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Mill waste to Product

Started by Woodpecker52, January 12, 2021, 02:56:23 PM

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Woodpecker52

I have been utilizing my mill waste piles to make split rail fences.  I just loaded them back on the mill and cut into 4 inch widths.  The pictures are of cypress but red and white oak and cedar work perfectly.  Just some food for thought, better than burning and I only have smaller sections and dust left over now.

 

 

 
Woodmizer LT-15, Ross Pony #1 planner, Ford 2600 tractor, Stihl chainsaws, Kubota rtv900 Kubota L3830F tractor

stavebuyer


Joe Hillmann

I was watching a video on log cabins a couple months ago and in the background they had a fens made of sawmill slabs the same way.  Ever since I saw that video I was thinking of trying the same thing.  The problem is all I have is pine and aspen.  I still may try it but don't expect it to last long.

Did you nail it together at all? 

Woodpecker52

I did not nail just lay in zig zag pattern and they will stay.  I put the bottom ends on a brick or cut up treated posts to get them off the ground about 4 inches.   I have some oak rails I split by hand and they have lasted over 25 years just get them off the ground contact. With this type fence you don't have to worry about posts and holes etc. They work but are really for looks.  I use pine also I just removed the bark on them. When they age they seem to hold up if off the ground for years.  I have used the hearts from dead pines in the woods and they will last a life time if off the ground.  I just love split rails, cades cove and Gatlinburg Tn. Shiloh, Smokey Mts. as a kid all memories with black bears, civil war cannons, deer grazing, and common theme in all Rail Fences.  I really did not realize how valuable my waste piles are, they are a real money maker. They also don't need to be uniform some waste is thicker on one end down to a thin end, some just thin, some thick, some with knots and holes, like I said it was waste but once it gets to 3 to 4 courses it works.
Woodmizer LT-15, Ross Pony #1 planner, Ford 2600 tractor, Stihl chainsaws, Kubota rtv900 Kubota L3830F tractor

Skip

Beautiful fence, but what's that white stuff on top of the rails ? You are in Miss. , right ? ??? ;)                                                                                        

Sixacresand

The fence looks better than a slab pile.  
"Sometimes you can make more hay with less equipment if you just use your head."  Tom, Forestry Forum.  Tenth year with a LT40 Woodmizer,

Woodpecker52

Yes the white stuff happened overnight, it was 1.5 inches and if it was not gone by the 2nd day the Gov'ner would have called out the national guard and declared a state of emergency.
:D
Woodmizer LT-15, Ross Pony #1 planner, Ford 2600 tractor, Stihl chainsaws, Kubota rtv900 Kubota L3830F tractor

longtime lurker

Okay so I gotta ask... you cut your slabs back to 4" width. Looking at them.... Why not another cut to get a 4x1 out of them?

I know nothing about your species etc, just know what I do here and I'm curious
The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

moodnacreek

It does seem funny to call fence rails mill waste.

Brad_bb

Yeah, I don't typically have waste slabs thick enough for that.  I'm too greedy with the wood getting more boards out.
Anything someone can design, I can sure figure out how to fix!
If I say it\\\\\\\'s going to take so long, multiply that by at least 3!

mike_belben

Praise The Lord

tule peak timber

Mike , do you have a pic of your press/machine for the bricks ? WOC
persistence personified - never let up , never let down

Woodpecker52

Cypress has a lot of log taper especially the lowest log, also they have a lot of bend, hollow, holes etc.  I have tried and tried but I find that I can only make boards based on the small end of a log.  I find the product I get off a decent waste piece is about what a board would bring so I defer to the waste equation.  I also make barn log look doors and rustic log looking siding with the flatter ones about 6 inch min. I also like to cut boards from a squared cant and find that to try to squeeze every board from the log is sometimes not worth the effort.  Live edge I absolutely hate. at a minimum I want to cut through the bark only 4 times on a log.
Woodmizer LT-15, Ross Pony #1 planner, Ford 2600 tractor, Stihl chainsaws, Kubota rtv900 Kubota L3830F tractor

mike_belben

CrapWiz,  its not my product but its a pretty simple press to make if you want me to sketch one up.  




I use sawdust for garden compost and as stove starter mixed with waste vegetable oil.  I have a rocket stove with an electric feed hopper for burning it full time that might be going back into service soon too.  I dont make enough sawdust for my own needs. 
Praise The Lord

Magicman

Quote from: Woodpecker52 on January 15, 2021, 10:12:41 AMI have tried and tried but I find that I can only make boards based on the small end of a log. 
That is exactly my experience with sawing Cypress.  You get what the log gives you and the rest is waste.  There is very little return trying to get short boards from the butt flair 
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

tule peak timber

Quote from: mike_belben on January 15, 2021, 12:19:19 PM
CrapWiz,  its not my product but its a pretty simple press to make if you want me to sketch one up.  




I use sawdust for garden compost and as stove starter mixed with waste vegetable oil.  I have a rocket stove with an electric feed hopper for burning it full time that might be going back into service soon too.  I dont make enough sawdust for my own needs.
Sure either here or PM. Thanks
persistence personified - never let up , never let down

Nebraska

Belbening up a wood biscuit press for the Wizard.....cool ... popcorn_smiley

 What can I say I'm sitting in a blizzard warning waiting for someone to show up. :)

longtime lurker

Quote from: mike_belben on January 15, 2021, 12:19:19 PM
CrapWiz,  its not my product but its a pretty simple press to make if you want me to sketch one up.  




I use sawdust for garden compost and as stove starter mixed with waste vegetable oil.  I have a rocket stove with an electric feed hopper for burning it full time that might be going back into service soon too.  I dont make enough sawdust for my own needs.
Me too for the engineering drawings please.
The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

mike_belben

Probably 50 ways you could do it but this is pretty straight forward.  You could experiment with hand packing into a single stage press box with either a long stroke or a multiple stroke to get enough fluff in there for your desired density but then a workers time eats up the proceeds.  Needs full mechanization/automation to be worthwhile imo. 


Based on scrap bailers i know that you want two stages of compression.  The first one takes loose fluff and packs a bunch of it into the secondary compression chamber so that youve got enough material to make this dense finished block in one high pressure stroke. 


I cant draw it all in one shot so this one shows a conveyor (or shovel or skid loader etc etc) feeding loose dust and small chip into a screw compressor.  Its nothing fancy, just an auger in a pipe with a plenum.  The pipe has a backwall with a hole and a bearing for the auger shaft, and a cutout so that the dust falls into the screw then is conveyed into the pipe under load, and compressed. Exactly like a meat grinder minus the plate.  Go vertical on the plenum so the sides dont load up and require a shaker.  Also put a coarse rock catcher screen to protect the screw and an escape chute for thr junk. Mounting it to the conveyor will help jostle everything down from vibration. 








  Lowes sells bulb augers for drills in the garden section for $20 or so.  I use them often.  They fit inside a 3" pipe and have a long .500" shank for easy coupling. 




Now the fill chamber leading into the 2nd stage of compression is connected to output side of the auger so the material is packed in pretty good.. A geared auger thats deadheaded will squeeze water out of sopping sawdust.. Its quite a bit of pressure.  The volumes of each chamner for a specific puck are anyones guess.  







The compression cylinder is obvious.  The horizontal cylinder opens and closes a thick braced up plate in a strong window track sort of frame so that the first stroke crushes the sawdust into a brick, then the trapdoor opens and the brick is pushed out onto a belt to the wrapping station.  Or kiln i guess.. But drying dust is probably easier than bricks. 




The auger is probably smartest to use a gear drive reversible motor with a variable speed controller to get the fill just right.  The cylinders could be on solenoid valves run by a PLC using timers and limit switches or prox sensors etc. 
Praise The Lord

mike_belben

The high pressure chamber.. It would be much cheaper to make it round vs square for the sake of having a piston machined thats got a good fit to the chamber ID so it doesnt pass dust around the piston, and an uneven load of chips doesnt sideload the piston or get jammed sideways in the bore, anything like that.  Its quick and easy to turn a round billet on a lathe compared to milling all the sides of a big rectangle and making corner fillets to match a square tube corner and all that on a mill. 
Praise The Lord

tule peak timber

I was thinking of the same 2 stage auger feed then compression system. A used pellet or briquette system is pretty expensive 175-250k . Your system looks pretty good, but the bulb planter auger is weak, so maybe a moving bed , or a better auger. I also envision some sort of spray paraffin or binder to form things up. I tried to get into a pellet facility in Sand Point Id with no luck to observe their "lignine pressure" binding technique.
  The guy who comes up with the "litttle" guy machine will have a niche business.
  Also once the numbers are sorted out after this election the future of burning wood is in question.
 Mike thanks for the response.
persistence personified - never let up , never let down

mike_belben

Yeah the bulb auger is just a toy for a backyard prototype or whatever.  If youre talkin production scale start with real stuff.  A post hole digger in a water main pipe feeding a multi head press plate, something like that.  
Praise The Lord

longtime lurker

Quote from: mike_belben on January 15, 2021, 08:27:57 PM
Probably 50 ways you could do it but this is pretty straight forward.  You could experiment with hand packing into a single stage press box with either a long stroke or a multiple stroke to get enough fluff in there for your desired density but then a workers time eats up the proceeds.  Needs full mechanization/automation to be worthwhile imo.


Based on scrap bailers i know that you want two stages of compression.  The first one takes loose fluff and packs a bunch of it into the secondary compression chamber so that youve got enough material to make this dense finished block in one high pressure stroke.


I cant draw it all in one shot so this one shows a conveyor (or shovel or skid loader etc etc) feeding loose dust and small chip into a screw compressor.  Its nothing fancy, just an auger in a pipe with a plenum.  The pipe has a backwall with a hole and a bearing for the auger shaft, and a cutout so that the dust falls into the screw then is conveyed into the pipe under load, and compressed. Exactly like a meat grinder minus the plate.  Go vertical on the plenum so the sides dont load up and require a shaker.  Also put a coarse rock catcher screen to protect the screw and an escape chute for thr junk. Mounting it to the conveyor will help jostle everything down from vibration.








 Lowes sells bulb augers for drills in the garden section for $20 or so.  I use them often.  They fit inside a 3" pipe and have a long .500" shank for easy coupling.




Now the fill chamber leading into the 2nd stage of compression is connected to output side of the auger so the material is packed in pretty good.. A geared auger thats deadheaded will squeeze water out of sopping sawdust.. Its quite a bit of pressure.  The volumes of each chamner for a specific puck are anyones guess.  







The compression cylinder is obvious.  The horizontal cylinder opens and closes a thick braced up plate in a strong window track sort of frame so that the first stroke crushes the sawdust into a brick, then the trapdoor opens and the brick is pushed out onto a belt to the wrapping station.  Or kiln i guess.. But drying dust is probably easier than bricks.




The auger is probably smartest to use a gear drive reversible motor with a variable speed controller to get the fill just right.  The cylinders could be on solenoid valves run by a PLC using timers and limit switches or prox sensors etc.
I know nothing about making briquettes but I know enough about steam bending to plank a hull soooooo... Odd thoughts:

You want wood at between 20-25% MC for steam bending because the moisture is what carries the heat, and the heat is what softens the lignin. Softening the lignin to get it plastic is what holds briquettes together.... the compression generates heat. More than about 30% MC and steam bent wood tends to want to crack due cellular expansion, maybe too wet means your briquettes fall apart during post production drying? So maybe using green sawdust you'd want it to go through a pre-heating type of process (exhaust heat or similar) to flash off some moisture and also preheat it to potentially reduce the pressure required within the actual compression cycle.

And... I'd put a "needle" up through the pressure plate in your diagram, like a hydraulically driven plunger. So you get a third compression stage that punches a hole through your cylindrical briquette and forces it out to the chamber wall once its under load.

And can we ditch the sliding pressure plate and ram setup and go for a series of revolving chambers so the briquette gets a chance to cool/set (air jet down that center hole maybe?) and then another vertical plunger to eject it... I'd say six gun but I'm a man in a hurry so maybe more like a Gatling Gun :D

*          *          *         *         *

Ideally I'd like to see a round "log" type briquette.... say 2½" diameter and 8" long... plenty good curb appeal if it looks like a branch. And paint my machine Leyland Blue will ya...
The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

Ed_K

 Try biomass magazine, they have pellet mills advertised in there.
Ed K

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