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In Taiwan like many European countries they charge extra for general waste disposal (via a special bag with anti counterfeit label that you have to buy from your city at inflated cost), so naturally I want to reduce the amount of general waste I make due to my shop activity. Not surprisingly most of the waste I make is sawdust from sawing/sanding/cutting and normally I sweep them up separate from other waste and burns them when they accumulate to a certain level. However I was wondering is there a more environmentally friendly ways of dealing with these waste wood? I was just thinking how much electricity I could make with all the sawdust/stuff I make...

I was surprised how much sawdust resawing a 3" thick block of Padauk made... it filled up my 5 gallon shop vac up quickly.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Do you have any place to make a compost heap? Good for disposing of all the sticks the trees in the yard drop, as well as dumping wood chips and any scraps that are too small to use. Turn it over once a year or so to keep it decomposing. Makes great fertilizer for the garden, which can be used to grow vegetables and spices

I have been kicking around the idea of spreading my sawdust and chips on my lawn. The more organic material you can get the worms and microbes to incorporate into your soil the better. Breaking down "brown" materials cause a temporary nitrogen drain (the N is returned once the browns are broken down). This is not much of a problem for me since I could just spread it at the same time I put down my organic fertilized (soy mean meal or alfalfa or whatever cattle feed happens to be on sale at the farm store). This would be the equivalent of adding "greens" to the compost pile when you add "browns." My concern is that some woods may inhibit grass growth. I think, but can't remember where I read, that cedars and walnut and maybe others contain chemicals that stop other "competing plants" growth. Does anyone know anything about that? Of course the ideal would be to find out that it only inhibits seed germination (effectively controlling weed seeds) but that is probably wishful thinking. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I have a friend locally that raises minature horses and he takes my " Clean " sawdust and uses it in the stalls for the horses . If he doesnt need it I burn it in my yard fire pit with my firewood .

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I was also gonna say... can you burn it?

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Music Is Forever

I'm pretty sure that walnut shavings and dust are deadly to horses. The tannin in oak shavings and dust will kill other vegetation as well-nothing grows under an oak tree. There are likely many other woods that are similar. I heard somewhere that you need to be careful of mold and fungus growing on wood chips that are mixed into the soil for compost. Maples might fall into this category.
Years ago when I made lots of pine furniture, a friend would pick up my shavings for a guy with horses. He asked that I make sure that I didn't mix any oak or walnut shaves with the pine.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Walnut is toxic to horses. Specifically black walnut. If it is used in a stall and they urinate on it, and then absorb it through the feet.

You can compost walnut as the toxins break down over time with exposure to air.

Darrin

Olive is pretty bad too. There's a reason nothing grows directly under an olive tree. I don't know about the sawdust directly but the leaves have known to be toxic for some time, even though man can tolerate it to a degree.

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Does anyone burn their wood waste in an outdoor wood furnace? Something along the lines of this:

http://www.woodmaster.com/flexfuel.php

I've been considering this for the future if my waste production ever reaches a level to make this feasable. Havn't done the math yet to see what volume of wood waste it would take to make it through a heating season. Something to consider though...

I invite the friends over for a bon fire and beer every once in a while.

I was wondering if saw dust could be used as cat litter though. But now hearing how toxic some of this stuff is I think I'll stick to burning.

I throw all my scrap wood on the fireplace in my shop. The dust that gets vacuumed up gets spread out in the woods in the back yard. The shavings also go on the fire, but i thought about keeping some for decorative packaging for Christmas presents.

I believe that PRS guitars (a factory) sells their sawdust to a wood pellet manufacturer...so on a large scale it is valuable at least...

Trev

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

I have always maintained a compost bin that I made out of chain link fence 4’x4’x4’ and 12’Lx2’H, V crimp roofing. I feed it all of my organic garbage (banana peels, egg shells etc.) saw dust and horse manure. It also gets leaves and twigs from the yard; larger wood & branches etc. go on the fire pit. Keep a pitch fork next to it, water and turn it over occasionally. The compost is great for gardens and plants, roses and tomatoes love it.

IMHO, a Wise person would not use it for horse stalls, you are begging for a horse to colic or worse. BTW, A Vet. bill for that is around $2,000.00. I have 4, class (A) miniature horses and a mini Jack ass plus the Draft and Quarter horses. Horses drop feed in the stals and will injest the saw dust scrapping for the feed. Wood shavings of non-toxic woods are used in the stalls.

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Joe

My wife asks me "How many Guitars do you need?"
I reply "When I die count them; thats how many I needed".

Sawdust and small wood scraps make a fine mulch around trees, flower beds and such...

It rots very slowly - because it has no nitrogen in the wood....

Now, it makes fine fertilizer if you have sufficient nitrogen so that the fungus in the lawn will eat up the sawdust, but I don't fool with that... I like just using it for mulch....

Otherwise - if you have a wood stove, you could burn the scraps to heat your shop....

Thanks

I have no need for compost... I have a cat but I am not sure if I would use Padauk dust as cat litter... the stuff could be worse for the cat than it is for me.

I guess it's bonfire for me, I just wonder if I could put the heat generated from the bonfire to better use... too bad I don't have a wood burning fireplace. Taiwan without heating gets pretty miserably cold in the winter sometimes. Its kinda wasteful to use electric heat.

Now if I could find out ways to cool with heat, then it would be far more useful in Taiwan.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

If you poke around - you can find directions for making a small "Woodgas stove"... You could use it to provide some heat for the shop, or maybe for just warming up a cup of tea or coffee when it's cold....

If built right - they don't create the soot that normal wood burning stoves create...

Thanks

I have made fire starters with sawdust before. Fill a cardboard egg carton with a mixture of candle wax and sawdust and your done. They burn nice and long and you don't have to use any kindling to get the fire started.

Have you ever seen those prison break movies where the guys dig a tunnel and put the dirt in their pockets with holes in them and then walk around the yard and let it fall out while they're walking. That or you could move to colder climates like mine. BTU's.

If you don't want to burn or compost your waste wood you might try to make your own MDF of your sawdust, chips and shavings. I guess you would be surprised by how much sawdust it takes to make a relatively small MDF board...