.

[Ianab]

Who'll be the first to build a wood burning gasifier and run their mill on it??

Could be done I'm sure...
But I'd like to see a "hybrid", with Lurker's Sterling engine, an electric car style battery pack, and then an electric mill (and accessories). 
That way the output from the wood burner need not match the load from the mill at any given time, and you have instant start. Run off the battery until the generator gets up to heat, And it's still generating when the mill is off for any period, and re-charging the battery. If you get slack and the fire burns down, you see the battery gauge dropping, and need to throw in some more wood. As long as you end the day with a mostly charged battery, the system is good to go again in the morning. 
The basic technology parts to do this exist, just not for a sawmill. A Nissan Leaf car has a 110hp electric motor, a 30kw/h battery, and the controls to make it work, in a sort of affordable compact car. Of course it probably cost Nissan a billion or so to develop, but if you can sell a million of them, you can make your investment  back. Markets not really there for a small sawmill, but I wonder if a "universal" power pack with the Sterling engine couldn't be a mass produced "Thing". It could integrate with solar / wind / micro-hydro / pedal power etc. 
If a "turnkey" box could be mass produced that did all that then it should appeal to the off-grid types etc. Even if the wind and sun is missing, you can throw in some wood and keep the lights on. 

[longtime lurker]

The issue with working Stirling's is size.

If you go online and do a search you can downloaded plans for a simple gasifier developed by FEMA following the oil crisis of the 70's  With pretty much stuff from the farm shed or hardware store you can convert your carbureted petrol car across to run on wood in a weekend. And if you run out of wood Thursday you turn a valve, adjust the carby back to regular settings, and feed it regular fuel out the has tank. They're compact, because all you are really doing is changing the type of fuel your regular internal combustion engine runs on.

Here ya dont even need to go searching for those plans - I got them on file already and will attach  :D


I made a tobacco tin Stirling when I was a kid. Hold it in your hand and it will run off the heat difference between hand and air temp. Way cool project for kids big and small. But a working Stirling is a different beast. A unit that will power your car is about car sized... Like a working steam engine basically, but without needing boiler steam with the risks that come with steam. But were talking long stroke pistons and big flywheel and... Big.

Great stationary engines but the size limits their application. I too think a hybrid Stirling is the best bet for sawmill power, but the size will limit uptake to industrial type fixed installations... Too bulky for the backyard. That limited application issue has  been what stalled development of new Stirling's for the last 100 years.

[Sixacresand]

There is a Scandinavian practice of burying wood under topsoil and planting vegetables in it.  Supposedly the rotting wood provides nutrients and retains water for the roots.  Look up kugel garden.

I did not know that.  

[charles mann]

What about those electric pellet grills for the hardwood sawyers? The way i understood the guys from treager, the dust is dampened with water, just enough to slightly bind the dust together, then augured into an extrusion tube, where a cylinder ram is pushed against the dust and heat is applied to the tube, "cooking" the dust just long enough to caramelize the outside. 

[Magicman]

Manufacturing pellets is not for the faint at heart, and sawdust is a poor product to make them from.  Papermill quality chips are used which first go through a hammermill.  They do not add heat but rather have to get rid of the excess heat that is generated from the dies which compress and extrude the pellets.  Most "successful" pellet mills are government subsidized without which they would not be so successful. 

[Southside]

Most "successful" pellet mills are government subsidized without which they would not be so successful. 

Spot on - and most all of them eventually go "BOOM" at least once from a combustible dust issue.  

[WV Sawmiller]

   I posted this question a while back and after the responses came in I decided pellet mills were not worth the expense and effort.
Anybody making wood pellets? in Firewood and Wood Heating

[charles mann]

MM, i was just stating what the treager guy here in the portland, or area told me when he came to the hanger to check on the grills and see if we needed anything else. 

[rjwoelk]

Picked up a load of hardwood out of midwest. They tried to make pellets from their production. Shut it down . Could not make it work financially.  Use the chips and sawdust to heat water for the kilns.
The moisture has to be just right. The chips a certain size.
Out of
India has one that makes a log. 

[Magicman]

I understand Charles.  There are many heaters and other appliances that require a supply of pellets and it would be to Treager and other manufacturer's advantage for the pellet supply to be readily available and uninterrupted. 

Since this topic is searching for ideas to use our sawmill "Waste Products" my response was directed toward the fact that reliable pellet manufacture uses papermill grade chips and not sawdust.  Since I have personally toured a pellet plant I do have some firsthand knowledge regarding the pitfalls of the pellet making process.  I left the plant very unimpressed because it was obvious that it was a money pit for subsidized $$$.  I saw too many people doing nothing and too much high dollar equipment sitting idle.  :-\

[longtime lurker]

The problem with pellets is that overall they're a dumb idea.... you're burning coal (or at least using electricity) to make compressed wood you so you can put it in a fire and burn it. From start to finish that is a completely inefficient process, and just a silly idea really. ;D

[moodnacreek]

Have herd of burning chips from a bottom unloading silo stoked into burner. they say the chips on the bottom can be dry enough.  Anyone know about this?

[longtime lurker]

Have a look at the website for Borealis Wood Power. They do turnkey CHP setups, from memory they use the exhaust heat from the power plant to cycle through the chip storage hopper for drying the fuel.

[Brad_bb]

I looked into a pellet mill in the past.  It's just not economical with the upfront capitol cost, and the labor to produce vs the volume of dust from a single woodmizer.  

The only efficient thing I've found to do with the dust is burn it.  I burn dust, bark and planer chips in my vortex burn barrels.  We burn almost every mill day.  Many times fill both barrels two or three times in our typical 6-7 hour day.  Bark takes up a lot of room.  With double vortex barrels though, it burns each load fast.  The thing I lament is how much heat is going to waste each time.  If only we could capture that heat for the shop or house....  the problem is the inconsistency of the material.  If you ran a water line through the barrels, I'm not sure how long it would last.  The barrels can get really hot fast, and then cool down pretty quickly.  

We place slabs on the saw bucks each day and cut them up into firewood length.  We move the bucks as the pile grows behind them.  My off bearer takes the firewood for his garage man cave wood stove and keeps it 80 degrees in there every night all winter.  I've stopped there and it's like a sauna.t

[tmbrcruiser]

I've figured out the simple plan for me, give it away! I sold a few loads of sawdust and the buyer complained it was to fine. The other problem is separating walnut and cherry dust, can't let that go near horses. Slabs and edging boards pile up and I cut thin first cuts so not very good as firewood. 

So I purchase a 16' dump trailer and haul the slabs and dust to a horizontal hammer grinder to be made into mulch. It takes two seconds to grind a week of slabs from me but they don't mind a little free wood. Simple and fast for me.

[MikeON]

I use the sawdust and planer chips for fuel for making maple syrup.

[ellmoe]

I looked into a pellet mill in the past.  It's just now economical with the upfront capitol cost, and the labor to produce vs the volume of dust from a single woodmizer.  

Did you mean , "It's just NOT economical , ( instead of NOW )? If so, I concur.

[Brad_bb]

Correct, NOT economical given the cost and labor.  Same goes for paper/sawdust fire starter logs.  Also, Woodmizer dust is no good for animal bedding because it's too fine.  Like us, breathing the fine dust is not good for the animals.  Half or more of my dust is walnut also, and that will kill animals.

[Brian C.]

We keep trying for ways to get rid of the waste. Sawdust isn't a real problem as we are behind a horse barn and just dump the dust in the manure pile. But slabs flitches and edgings are. Jim just burned 4 piles of them. They were 16 ft long by 8 ft deep and 10 to 12 ft high. We advertised on Craig's list, face book  and word of mouth. Take all you want $20. You load and cut. People don't want to work. It would be a good workout. I guess they don't have time. Probably at the Gym.

[rjwoelk]

 

 

 

[dgdrls]

 lots of folks around here use slabs for
shop stoves and the likes.  Challenge becomes "customers" who come and offer
to take it for zero dollars and when you push back and say "offer me something"
they get offended.

For me, its been a challenge for certain and the less of a recognized "firewood" species it is the bigger the challenge.

D

[Bandmill Bandit]

I get that kind of brainless rhetoric some time too. I generally just Ask if the person can read? That is enough of an embarrassment that they usually just leave.

Had one guy come back a few times and tell me "See if I dont clean it up you have too"! I said NO! If and when I need it cleaned up I call the boy scouts. They clean it up AND bundle and sell for their camping fund and I generally have to hold material back for them".

Stupid is not something that I am willing to fix! But I do keep duct tape handy in case the noise gets too loud!      

[New sawyer]

I burn my slabs in my outside wood boiler . The saw dust gets spread in the field. I like the slabs . I cut them 4' long and they fit nicely in the boiler.

[longtime lurker]

One of the things you got to watch for with all this - and this is just a general observation - is that you need to be careful that you aren't spending $2 to make $1. I've seen it happen, lots of times.

Do your sums always with it.... as soon as you start installing equipment to process or value add it, or spend time handling it, or cart it away for someone else to handle it.... well all those things cost money. Sometimes the cheapest thing to do is drop a match in it and cut your losses. Thats why it's called "waste". There are exceptions but be very careful about any value adding to waste because mostly it is low margin products that need big volumes to pay. Every year I look at spending money to install a chipper, and instead I take the same amount of money and buy more logs. I know which one is a more profitable venture.

Just adding another $0.02 worth to the topic.

[Bandmill Bandit]

I borrowed a friends 2 year old Vermeer chipper for a day last fall. He wanted to do some minor additions/mods to the feed hopper and I am good fabricator and my little lady wanted 12 -15 yds of chips for mulch so we came to a deal. Took about 5 hours to do the chipping by myself and about 4 hours to do the mods he wanted so it was a pretty fair trade that way BUT 5 hours of fuel on that thing was over 8 gallons and it takes a LOT of flitchs and slabs to make 15yds of mulch. I did NOT lose money but I sure as hell didn't make any.

A day of sawing lumber would have been a $1000 in my jeans and the boy scouts would have got a lot more fire wood with zero cost/clean up to me. I could have had the chips delivered for $150 for a 15 yd load and charged the $500 we agreed the fabrication work was worth and spent 5 hours on a Sunday fishing with my grandson or the like.

Was looking at a chipper BEFORE that experience. Haven't look since!
 

[moodnacreek]

Back in the eighties , at the trade shows you would get hounded to buy a tub grinder. Same might be said for the larger firewood processors.    On the edge of the city a guy with a large, growing pile of wood he got paid to cut, would be your competition .  A greenhorn might think he could buy the machine and the wood to feed it.

[rjwoelk]

Bandit i was looking at chipper as well
But i think i will forget about it. Bundle up slabs and sell them cheep rnough to get them gone.

[Crusarius]

Right now I am just cutting my slabs up and using them for my own firewood. Hopefully I never have to buy firewood again. but it all depends on what I end up cutting.

[Cedarman]

Biochar is a very salable product.  Have any of you put a pencil to see if there is any money to be made? And what scale would it take to be profitable?

[Leigh Family Farm]

that being said I did think about getting a chipper to run the slabs thru and make a wood chip mulch but again it requires a chipper and time to do it. I have a tree service friend who is going to bring over his chipper one day and experiment with this. see if it is worth doing and how long it takes I imagine if it was all piled up and the chipper parked beside it that it wouldn't take all that long. and it would make nice ground cover for under the log decks to keep the chance of rocks and dirt away from the logs

This was my first thought as well: borrow or rent a chipper one day to see if it was profitable. After reading Bandit's post, I am reconsidering. It seems the only profitable way to get a chipper is by bartering and then its a break even. 

Slabs I bundle up and sell as firewood. Here's one of my racks, with a complete bundle to the left. I use a pair of 2700 lb. poly straps to keep the bundle tight and easy to handle. Customer buys it by the bundle.

@Brucer Thats a nice bundler. Did you build that yourself? 

[alan gage]

Interesting thread. As I began milling this summer I'm starting to accumulate a slab pile. Was thinking of bundling and selling it but firewood isn't a real big deal around here. I wonder if a good use for my slabs would be to trade them for logs. Sometimes I see people with nice logs but they just want firewood out of it. I could offer them slab wood in trade.

Alan

[Sixacresand]

There is a Scandinavian practice of burying wood under topsoil and planting vegetables in it.  Supposedly the rotting wood provides nutrients and retains water for the roots.  Look up kugel garden.

I did not know that.  

It seems that pine scraps are not good for the soil and the Krugel method. 

[Crusarius]

Alan that could actually work out ok. That would cut most of their labor out of it.

[YellowHammer]

I used to try to sell the sawdust and also the slabs and KD edgings and scraps. No more, wasn't worth my time. Now I use them as a purchasing perk.  If a customer buys $20 worth of wood from us they can take all the scraps, slabs and sawdust they want for free. They can use it for stove wood, firewood, pen turning blanks, whatever. Thing is nobody ever only buys $20 worth of furniture grade wood so getting " free" bulk firewood motivates them to shop with us when their firewood pile gets low, buy some nice wood and leave with a truck or trailer full of firewood or sawdust.  The KD edgings make great kindling, also.
We don't get rid of all our waste that way but in the winter people line up to the slab pile to fill their truck.  Not so much during the summer.
One interesting note is that Hardwood sawdust is very acidic and will nuke the soil it is put on. So instead of it being a waste stream, we spread it out on our field and woods roads to keep vegetation from growing as a natural herbicide or mulch.  

Once the sawdust is burned in a firepit it turns alkaline and all the minerals get concentrated. So spreading the ashes on the pasture or lawn is one one of the best things to do for the soil, and it will really make a pasture green up.

[Brucer]

Bruce, thats a nice bundler. Did you build that yourself?

Yes. Here's  a link to the thread from 6 years ago where I described the design and construction process. Link

[Stephen1]

Brucer I lke your metal racks, I am working with wooden ones now, and they do not hold up. 
I saw the wood in my racks to 20" lengths, then load them on skids with uprights, then I shrinkwrap to move the skids. If the skids are full, like now, I have discovered that I can only lift half the bundleafter straping with plastic strapping. and then I pile those bundles, waiting till next year to saw and fill the skids. 
We are using the wood to fire the evapourator for maple syrup. Since I saw a mixture of wood as long as it is dry it burns great, softwood means we just fill the firebox more. 

[doc henderson]

This is small scale.  I make fire starters from my planer and jointer chips.  We use a wood stove in the house and shop.  We go through about 4 cords a season.  We (by word of mouth) get partial used up candles.  I get bulk cupcake papers.  I have a double boiler and a hot plate, as well as my own (not my wife's pampered chef) cupcake tins from wally world.  I bring home boxes from work with lids that held reams of paper.  I have Christmas yarn from when my kids were little that I dip in hot wax and cut 1 inch wicks.  I fill papers with chips, pour wax over and after a few minutes, put in a wick.  let it cool for 5 minutes and then put in the box.  I made dividers out of cardboard so i can stack in layers and get a bout 250 fire starters per case.  I try to have 6 cases on hand and put a dozen or so into decorative tins for gifts, and by the case for my brother in-law in Scots Bluff, Ne. they burn with a 2 inch by 10 inch flame and get even stubborn wood going early in the morning.

[WLC]

doc, that's a neat idea.  Ever think about doing it for some side income and selling them?  

[doc henderson]

 

 

[doc henderson]

As a gift, I only give a dozen or so.  The make the hearth area smell nice due to the left over scent from the candles.  I do add some scent as well.  My brother in law uses the most other than me, and brings me all their left over candles in blue bunny ice cream buckets.   The scouts do an aviary in the old part of town so now the wax is nearly free.  This day in age, if someone thought it was a candle and burned a house down, I would prob. be liable.  I gave some one year at work and sure enough, due to the wick and the smell, someone sat it on a wooden mantle and lit it.  She got it carried to the sink.  I also worry the old folks (older than me) will think they are high fiber (and they are)  cupcakes (which they are not).  Thanks for the compliment. it would be easy for anyone with a woodworking habit surrounded by a few women, who like candles and the sensi stuff to source their own.  You are welcome to use the idea.  They are easy to light with a lighter.  Even better is to use liquid glycerine and potasium permanganate  to make them spontaneously combust.  check you tube! :christmas:

[LeeB]

If you have a candle factory anywhere near you, they often have waste wax for dirt cheap. 

[alanh]

My wife had a candle business for about 10 years, she made the same firestarters, actually did pretty well with them,  here retail customers would keep a box next to the cash register, people would grab a few at check out, still pretty tough to get rid of a ton of sawdust/shavings...

[Cedarman]

We sell about 10,000 # of cedar sawdust that is less than 25 mesh to a company that uses it in incense sticks or candles.  Not sure which.

[curved-wood]

 <

 Here is a rack that I used many years for cutting the small edgings. The X are spaced 16'' apart. I put the blue rope, that comes from used hay bailing rope...free, before putting the wood in the rack. The chain saw has to be hold low to avoid kicking that is  more perpendicular to the 2x2 then at the horizontal. After tied up, the last cuttings were used to wedge the bundles tight. We fill it in as we were sawing and was cut and tied when the employee had nothing to do , which happens more often that I wishes . The red boards are just screwed and needed to be change once in a while because of chain saw overcuts. Not great great money but for the small edgings that is the best profitable system that I used. Attach bundles commands a better price and clean the space.

[mike_belben]

I processed waste vegetable oil for truck fuel and found that lots of it was too dirty for economical processing so the settlings and layer just above it became a real disposal problem. As the scale went up into the hundreds then several thousand gallons, the problem got pretty big.

A cabinet shop was dumpstering vacuum bagged KD sawdust.  I found that a bucket of sawdust would absorb half a bucket of oil slop and the mix was great at starting the stove.  I began giving it away to woodburners and all loved it.  No more paper or kindling, just a few scoops and a second with the mini torch and youre off to the races.  Then one year i was out of money and unprepared for winter firewood wise.  I was shoveling veggie dust into the stove to get by.  Modified the stove with some baffling and discovered i could get more heat with much less effort by burning this stuff, but it took a reload every hour in that small stove.  

So i built a hopper with an auger and a variable speed gear drive from dumpster diving.  turned a water heater and some stainless 4" sch 40 into a rocket stove for this fuel, fed by the hopper.  Itll run 900-1400F in the burner tube and only 250f up the stack with the water heater body at a consistent 500F just like a pellet stove.  Adjust the feed rate up or down to change the output temp.  Draft is dictated by the combustion rate itself, no door, no damper and no ash either, just run and fill.  

I have a large stainless water coil that fits over the stove perfectly and think someday i will try to make steam spin a little DC fanwheel to charge batteries.  The condensing side will reclaim heat [and process water] for domestic hot water heating.  


Anyway, the point was to turn routine waste into routine savings.  I enjoy the tinkering and thinkering of it.  Not really about making money but i think if youre spending time and money just to get rid of something that you could potentially incorporate into reducing your expenses then its worth the initial effort to create that process.  A sawmill buying 3phase power forever and struggling to get rid of sawdust when it could invest in creating 3phase power FROM its sawdust stream..  That sorta stuff turns my gears. 

[pwrwagontom]

Great thread! Sounds like everyone has the same problem that I do.
I've given away hardwood slabs as firewood, usually chip a few yards of softwood slabs each spring to make mulch for the flower gardens.  Burning ends up being more of a chore than it is worth for me.
End up dumping the sawdust in the woods, unfortunately I haven't found a use for it other than spreading it on the ground with a york rake.

[Tin Horse]

I've got lots of slab wood in piles. I separate the hard and soft wood. Can't find the time to deal with any of it. I've given away some soft wood. At some point I'd like to make a system like I've seen on here. Some people barely say "thanks".
They don't get to come back.

[pineywoods]

I must be livin right. I have a blower on my mill,blows the sawdust into a big pile behind the mill shed. Last week, a neighbor came by and asked I would mind if he hauled away some sawdust to use in his garden. Told him I'd be happy if he took it ALL. He came back with his tractor with a front end loader and a big dump trailer. Already hauled off 3 loads. Last load, he says OH I just bought a chipper. How about the edgings and slabs in the burn pile..Oh YEAH ;D

[mike_belben]

Hes gonna need a boatload of grass clippings and manure to break all that carbon down. 

[rjwoelk]

Mike i had about 1500 cubic ft of saw chips from the firewood processor. Mixed in 20+ cord of manure about the same in sod. Cooked it for 3 months. Smells like good garden soil.

[69bronco]

Been using sawdust and chips in the garden for years. As long as you don't bury your plants in green stuff it works great, I use the fresh for between the rows and walkways. After it sits for the season it gets tilled in and cover cropped.

[mike_belben]

 woodchips are real handy in a garden. I cover all my soil to prevent weeds and keep the sun from taking moisture out of the dirt. works great for that.  

It also promotes upward root growth instead of downward. I put chips all around the stem of my tomato plants and obviously water there.  In a short time ill see the fine white root hairs coming up to the surface between the air spaces in the chip bed. Every few weeks i put a few handfulls of fresh compost around each stem, cap it in chips again and soak it down to wash the compost nutrients down into the mix.  I tend to see an immediate boost in the plants and roots at the surface again a week later.  My compost has quite a bit of bloodmeal and the chips dissolve quickly around the plant base because of it, the nitrogen at work on the carbon.


I use hardwood milling sawdust as the primary carbon in hot compost batches all summer.  Grass, pokeweed and table scraps are the other component.  Takes about 3 weeks to get this.  Doesnt pay me any money directly but we eat good.

[btulloh]

Getting that in 3 weeks is some pretty good cookin'.  Looks good.  How big are your piles? What kind of temps are you getting in the pile?  Is it hot enough to render poke berries harmless or are you just getting ahead of the berries?

[Crusarius]

I have friends with horses. I keep contemplating clearing a section of woods so I can make a long spot to dump the manure and then dump sawdust on it and keep flipping it throughout the year. Then sell very fertile soil in the spring.

Really wonder how much work vs return there would be on it. at a minimum it be real nice to replace the clay in my yard with good stuff. That grass will grow in and water will shed.

[mike_belben]

That particular handful was screened out of a batch at 12 or 13 days but is likely only sawdust that has turned. Its great for seed starting. The bigger stalky greens just never come thru the 1" screen until theyre broken down.  I carry that last clumpy blob over to innoculate the next batch faster.

I turn almost daily in sunny weather to get batches made fast.  Im on sandy clay that cant be used so i can only expand as quick as i can make dirt.  Temps like 135-150F and probably not sterilizing any seeds but with 2" mulch cap it never matters, i have no weed issues at all. Late blight on cucurbits was a different story last season.









I lasagna layer green and brown in the box for about a week then flip the pile from left bay to right bay.  I put a screen over a tote on the right to get fine starter soil out of the mix as needed.  The size is a little small for really high temps.