Hello there.
I thought I saw a message about what to with wood dust last week but I can’t find it. So here is my question: Is there anything to do with all of the wood dust and shavings produced while woodworking. Besides burning the shavings and soaking up spills. Do the companies that manufacture wood products from wood byproducts produce all of their own “stock” or can we sell (optimistic) them ours? Or at least bring it to them to cut down on garbage.
Thanks for any insight on this.
Dano
Replies
garden
To expand on "garden" (above), you can use your shavings and sawdust as an ingredient in a compost pile. If you don't compost, you can simply use it as a mulch or weed-discourager around plants. I use mine mostly around trees that tend to get grass around them. Lay down a few sheets of newspaper, or a piece of cardboard around the trunk, cover with shavings.
It's not necessarily recommended that you mix the sawdust into the soil, at least not without supplementing with some nitrogen fertilizer. The micro-critters that decompose the sawdust will be using up nitrogen in so doing.
There are some woods that are toxic to horses, so if anyone's relieving you of shavings to bed down their horse, be sure they don't get 'hold of any walnut. Don't know about any of the exotics, but I'd be careful with them.
Last but not least, you might check with any topsoil/compost providers in your area. They may be willing to take them off your hands.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
"To expand on "garden" (above)"
my reply was deliberate, a mini social experiment. It's been my observation that people in general are prone to providing extended information in reply posts. Witness your "tapping trunion" post, which garnered a long list of replies, some replies were exceedingly long, some not so, but that's not really the point. What is the point is that there is just you get swamped with information which then has to be sorted and qualified. I guess it's just like any form of media, there's just too much of it to be useful at times, and often is full of advertisement, sometimes personal while usually commercial.
my reply provided essentially the same information as yours, I did it in 1 word, you used up 168 words in 4 paragraphs. Of course, it's not like we get a finite amount of words to work through in life, so this whole discussion is academic. No need to reply, enough words have already been consumed...
Boy, talk about a waste of words, that was it. I'll just use one in my formal response: Piffleforestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I'm still a lot more efficient at 161 words, you're up to 187, including "piffle"... and I didn't even include your sig, which is exposing another very interesting social phenomena, one that is really nothing more than piffle (fun, thanks for the word). Cheers, I'm done.
add yelow glue and make your own MDF.
Around here where I live there are a lot of wood working companies. Many of them have "wood hogs" that grind even big chunks into smaller pieces and then it is use to fire boilers that produce heat for the plants.
In the summer when it they don't need it, it is sold to the turkey and chicken farmers for bedding.
I have a pet store here in town that I give my "chips" (of the planer) to and they use it in the cages for different animals. The dust I put around plants or in the compost heap.
A couple of months ago I did see some one on Ebay that sold a garbage bag full of walnut chips for $20.....
Walnut chips,
Two quick stories about walnut chips. A friend of my father-in-law bought , when bought his, a floor mounted thickness planner in the late 60's. The friend had a great amount of unplanned walnut. He was so impressed with the color he used it as mulch and planted about 200 bedding plants all around his house. It only took about 3 days and all of them died. It is not only lack of sun but the oils help why you don't see grass growing under walnut trees.
I was taking carving classes in Ohio and the instructor had a full size thickness planner. He was finishinga geat deal of boards for one of the students. One Sat. asked for our help to haul the large yard size bags of chips out for the people that were taking the chips. We hauled about 40 bags and that was about1/3 of what had been hauled before. When we were finished and they were gone I asked what they were using the chips for, yes, a horse stable for bedding. I remarked that I hoped they wern't stabling any white footed horses there as they would turn into roams. Pink footed.
Rex
thanks everyone!
I like the pet store idea. The MDF one was funny also.
You all have a good day.
Dano
I've been dumping my wood shavings and dust in the backyard for more than twenty years. Not for a garden but mud control on a flat lot.
Enjoy, Roy
This might not be an option for individuals, but I recall hearing about a wood products company that bought a "pellet mill" and turned their wood waste into wood pellets to burn in pellet stoves.
They would help their employees buy pellet stoves, give the pellets to them for free instead of selling them. (since they wern't as strict with the quality as regular pellet manufacturers). It eliminated the cost for disposing of the wood waste and the employees heated their homes/cabins for free. Nice idea if it was a true story.
Maybe there are some pellet manufacturers that would accept outside donations?
JohnU
I mentioned this before, but I knew a butcher who used walnut sawdust (from a wood processor) to smoke sausage. He had a walk-in smoker, and did a couple of hundred punds at a time.
That's what was running thru my mind as I read thru the posts - smoker chips. I imagine some kinds of wood are more suited to this than others. But... you never know. I've heard of guys soaking wood chips in water and then wrapping loosely in tin foil and throwing it in on top of the briquets for BBQ time. I'm told it imparts a nice smoked flavor to whatever is being BBQed.
Regards,
Kevin
Land fill,
when you produce as much as 15 cu yards (two decent sized dump trucks full ) and much of it is either black walnut or white oak in a week You use land fill.. wish there were a better more economical way, but that's what works for me..
I put my saw dust right into my compost pile in the garden. Turned in it beafs up the soil and holds moisture.
Hi Dano, I sell my chips and saw dust to a neighbor who raises horses. He uses the shavings and dust for bedding. I get $.50/30 gal. bag. I am very careful not to get any walnut shavings or saw dust mixed in. I usually have about 20 to 30 bags per month when I am loaded with projects.
dano,
I like to keep it on the floor and let it build up volumn....then I drop small screws and practice my swearing...lol
Find a pottery shop of some sort. They use the shavings in what they call a sawdust firing for their ceramic pots. They "lace" the shavings with special chemicals and bury pots in a trash can full of sawdust and lite the thing on fire. It gives some very interesting effects in the pottery. Or just marry a potter, that was my solution!
Adam
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