What do you guys do with the bags of sawdust you get off the table saw?

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  • LCHIEN
    Internet Fact Checker
    • Dec 2002
    • 20920
    • Katy, TX, USA.
    • BT3000 vintage 1999

    What do you guys do with the bags of sawdust you get off the table saw?

    Well, this is the Sawdust Zone.

    The DC bag is getting full. (took a few years) I think this will be my second bag since probably 2005 or so?

    What do you do with your sawdust?

    Warning: my dust may have some small amounts of plastic and some fine shards of aluminum cuttings. but is 99.95% sawdust, a lot of pine and cedar, some oak, some Treated pine and a few other woods.

    Options:
    toss it
    give it to someone for compost
    post an community ad for free sawdust -
    Find a boyscout troop that wants to make firestarters. (muffin cups filled with sawdust/filled with liquid candle wax and cooled -easy to light and burns long enough to get logs started at a wet campsite)
    Someone once suggested auto mechanics like it to sop up spilled oil... Offer to a/my mechanic?
    Last edited by LCHIEN; 08-29-2021, 03:22 AM.
    Loring in Katy, TX USA
    If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat all problems as if they were nails.
    BT3 FAQ - https://www.sawdustzone.org/forum/di...sked-questions
  • capncarl
    Veteran Member
    • Jan 2007
    • 3564
    • Leesburg Georgia USA
    • SawStop CTS

    #2
    I have a 5’ x 5’ x 2’ open top bin in my garden that I dump my sawdust and ash from the grill in. I blend it in with the compost bins, and sometimes the sawdust is used around the vegetables as mulch.

    Comment

    • atgcpaul
      Veteran Member
      • Aug 2003
      • 4055
      • Maryland
      • Grizzly 1023SLX

      #3
      My sawdust was relatively clean of foreign objects. I bagged it in a large paper lawnbag and put it out for the city to pickup with the yard waste.

      I've tried composting it, but didn't have enough of the other bits to balance it out.

      If I had a wood stove, I'd probably pack it into logs for burning.

      Comment

      • capncarl
        Veteran Member
        • Jan 2007
        • 3564
        • Leesburg Georgia USA
        • SawStop CTS

        #4
        My sawdust is also relatively clean,,,,, after I sort through and dig out the random safety glasses, pencils and small paper cut lists that the collector gobbles up!

        Comment

        • twistsol
          Veteran Member
          • Dec 2002
          • 2893
          • Cottage Grove, MN, USA.
          • Ridgid R4512, 2x ShopSmith Mark V 520, 1951 Shopsmith 10ER

          #5
          When I empty my dust collector, I take it to the local compost site. They charge a buck a bag. The sawdust is very clean since the DC only serves the table saw, miter saw, router table, and planer.

          I cut melamine and other sheet goods with the track saw so that all ends up in the bags for the vac.
          Chr's
          __________
          An ethical man knows the right thing to do.
          A moral man does it.

          Comment

          • cwsmith
            Veteran Member
            • Dec 2005
            • 2737
            • NY Southern Tier, USA.
            • BT3100-1

            #6
            I tried using it one winter to sprinkle on the sidewalk after I shoveled away the snow. Read somewhere that sawdust would keep it from getting slippery; NOT a good idea, as it certainly made a mess of your shoes and the house entry way. So, I just bag it in those brown paper lawn bags, the same as I do shredded paper. I label the contents and put it out on the curb for the city refuge/recycle pick-up.

            CWS
            Think it Through Before You Do!

            Comment

            • Black walnut
              Administrator
              • Aug 2015
              • 5438
              • BT3K

              #7
              I burn mine with "yard waste". We mulch our grass so our "yard waste" amounts to tree trimmings and leaves in the fall. We have a100' row of willows so always have lots of sticks that fall during the ever preset wind that need to be burned. Every so often I use about a half a 5 gallon buck of chips and dust to make a dust eliminating floor seep compound by adding ATF to it.sprinkle on the smooth shop floor and after letting sit for a bit sweep it all up. It leaves the floor dustless and clean. Since I also use the shop and my huge outfeed table as a butcher table by adding a protective but sacraficial cover of hard board. A dust free clean environment is necessary. the floor sweep compound lasts for about three years and then it gets burned.Auto parts stores sell a similar product. It works great to clean up after using floor dry if your shop doubles as a garage or auto shop.
              just another brick in the wall...

              Boycott McAfee. They placed an unresponsive popup on my pc.

              Comment

              • leehljp
                Just me
                • Dec 2002
                • 8429
                • Tunica, MS
                • BT3000/3100

                #8
                Originally posted by Black walnut
                I burn mine with "yard waste". We mulch our grass so our "yard waste" amounts to tree trimmings and leaves in the fall. We have a100' row of willows so always have lots of sticks that fall during the ever preset wind that need to be burned. Every so often I use about a half a 5 gallon buck of chips and dust to make a dust eliminating floor seep compound by adding ATF to it.sprinkle on the smooth shop floor and after letting sit for a bit sweep it all up. It leaves the floor dustless and clean. Since I also use the shop and my huge outfeed table as a butcher table by adding a protective but sacraficial cover of hard board. A dust free clean environment is necessary. the floor sweep compound lasts for about three years and then it gets burned.Auto parts stores sell a similar product. It works great to clean up after using floor dry if your shop doubles as a garage or auto shop.
                I remember when that was used here (rural mid-south MS, AL, TN, AR.) quite often in old stores back in the '50s and even through the 60's. It was a good dust control, especially back before air conditioning and when stores used big fans.
                Hank Lee

                Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted!

                Comment

                • capncarl
                  Veteran Member
                  • Jan 2007
                  • 3564
                  • Leesburg Georgia USA
                  • SawStop CTS

                  #9
                  I think that “old timey” sawdust that was use on floors was real large particle size saw chips kmade by sawmills using large circular saw blades and was relatively free of fine dust. Our shop dust collectors today separate so well that air goes one way and everything else goes in the waste bin. Dust from sanding is truely nasty stuff when it gets on the ground and gets wet. When I use my dust collection debris for mulch in the garden the fine sanding dust sometimes washes out in the walkway and, like CWS says , gets tracked all over the place.

                  Comment

                  • Carlos
                    Veteran Member
                    • Jan 2004
                    • 1893
                    • Phoenix, AZ, USA.

                    #10
                    Trash. I run a lot of exotics and wouldn't trust that around my plants unless specifically told otherwise.

                    Comment

                    • Jim Frye
                      Veteran Member
                      • Dec 2002
                      • 1051
                      • Maumee, OH, USA.
                      • Ryobi BT3000 & BT3100

                      #11
                      Since my ShopVac is the only collection device for the shop, whatever it gathers goes into garbage bags. In the fall, after the growing season ends, all of this gets spread on the garden along with bags of micro-shredded mail that clogs our mailbox. This is all tilled into the garden soil to compost until spring planting starts. Since I don't work with walnut, there is no contamination issue.
                      Jim Frye
                      The Nut in the Cellar.
                      ”Sawdust Is Man Glitter”

                      Comment

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