# What do you do with your sawdust?



## stormking (Feb 12, 2009)

If you're like me, you can easily fill your dust collector in less than a week. Since my township's garbage collection is prepaid by the bags we have to buy, I take mine to my friend's where she uses it cover her garden paths. Even though she's the cause of a majority of the sawdust, so it doesn't really bother me, I don't think she knows how much sawdust she has stored and she'll never have enough paths to use it all.


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## dbhost (Jan 28, 2008)

Depends on the type of material being worked on, when I am working cedar, no walnut or anything toxic like that, I tend to use it mixed in with the bark mulch to keep bugs away...


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## Tom5151 (Nov 21, 2008)

Lately I have been generating bags and bags of pine sawdust. We take it up to the cabin and line our outdoor firepit with it.....keeps the wood off the damp ground just long enough to get a good fire going...after that we just toss handfuls at a time on the fire......we're not real exciting people.....lol


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## mdntrdr (Dec 22, 2009)

My 5 HP planer will fill a 33gal. can in 10 min. It all goes to the burn pile along with cutoffs. Lil too wet to burn today... :boat:


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

Eligible sawdust and wood chips are bagged and sold to stables...and they pick up.












 







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## ctwiggs1 (Mar 30, 2011)

cabinetman said:


> Eligible sawdust and wood chips are bagged and sold to stables...and they pick up.
> 
> 
> .


My thoughts exactly. My parents used to pay decent $$$ for that stuff when I was a kid!


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## dat (Nov 11, 2010)

spread it around the yard, behind the barn any sink holes around the creek, so far I haven't run out of anywhere to put it, but then again, I'm just a hobbyist, I'm not producing large amounts all the time, I'll go through a spell with a lot then the next project may not produce near as much


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## cjward (Feb 15, 2011)

Put it in the trash can


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## mjdtexan (Dec 13, 2008)

I bag most of what comes out of the planer and sell it for $4 a bag to the stables here in my area. They come pick it up. Sometimes they bring me trailer loads of horse manure. I compost it and turn it over regularly with the tractor. The bags cost me .33¢ apiece. The feed store down the road is mad at me cause they sell theirs for $7.50 a bag.


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## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

Right now I give it to people that use it as mulch. I don't generate as much as I used to because this shop spends most of the time on refinishing and not too much building. 
In my ild shop, I had people from the Local Art Center come by all the time for the dust and shavings. They use it for Raku pottery. They preferred shavings to dust because the air circulation through the shavings gave a better heat. Nails? Screws? That's a plus. When they heat up they cause flashes on the Raku in different colors.


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## mjdtexan (Dec 13, 2008)

Tony B said:


> Right now I give it to people that use it as mulch. I don't generate as much as I used to because this shop spends most of the time on refinishing and not too much building.
> In my ild shop, I had people from the Local Art Center come by all the time for the dust and shavings. They use it for Raku pottery. They preferred shavings to dust because the air circulation through the shavings gave a better heat. Nails? Screws? That's a plus. When they heat up they cause flashes on the Raku in different colors.


You made me do a search on Raku Pottery. Some of it looks pretty cool. Shoot, I would trade shavings for some Raku Pottery.


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## mickit (Oct 5, 2009)

It flies off the porch that I call my workshop, and is never seen again...pretty windy down here


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## doug1980 (Mar 28, 2011)

Turning bowls the dust and shavings add up quickly. Currently I burn it and/or throw it in the trash. I want to find a better way of disposing of it.


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## FiveOneSix (Sep 26, 2009)

*nachos...*

my saw dust melts nicely over tortilla chips :thumbsup:

im meticulous with my sanding table and i keep each species of sanding dust in a seperate jars (mostly maple). never know when your gonna need to have some handy to mix with glue for a fill! ba-dum-pshhh :icon_cool:


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## johnep (Apr 12, 2007)

Burning as waste would be regarded in Europe as an eco crime. On another thread, point made that Masonite went bust because what was waste now valuable biofuel. Our local dump has a 40' container for wood waste.
The best is turned into chip board. Garages sell compressed sawdust/shavings as fuel.
johnep


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## thintz (Apr 21, 2010)

I've been using all of my saw dust (except pressure treated and walnut, just to be safe) to fill in low spots in the yard and to work like straw over seeded spots. Every once in a while the wife throws a few big scoops into her compost machine where it seems to help speed that process up. The sawdust might be doing more in the garden as the tomatoes keep getting bigger and better-tasting... Don't spread that last part around, I might have to start selling "Tomato-Enhancing magic Dust"!


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

thintz said:


> The sawdust might be doing more in the garden as the tomatoes keep getting bigger and better-tasting... Don't spread that last part around, I might have to start selling "Tomato-Enhancing magic Dust"!


I see the possibility of a late night infomercial with Anthony Sullivan.:laughing:












 







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## tctaylor79 (Apr 16, 2011)

I was actually just wondering what I could do with my shavings/sawdust. Compost it is!


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## ihackwood (Sep 5, 2009)

i had some cedar so i ripped down my curtains and glue gun and made my dog a bed to sleep on, saved me 30 bucks so i made another one for my other dog haha


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## Hammer1 (Aug 1, 2010)

A friend has a firewood business, he lets me dump my sawdust on his pile. A wood pellet company comes and hauls his off. Sawdust has become a commodity, just don't put floor sweepings in the collector.


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## dbhost (Jan 28, 2008)

mdntrdr said:


> My 5 HP planer will fill a 33gal. can in 10 min. It all goes to the burn pile along with cutoffs. Lil too wet to burn today... :boat:


Please send your rain to Texas. We need it!


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## tcleve4911 (Dec 16, 2006)

How about making sawdust logs for heating the shop?


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## Gene Howe (Feb 28, 2009)

My DC is vented to the outside. Like Micky from south Texas, the wind takes it. No neighbors to complain. I'm sure most of the indigenous flora appreciates it.:thumbsup: The cactus couldn't care less.:laughing:


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## dat (Nov 11, 2010)

tcleve4911 said:


> How about making sawdust logs for heating the shop?


I have done something kinda like that, I'll take the old candle bottoms when my bride is finished burning them and melt them with sawdust to make fire sterter sticks, works almost as good as pine knot


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## mjdtexan (Dec 13, 2008)

Hammer1 said:


> A friend has a firewood business, he lets me dump my sawdust on his pile. A wood pellet company comes and hauls his off. Sawdust has become a commodity, just don't put floor sweepings in the collector.


What do you reckon that pallet company is doing with the sawdust?


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*pellets not pallets!*



mjdtexan said:


> What do you reckon that* pallet *company is doing with the sawdust?


Wood burning stoves are made to burn compressed wood pellets.
You knew that...:laughing: bill


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## mjdtexan (Dec 13, 2008)

woodnthings said:


> mjdtexan said:
> 
> 
> > What do you reckon that* pallet *company is doing with the sawdust?
> ...


Pellet company. I knew that.


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## BWSmith (Aug 24, 2010)

"From dust to dust",think thats how it goes.


Take it to the woods out back and dump it.BW


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## b00kemdano (Feb 10, 2009)

I put most of mine on the compost pile or fill holes in the yard.

Some of it is used to start a ruminating fire in the chiminea.

Occassionally, a local art glass shop asks for some. They use sawdust to clean off a stained glass piece after they've cemented it.

Most of the time it just keeps the floor warm in the shoppe.


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## Mizer (Mar 11, 2010)

I dump it in the garden


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## Locodcdude (Oct 24, 2010)

My dust gets captured in my 1 HP collector, mostly planer and tablesaw stuffs. I put it in the trash most of the time, not really a use for it where I am.


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## johnnie52 (Feb 16, 2009)

I don't make a lot of it so the small stuff from the saws ends up in the regular garbage and the bigger stuff from the planner becomes garden mulch.


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## dvalery20 (Jan 27, 2011)

stormking said:


> If you're like me, you can easily fill your dust collector in less than a week. Since my township's garbage collection is prepaid by the bags we have to buy, I take mine to my friend's where she uses it cover her garden paths. Even though she's the cause of a majority of the sawdust, so it doesn't really bother me, I don't think she knows how much sawdust she has stored and she'll never have enough paths to use it all.


kitty litre


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## MS Sportsman (Mar 12, 2010)

mjdtexan said:


> Pellet company. I knew that.


You figured that out, but some places actually use sawdust/chips to make pressure formed presswood pallets also.


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## robert421960 (Dec 9, 2010)

i would like to see a way for a homeowner to take his sawdust and mix it with something , put it in a form 
wala a fire log
shouldnt be that hard and would be very GREEN


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## mwhals (Apr 13, 2010)

I dump it in a compost pile.


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## ccrow (Jan 14, 2010)

I use my handy leaf blower to make is disappear.


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## gideon (May 26, 2010)

some friends of mine are potters. I give them the hard wood dust and cut offs for their firings. the tanins in certain hardwoods creates a crackled glaze and does other things depending on the species. So I give that stuff to them and they thank me a lot and we got get a beer some place.


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## MidGAOutdoor (Apr 7, 2011)

what type of bags to you use for this? Trash bags? sawmill is generating a lot of good dust here lately.


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## Jesse Blair (Oct 9, 2016)

Holy 6 year old revival Batman! :grin:


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