Log maker

[Toddy]

Has anyone any experience of these?
http://www.greenshop.co.uk/index.ht.../news/Remarkable-Customisation.htm&CatalogBod
Cheers,
Toddy

Edit, I can't get the link to work doing copy & paste. Sorry. Please see *Household* and then *Log makers* and then the new recycling log maker that doesn't just use newspaper.
Thanks,
Toddy

 

[Ogri the trog]

Toddy,
We treated ourselves to one last trip to CAT (Centre for Alternative Technology). There is no disputing the fact that it works, but it does become a bit of a chore when you have access to so many fallen trees for fuel anyway (as we do).
Newspaper is best, but telephone directories, yellow pages etc work too. Torn into short shreds and well soaked before being moulded into the bricks. We stacked ours outside for a few weeks then piled them around the Rayburn to dry properly before burning them. Have to be careful with the condensation when drying them indoors if you don't habitually open the windows.
As I said, it was a novelty at first but soon became a chore, but it's there should we need it in the future.

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[Toddy]

Thanks Ogri, I was thinking about the shavings and sawdust, etc., that the *New* logmaker is supposed to make use of...seems a bit peculiar I suppose but timber is used for furniture and boat building but we dispose of mountains of shavings & sawdust, and I know of four workshops that do likewise.
Cheers,
Toddy

 

[Motorbike Man]

One of the guys over on BB uses one of these, mostly with junk mail and old news papers and reckons it's superb

 

[Chopper]

Be very careful when using saw dust as it can be EXPLOSIVE!!.

Next time you have an open fire OUTSIDE get a teaspoon of fine saw dust and throw it into the fire and watch what happens, now imagine this happening up your chimney, shavings should be ok, I chuck loads of these in my wood burner and havent had a problem yet, but dust is not for me.

 

[dtalbot]

Pretty much the same experience as Ogri here, its a lot of work and especially time to produce even a small ammount of fuel

 

[luxor1]

toddy,
i have had the original logmaker for about 3 years.
the best way is get yourself 2 or 3 plastic dustbins,
as the junk mail paper etc is finished with place in the bin.
when full, add water and leave to soak.

 

[Toddy]

Thanks people; I was hoping that the *New* logmaker would in some way help to reduce the volume of sawdust and shavings that at present we simply dump. I know about the problems of burning sawdust waste, and wondered if this gadget would somehow compress it into useable fuel for the wood fired stoves, barbeques and firepits we use.
Cheers,
Toddy

 

[Stew]

Buy a small animal (Hamster, guniea pig, etc) and use the sawdust for in it's cage!

 

[swyn]

Hi Toddy, one of my holiday jobs was working in the local sawmill.The waste sawdust was burned in winter time in large dustbin shaped contraptions. A 4'' tube was placed in the middle of this dustbin and around it was packed sawdust as tightly as possible. (The tighter it was packed the longer the fire burned.) The tube was removed, the vent hole cleared and the fire lit at the bottom of the hole with a rag attatched to a piece of fencing wire dipped in diesel. the lid was put on and the fire went all day. These were placed near each of the saws to keep the operators warm. I have not seen anything like that available commercially for many years, although I would think that it would be fairly simple to make But perhaps not something that would look well in your sitting room Once the thing was lit it had to burn all the sawdust until the next batch filled it.

 

[innocent bystander]

Be very careful when using saw dust as it can be EXPLOSIVE!!.

Next time you have an open fire OUTSIDE get a teaspoon of fine saw dust and throw it into the fire and watch what happens, now imagine this happening up your chimney, shavings should be ok, I chuck loads of these in my wood burner and havent had a problem yet, but dust is not for me.

Surely it only explodes as a dust (saw mills, flour mills etc), but not when as a compressed lump ?

 

[Motorbike Man]

I wonder if there is some natural substance that you could mix with the saw dust (Shavings are no problem, but the minute the dust gets picked up in the thermals from a fire.....BOOM!!) and actually stick it together and compress it into logs with the logmaker. My concern with the new logmaker would be that as the outer sheets of paper burn through, there'll be nothing holding the saw dust together.

 

[Toddy]

I wonder if there is some natural substance that you could mix with the saw dust (Shavings are no problem, but the minute the dust gets picked up in the thermals from a fire.....BOOM!!) and actually stick it together and compress it into logs with the logmaker. My concern with the new logmaker would be that as the outer sheets of paper burn through, there'll be nothing holding the saw dust together.

This was my concern too. I wondered if anyone had used this and whether the problem was real or maybe they had a suggestion for a binding agent. The tiny fibres from bowdrilling kind of bind together into a charcoal when they get hot enough, I wondered if the same would happen with the sawdust. I reckon that you'd have to be pretty good at the compression factor in any case though.
Cheers,
Toddy

 

[rapidboy]

I remember my grandparents had one when i was a kid and we used to make the blocks up in the summer to burn through the winter.
More trouble than it was worth IIRC.

I remember a guy who used to process saw dust ,sump oil and chopped up tyres.
All the raw materials came free from different sources.
He made ingots and these fed from a large hopper into a solid fuel burner.
Im not sure that burning these would be allowed these day's.

 

[wanderinstar]

I had a Franco Belge multi fuel cooker and an old joiner told me about Swyn,s idea .I got a steel plate to fit in bottom of cooker on fire bars with about a 2" hole in the middle. Then took the hotplate off the top of cooker, fitted 2" tube into hole and filled with sawdust. Packed it all down with bit of 3 x 2.and removed tube, then rolled a piece of newspaper up, lit one end and dropped down hole, refitted hotplate and away it went. Excellent for cooking on but not much cop for waterheating. By the time it had burned out to waterjacket on sides of firebox, it had burned out.

Ian.