Convert a wood burner to a sawdust burner

Following – I’ve had absolutely no luck burning my sawdust so i’d love to find a good way of doing so

Same same. It sounds like the absolute best way to get rid of it. Such a win win, especially in a Northern shop.

Compressing it with a binder, and water, then pressing it out into bio logs is doable, but so is hauling yourself out into the woods, and doing crazy manual labor for hours on end to cut down trees, and chop out firewood. We already have the loose sawdust, has to be a way to get it to burn without having to do more work than it’s worth.

-- Think safe, be safe

Try to make sawdust logs using a some pipe and a hydraulic jack. I have wanted to try it but I have no stove. If you want to spend money you can add wax to the saw dust to make fire starter also.

I follow a Japanese wood worker on YouTube and he does it.
Here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pv8JxrQMAw

Hope this helps. If not, it’s still a pretty cool channel to watch. :)

-- When you leave your shop for the night, make sure you can always count to 10.

Yeah he is one of the many I’ve followed on YouTube who do something like this. I think it’s all about controlling the burn and ensuring a consistent amount of air but would love to hear from anyone that knows!

-- Im more succesfull at making sawdust than I am at making furniture

I follow a Japanese wood worker on YouTube and he does it.
Here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pv8JxrQMAw

Hope this helps. If not, it s still a pretty cool channel to watch. :)

- fivecodys

Ive watched many of this guys vids also, he does great work.

-- Wildwood by Brian Johns: It is wiser to find out, than to suppose (S. Clemens)

Ideas here.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=stove+for+burning+wood+saw+dust

-- Alaskan's for Global warming!

Thanks Alaska guy!

-- Im more succesfull at making sawdust than I am at making furniture

Sawmills usually burn their sawdust to generate steam. From what I remember, they just keep a steady stream into the fire chamber somehow so that it burns immediately. They may have fuel oil or natural gas burning at the same time and just supplement with the sawdust? I would think that on your scale, you would have to pelletize it and add an auger or conveyor to continuously feed a little at a time just like the pellet stoves and grills do.

-- Nathan, TX -- Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.

Sawmills usually burn their sawdust to generate steam. From what I remember, they just keep a steady stream into the fire chamber somehow so that it burns immediately.

Historically they used a fireman to shovel it in, with a whistle on the machines to tell the fireman whether he was making enough steam or not. Later setups had augers and conveyors to do the work. Solid fuel was used to get it going, and probably for low output times.

I would do a few test burns with about a gallon bucket of sawdust to see how it goes. You could put a pipe down the center while you fill it like Ishtani vid then remove it so it can draw air.

-- Rick M, http://thewoodknack.blogspot.com/

My grandfather would do this all the time. He usually just packed it into half of a paper grocery bag, then folded the top down so it was tightly packed. He also used the sawdust as kindling to get the fire going in the first place. Of course, paper grocery bags were the norm, back then.

Usually if I were helping out in the shop, he’d have me sweep up all of the sawdust from under the jointer and tablesaw and just dump it right into the stove. His was just a hobby shop, so he never generated too much sawdust. The sawdust from the summer went into the paper grocery bags for burning in the winter.

-- Tony, SW Chicago Suburbs

I put the sawdust in large lunch bags, staple top and then burn in fireplace insert. I keep the bags in large paper leaf bags so it can all breathe. we have about 10 in the basement now waiting for it to get a little colder. They burn quickly and pretty hot. So maybe refill every 30 minutes. we have a 50 gallon barrel first stage, it takes about 30 minutes to empty into bags. no biggie.

-- I always knew gun nuts where afraid of something, just never thought popcorn was on the list.

I have tried burning sawdust a few times with absolutely no success. My opinion is that if you don’t buy a heater specifically made for the purpose, you will never get it to work.

Try to make sawdust logs using a some pipe and a hydraulic jack. I have wanted to try it but I have no stove. If you want to spend money you can add wax to the saw dust to make fire starter also.

- diverlloyd

My shop press was purchased years ago for a specific project. I thought I would sell the tool afterwards, but later found it to be very handy for many varied projects.

The compression of loose sawdust into a slug is just such an application where a shop press would be ideally suited.