Good morning all.
Our Forestor "Jacko " mill sawdust is piped into an extraction system.
It works very well and dust buildup around the mill is kept to a minimum.
We seem to be producing about 5 or 6 Builders (1ton) bags a week of sawdust at the moment.
We are starting to look at Pellet Mills to utilise this sawdust.
Has anyone tried this? We are looking for advice.
Thanks
Silverfox.
There is actually several threads on the FF regarding this exact topic. Cant speak much to it other then all, I do mean all, of the discussion leads to the only ones making any money at pellets on anything smaller then a 1/2 city block size operation, is the manufacturer selling the pellet equipment. That seems pretty consistent from the small "mom and pop" to the entry level commercial operational plan.
Look to farm off the stuff to farmers, ranchers, animal bedding, or just garden mulch or bedding, or hell, bottle the stuff and sell it for big bucks as "man glitter". Everyone loves to make sawdust in the process of seeking boards, now what to do with all this dust?
Yup - find a farm that wants it cheap, gardening has really taken off over the last year - compost it and sell it as a soil amendment. Most folks who are getting into it have poor soil and will need all the help they can get. Quality compost sells for a premium. Those Chinese, make it at home, pellet mills are complete junk. It was a tad over $1MM per line for a system that actually works when we looked into it back in '07 - and that is just the equipment, never mind dust suppression, drying input stock, building, loaders, etc.
Go super big, get lots of grants, or go home is that game.
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=97859.msg1511139#msg1511139
I asked this question 3 years ago and decided you put more into making pellets than you get out of them. Seems they have to be something like a government subsidized project where people are not worried about making a profit.
During summer, i turn sawdust into soil every 2 or 3 weeks by just dumping grass in and flipping it over.
Saw logs. Grow tomatoes. Live happily ever after.
Seems like if you had a chicken or other poultry farm nearby you could sell them the saw dust (or buy their manure) and get a compost garden soil operation going. The manure needs carbon and the saw dust needs nitrogen to make good compost.
Any hippies or other big time tree huggers in the areas who are using composting toilets? Not to get too political but there may be a big market for them over the next 4 years or so. ::) :D Just a thought - I'm bagging and storing my sawdust in anticipation. ;)
@WV Sawmiller (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=28064) um, I have a compost toilet system. I'm a logger and Sawyer and tree guy and a hunter and a grower. So prob stop lumping compost toilets in with hippies/ tree huggers please. It makes you sound wildly ignorant.
So for the record composting toilets are remarkably sensible. Why would you put the most resource/nutrient rich material into an underground tank, and then pay to have it hauled off? So stupid. Turn that s$*t into compost and feed plants! Complete the cycle! We have become so far removed from the cycle that we think poop and sawdust is gross!
Consider one for yourself. Stop paying fertilizer for your plants and also paying to have your own fertilizer removed!!! Break the cycle. Just my 2 cents
Chep,
I looked into one yesterday at our local Lowes for a customer who is interested in one. Lowes wanted from $1,800 up for one and you'd have to order it as it was not something they stocked. I had offered to make an old style outhouse with a plastic tote under the bench for the sawdust and offerings. From what I have read on line they looked simple enough to make and use but the customer seems to want a fancy one instead. I suggested I will build the structure and she can provide the toilet. We will see what comes to pass.
I am not being critical of people who use them. I lived and worked enough overseas in Africa and Asia and such where "Night Soil" was used for fertilizer to be very familiar with it. I did not say I was a fan of it. That may be where I learned about Immodium and I am sure lots of what they used locally was not properly composted.
I sold 5 bags of sawdust to a couple a month ago for use in their composting travel toilet - a 5 gallon bucket with a toilet ring. I am looking for more such customers as a continuing market. If I am wrong about Hippies and Tree Huggers being fans of composting toilets and other environmentally friendly systems I apologize. If there are other groups out there I should be targeting as potential customers I'd love to know who they are. Rednecks and Yuppies don't seem to be filling the bill so who am I missing? Any other suggested customers you have will be very welcome to lots of us.
BTW - I don't pay to have my nutrient rich resource hauled off. I have a great invention called a septic tank where natural bacteria break it down and process it and the treated water off the system naturally flows into a field line feeding my lawn grass and wayward trees that get too close so does that qualify?
howard. I guess you got my hackles uup a bit. Here is my compost toilet. Pretty cheap... so you are saying you have never had your septic tank pumped? What's the secret to that? I have heard adding packets of brewers yeast quarterly will keep it in good shape?
I think as a society we are to grossed out by the idea of composting and growing things with poop and that is unfortunate. But if more people become aware of how easy it is and how we are literally throwing nutrients down the drain , and not to gross then I think our world would be a better place. Here is our toilet. Literally pulled the toilet and replaced it with this haha.
I just wanted to point out that hippies and tree huggers are the wrong words and targets for your sawdust. Forward thinking growers and scavengers and people who can buck the norms of society are your huckleberry. Permaculturists, homesteaders, and regular humans are your target audience.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/18183/20180606_192323.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1611250455)
Wow - WV gone and got himself labeled as an elitist... What is the world coming to? Next thing we know he will be teaching mountain climbing with your ATV classes. :D
Chep, its okay to say youve got a thunder bucket and arent a hippie. But its also pretty okay for WV to say hippies like em because im pretty sure its mother earth news who made the world aware of them and they seem fine with being hippies. Permies, etc. Semantics. Nothing we need to fight each other about. Youre both right.
I'm a tree cuttin, deer shootin hippie and I guess it's ok! Love you guys!!
Don't have a compost toilet but I do take a leak every morning in the woods with my dog Rufus does this count as environmentally correct? Once took a dump but Rufus wanted to eat it. My bad, sorry TMI. to much info.
Um, might want to consider a new diet or new dog :D ;D.
Chep,
Pretty neat looking system you have there. I confess I don't understand the two seater concept but I never understood a 2 seater outhouse either. I never wanted company when I was there. My wife grew up even poorer than me and they had an outhouse in her youth and I fear she would not accept the idea of a composting toilet without a lot off high pressure sales talk.
I was thinking of a bench seat like an old fashioned outhouse with a couple of hinged doors underneath it to hold a square or rectangular plastic tote. I was thinking a regular plastic or wood toilet seat and ring over the cutout. Do you toss in a cup full of sawdust after every use?
In the 30+ years we have lived here we have never had to have our septic tanks (We have 3) pumped. I did have to install a new field line one time when the old one got broken but a properly balanced septic tank should perpetually operate without any other maintenance required. Stuff goes in, treated effluent comes out and if the field lines are properly designed (Level correct with good gravel around them) the rate of flow of the discharge will not overwhelm the system. Pouring some buttermilk or dry enzymes in occasionally can't hurt.) The main thing is being careful nothing else goes in except wastes an proper toilet paper. I've seen people dump cat litter and floor sweepings in that will never dissolve and eventually fill up the tank.
Please understand I am not being derogatory about Hippies or or tree huggers any more than I am Amish or other cultures. It is their choice and their lifestyle does not adversely me so why do I care?
I have been a tree hugger all my life and am proud to admit it. I was climbing trees almost as soon as I could walk and climbing up catching birds in the nest, squirrels, possums and eventually I became a world class coon hunter/catcher. I can't remember how many vines and limbs broke out from under me and tree hugging the tree was the only way to keep from falling and to get down. Even as an old man I have kicked ladders out from under me and had to climb down nearby trees. And if you are a deer hunter have you never had your climbing stand fall out from under you leaving you hanging on the upper/climber section? The only way down is to hug the tree.
As to Hippies - I am a firm believer in Flour Power. You can't make good biscuits without it. (What - that was supposed be Flower Power? Ooops. :D Just showing my ignorance I guess. Sorry about the mix up.)
At Philmont scout ranch. told to not pee but only do the 2 in the latrines. never have to pump, and smells better. If they walk buy and hear a tinkle, they will pound on the wall from the outside. in the wilderness, just a seat over a hole, no walls. same deal, keep the urine and liquid volume to a minimum, and never have to call for a pump. as for the double, they have pilot to copilot, and pilot to bombardier style. :o 8) :) :D
Quote from: chep on January 21, 2021, 01:55:19 PM
I'm a tree cuttin, deer shootin hippie and I guess it's ok! Love you guys!!
Xoxo
Quote from: Woodpecker52 on January 21, 2021, 03:53:01 PM
Don't have a compost toilet but I do take a leak every morning in the woods with my dog Rufus does this count as environmentally correct? Once took a dump but Rufus wanted to eat it. My bad, sorry TMI. to much info.
Yeah my dog is a ____ eater too. Daughter was on the pot, son tapdancing that hes gotta go. I jokingly said hank go out in the mulch bin.. And off he runs. Me and wife are giggling as we record it from the table. The giggles turn to screams of terror and window banging as the new dog runs up and chows down in delight while i scream 'noOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!'
She stayed out for a week. Nasty flippin dog. Ick. Dont touch me turd face.
Quote from: doc henderson on January 21, 2021, 06:04:38 PMAt Philmont scout ranch. told to not pee but only do the 2 in the latrines. never have to pump, and smells better. If they walk buy and hear a tinkle, they will pound on the wall from the outside. in the wilderness, just a seat over a hole, no walls. same deal, keep the urine and liquid volume to a minimum, and never have to call for a pump. as for the double, they have pilot to copilot, and pilot to bombardier style. :o 8) :) :D
I will try to use that as an explanation the next time my wife catches me peeing off the front porch. :D
I had heard you were not supposed to pee in a composting toilet.
Ah yes the 2 holer. . Well on the right is pee only left is #2 only. Pee bucket gets emptied every other day or so (mostly for odor) around garden perimeter to keep out the deer, around fruit and nut trees etc. and #2 goes out 1x a week to a special set of compost bins that get used for 1 year at a time. Then they set a year then are usable.
Use fine sawdust in the # 2 bucket and smell is no issue.
We also built am outhouse to keep the grubby hippies out of the house, and that is a bucket/sawdust system as well.
I run a Lucas mill so my sawdust gets separated into 2 uses. The fines from slabbing go for the compost bucket and the ribbon/shavings from circle mill etc go in the chicken coop for a deep litter system. Which we dress vegetable beds with in the fall to cool off in time for spring planting.
Big ol stinky hippy hugs haha
Quote from: WV Sawmiller on January 21, 2021, 11:53:09 AM
I looked into one yesterday at our local Lowes for a customer who is interested in one. Lowes wanted from $1,800 up for one and you'd have to order it as it was not something they stocked. I had offered to make an old style outhouse with a plastic tote under the bench for the sawdust and offerings. From what I have read on line they looked simple enough to make and use but the customer seems to want a fancy one instead. I suggested I will build the structure and she can provide the toilet. We will see what comes to pass.
In my area if you want to go off grid, by law you can't have a homemade toilet. You HAVE to have a certified factory made toilet system before you can get a sanitary permit. After that you can live in a hollow tree for all they care.
A bucket and sawdust doesn't count but a $1300 plastic toilet and sawdust does count because it is certified. For the cabin I am building I ended up buying a used composting toilet for $300. I have no intention to use it. I just have to prove I have it before I can build.
If your sawdust is dry, it makes great oil absorber for your mechanic shop. Another great use of sawdust is sweeping compound, after the oil is absorbed. Too dusty plain. The local sale barn sells bags of sawdust for 6$ each. Must be horse people that buy it, I use wheat straw or oat straw for cow bedding. Nice to have members from the old country on FF. There are a lot of us whose families came from Scotland.
If it is clean hardwood sawdust(no diesel, antifreeze or other chemicals for blade lube) you could maybe sell it in "logs" for mushroom growing.
Quote from: Joe Hillmann on January 22, 2021, 10:41:02 AM
Quote from: WV Sawmiller on January 21, 2021, 11:53:09 AM
I looked into one yesterday at our local Lowes for a customer who is interested in one. Lowes wanted from $1,800 up for one and you'd have to order it as it was not something they stocked. I had offered to make an old style outhouse with a plastic tote under the bench for the sawdust and offerings. From what I have read on line they looked simple enough to make and use but the customer seems to want a fancy one instead. I suggested I will build the structure and she can provide the toilet. We will see what comes to pass.
In my area if you want to go off grid, by law you can't have a homemade toilet. You HAVE to have a certified factory made toilet system before you can get a sanitary permit. After that you can live in a hollow tree for all they care.
A bucket and sawdust doesn't count but a $1300 plastic toilet and sawdust does count because it is certified. For the cabin I am building I ended up buying a used composting toilet for $300. I have no intention to use it. I just have to prove I have it before I can build.
Joe,
If you are not going to use it maybe you can rent your composting toilet out to other off-grid builders and they can rent it long enough to get their permit then return it to you. Of course the local inspector might get suspicious after seeing such a familiar toilet so many times. :D Just a thought.
Reminds me of a friend that went down with a gov't agency after a hurricane. He said he reimbursed the same fridge about a dozen times, "Hey if those poor folks have what it takes to carry that fridge around through storm damage they deserved something :D"
I was a hippie in my youth a long time ago. If once a hippie, always a hippie? Hmmm, maybe a young hippie could be reformed and not be an old hippie? So many questions :).
Put different color seats on it each time you rent it out. Inspector will never suspect a thing
@chep (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=8183) is that the right side as you face it, or as you are seated???? :)
I was taught front and back, left and right are always from the "operators station" ;D.
in medicine it is the same, anatomical sidedness. it is "your" L hand, and not the one to my left.
cartoon character who says exit stage left - Bing video (https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=cartoon+character+who+says+exit+stage+left&&view=detail&mid=B6AE2AF6133556BDFC32B6AE2AF6133556BDFC32&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dcartoon%2Bcharacter%2Bwho%2Bsays%2Bexit%2Bstage%2Bleft%26FORM%3DHDRSC3)
Quote from: Don P on January 22, 2021, 05:46:51 PMReminds me of a friend that went down with a gov't agency after a hurricane. He said he reimbursed the same fridge about a dozen times, "Hey if those poor folks have what it takes to carry that fridge around through storm damage they deserved something :D"
Don,
That reminds me of the tale the man my dad bought his home from told. Evidently he was a soldier on guard duty in Korea and stationed up in a tower overlooking the motor pool. He said he watched a local Korean crawl under the fence and sneak over and disconnect a motor - I don't remember if it was in a truck or a jeep - then he attached the motor to an A-frame pack and strapped it on his back, lifted it up and walked off with it. He said "I knew it was my duty to stop him but I figured if he was going to work that hard for it he could have it." ::)
I made a video on how to use it to replace kindling in your woodstove. Most people could go a whole winter on a 5gallon bucket. Seasoned wood only needs one scoop.
DIY firestarter mix from sawdust and oil, for home stove or camp - YouTube (https://youtu.be/ZG0K8ty-8TY)
Mike,
I had to restart my heart there when I first saw and misread your post. Since we had been talking about composting toilets when I saw a thread that started with "I made a video showing how to ..." I jumped to the wrong conclusion and was thinking "That is the last How-To video I want to watch." Fortunately I was wrong and you posted about fire starter instead. Then you posted most people could go all winter with a 5 gallon bucket and I was thinking cold weather must be causing serious constipation issues. Whew! Talk about a near miss there! :D :D :D
Quote from: WV Sawmiller on January 23, 2021, 09:20:23 AM
Mike,
I had to restart my heart there when I first saw and misread your post. Since we had been talking about composting toilets when I saw a thread that started with "I made a video showing how to ..." I jumped to the wrong conclusion and was thinking "That is the last How-To video I want to watch." Fortunately I was wrong and you posted about fire starter instead. Then you posted most people could go all winter with a 5 gallon bucket and I was thinking cold weather must be causing serious constipation issues. Whew! Talk about a near miss there! :D :D :D
Howard, you really shouldn't read this stuff until you are into your 2nd cup of coffee and have your glasses on. ;D
Mike, nice video, I subscribed. Keep 'em comin'! I will give this a try as soon as I find a source for the veggie oil. We don't use those kinds of quantities.
many fast food restaurants change the fryer oil (hopefully) on a regular basis. so much so they prob. have a big tank out back for it. a smaller one may just throw it out, or not care where it goes. next time at breakfast at your favorite dinner, ask if you could have some. Motor oil would physically work, but may have smell, and not be as socially acceptable. I make mine with remnants of old candles. melted down and put in Christmas/winter design cupcake papers, and candy tins. they smell great, no mess in the living room. I give them as gifts, but not to everyone. I put a wick in them to help light them. they burn for 10 minutes and a 10 inch tall 2 inch wide flame. Had a child life specialist set one on a mantle and light it. she got it to the sink. she thought it was a candle. :D
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/51041/A7CC5F20-75E8-4F71-BCC3-9278CB82DEF1.jpeg?easyrotate_cache=1611414516)
I demonstrated one of these at @customsawyer (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=1861) get together a couple years ago. with spontaneous combustion with potassium permanganate and glycerin as well.
bon_fire
Yeah Doc, I used to make those with young scouts from time to time years ago. It does take time though. I like the simplicity of Mike's idea (although that would not transpose well to backpacking) and will give it a try just for the heck of it. The shop stove seems to need a kick start every other morning and although the maps torch works well, I kind of like this idea and think it might be faster.
I have recently discovered another use for sawdust. When we get melt/freeze cycles that cause ice and walking safety problems I used to throw down old stove ash to absorb any sunlight, encourage melting, and add some friction, but I couldn't do it near the doors because I don't want that stuff working its way into the carpets. Last week we had one break in the low temps and some of the snow melted and the next morning it was like glass. I could barely make my way to the shop and almost went down twice. I grabbed a bucket of table saw dust and small planer chips and it worked like a charm, just like sandpaper, zero slipping, the sawdust just bonded to the ice somehow. Now it if does make it in the house, a vacuum does the trick just fine. In addition, when the next thaw cycle hits and makes water, the sawdust floats to the top, then re-freezes on the top surface maintaining 90% of the original effect. It's a winner. SO for next winter I will have a couple of covered buckets prepped and set in strategic places. The stuff will disappear when I do the first mowing. It's safe, and I can throw it anywhere.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/IMG_8215.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1597972932)
Here is an instance where sawdust saved the day and allowed us to continue sawing after the rain stopped.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/IMG_8217.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1598061841)
We continually scattered sawdust and finally built the walking area up above the standing water. You can see the sawdust pile in the background where we "stole" a wheelbarrow load of sawdust. You can also see that the rear outrigger seemingly got shorter.
Doc,
You are taking scented candles to a whole new level. I can see a young couple sitting down with the lights dimmed, romantic music playing then the guy lights a Doc Henderson candle and all he can think of after that is French fries and Fried chicken. ::) :D
Mike, think I am #32. Can appreciate poor folk wisdom. Computer put my wife's name on it. I have been filling cardboard boxes with sawdust from my DC barrel, then put a few sticks across the top to help the fire start. Had not thought of using oil. The cardboard seems to keep the sawdust from falling into the ash drawer. Anyway, when it is all burned up there is no sawdust in the ash drawer.
Thanks guys. I recommend changing your thunderbuckets more than once a winter!
Vegetable oil is pretty easy to get with cheap fuels. I started when diesel was $4/gal and people would literally steal the grease i was paying for.
Lots of people fry their turkeys for thanksgiving, and before covid, VFWs having their weekly "fish fry" are two of the easiest sources of small batch i ever got. Grease is one of those things thats hard to get in the quantity you want. At one point i found myself obligated to take thousands of gallons/year from a sheraton hotel when i finally got in there.
I had to come up with creative ways to get rid of the slop that settles out to the bottom and isnt feasible to make fuel out of. Heated the old house for 2 or 3 years on pure sawdust and oil in a modified wood stove. A 55g drum of each is probably as much btu as 3 or 4 cords. Lot less lugging down the stairs too. One tote per week. Gear reduction drill with a paddle bit for a mixxer.
Quote from: mike_belben on January 23, 2021, 08:45:01 AM
I made a video on how to use it to replace kindling in your woodstove. Most people could go a whole winter on a 5gallon bucket. Seasoned wood only needs one scoop.
DIY firestarter mix from sawdust and oil, for home stove or camp - YouTube (https://youtu.be/ZG0K8ty-8TY)
If you have a modern catalytic stove, for the sake of your catalyst, do not make that fire starter.
For anything else it's probably fine.
Yea, so watching @doc henderson (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=41041) and his demonstration was quite entertaining. Watching Jake feverishly trying to call his insurance agent and ask if everything was paid up was a whole 'nother level of entertainment. :D