Thread: Uses for Shavings

Here in the WA sand, I use all I can get (neighbour is a carpenter and gives me all of his too) on paths that I walk horses on. Their hooves chew up the surface badly, but a thick layer of mixture from extractors helps bind and prevent erosion.

The chook yard (as mentioned by others) also gets its fair share under the roosts and in the laying boxes.

JD

Originally Posted by Allan at Wallan

I have never smoked in my life but perhaps
you could try the shavings and let me know what the effects are.

Up to date I have given all my shavings to the bloke next door who
breeds those whopping big white rabbits. Claims it keeps them
warm in the Winter.

Allan.

_______________________________________________

I am not at all worried about dying
... but just hope I am not there at the time.

They roast up ok ?

Worm farms is the answer. I gave a heap of lathe shavings to a mate of mine for his worm farm and he reckons they are the biggest worms he has ever seen after only a few months. Also good for nesting material for bird breeders.

Cheers
Shorty

Heat the shed!

I'm rather peeved that I converted mine into a separator for the DC now.

I used to burn a lot when I was in production.
Easy to get a 44 gln drum glowing red hot in daylight.
Don't think I'd chance using a shed heater with such light gauge metal.

It's a 20gal inside a 44gal.

Fuelled once at firing, then sealed and left alone until burnt out. The only safe way to burn sawdust at home, unless you want to spend a brazillian dollars...

Thanks everyone, there are a lot of solutions, and good food for thought.

Skew, love it, wish I had room.

We have a BD backyard and yes, BD compost preparations do make the best compost, bar none. New chooks will come in spring, now the drought is breaking up maybe the wood shavings will as well. Never had a problem with shavings (or anything for that matter) robbing nitrogen, just get the boys to pee wherever you need nitrogen.

Now how about the left field, no recipes for sausages (Nth Korean style) ?? What about as kiln fuel for potters kilns?, pomanders? Car smeller upperers?, or linen closet moth scaring thingys?, home made organic MDF?, camping pillows? or insulation? thin fragile expensive carvings? (think trembleur with attitude). Im sure we can do better than compost,

Sebastiaan

Good thinking Seb'n.

Stuff your pillow with some and let us know how you go

Scatter Camphor Laurel around a Zegna suit ... should work to keep the moths away. Anyone got Paul Keating's address ... let's send him some

What about an aromatic mix of shavings to smoke a fish in the Webber?

.... my award goes to Skew's link to a burner.

There's a stove in Four Mile hut outside Kiandra. Special model to stop huts burning down ... no ash tray or the like to start it off. Has a flue and in front a venturi to draw the air down on your carefully piled pyramid of twigs. I got nowhere with it, despite a generous splash of Shellite. Just exploded and lifted the cast-iron venturi some inches off the top But my mate managed the trick and we had a couple of hours of kinda modest warmth before turning in.

Got to -14 that night. Leather cross-country ski boots frozen. Baby carrots and radishes (fresh food treat for the trip) turned to glass. ... old memories always rosy in retrospect

Just in case anyone's considering building a sawdust burner from that link, there's one change I've found that makes a big difference.

At the bottom of the flue, instead of a 90° bend into the drum, install a T-piece with the "spare" end pointing down and capped off. Then, when lighting the beast, remove the cap and start a small fire with some paper/kindling under the T. This starts the flue drawing and circulates the air in the drum, making the beast light sooo much more quickly.

Liquid accelerants are not recommended as starting assists... DAMHIKT. Suffice it to say that there is a timbre of *FOOMP* that still brings me close to brown-trousers time, even when I'm not the culprit!

LOL ... 'Foomp' captures it nicely ;-} Must've been 10kg of cast iron. Foomp and jump ... erk. Leastways nothing outside that stove was going to burn that night. (Side note .. at those temps your breath condensed and rained back down on you. You woke up, repeatedly btw, wondering whether you'd been dribbling .)

... now really OT: the hut had been built by one of the gold mine managers in the area. When the seam ran out he stayed working solo. When the hut was restored back around the 70s I think it was the volunteers found a box of gelly sticks still there. Apparently unstable stuff, they lowered it into the pit privy ... ... could have given new meaning to the term 'thunder box'

LOL ... 'Foomp' captures it nicely ;-}

what I call the KFB factor.... heart stopping stuff

Chooks, that's the answer! 6 hens, and a chook run. Chuck in your vege scraps and the wood shavings (oh, and of course the stuff that comes out of the chooks rear end- and I don't mean eggs!), and let the chooks do all the work!
Nice compost at the end, and eggs to boot!

Compost pile is the best answer I can come up with. I bag mine from the DC and carry them to my daughter's property (7 acres) and deposit in the woods as grown cover to smother weeds and compost back to nature. Likely as not her neighbor will stop me and have me deposit in his cattle lot to suck up the mud. A little bother on my part but my attempt to help mother nature do her job. If I had a space for it, I would keep mine in a compost pile and grow some rich soil in a few years. I know you sometimes produce more than can rot to keep up. but a pile is a pile and so just pile it up.

How about about a system that sucks up the shavings and shoots them into the stove .......