And You Think Sawdust Is Waste...

[Jim Frye]

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/disinfectant-sawdust-kill-deadly-microbes-sustainable

[twistsol]

I wonder if different wood species would have different results being more or less effective for a given purpose. Black walnut for the flu, red oak for staph etc.

[LCHIEN]

My wife makes me shake my clothes, brush them off or even vacuum them after coming in from the shop to eat. She says I don't want to eat sawdust.

From reading the article, sawdust is good for my health. So I now know she is trying to kill me,

Joke is on her, I cashed in the life insurance policy so I could buy more tools.

[Finnegan]

I keep plastic jars of sawdust (separated by species), so that, when I mess up, I can mix up some with white glue and use it as a filler. Don't use yellow wood glue - it dries much darker than the original wood.

[Jim Frye]

I saw Elmer's clear glue in a store today. Was going to buy a small bottle to try mixing with sawdust to make filler, but they didn't have any thing less than quart bottles.

[LCHIEN]

I keep plastic jars of sawdust (separated by species), so that, when I mess up, I can mix up some with white glue and use it as a filler. Don't use yellow wood glue - it dries much darker than the original wood.

I tried that once. I was always running out of sawdust.

How is it that you the volume of sawdust is way less than the cuts you take them out of?

Just kidding. I didn't do any of this. The first sawdust I ever made is still on the floor, somewhere. Clean up? What's that?

[furthermore]

Sawdust isn't waste, it's fuel for my compost pile! On an industrial scale, we've been pressing it into pellets for use as heating fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellet_fuel Several of my family members heat with pellets, they tend to enjoy it. We don't have a bulkhead to the basement, so it will be oil for us for the forseeable future

[capncarl]

A bit more information on pressing sawdust into pellets please…. Are you saying you make your own pellets of purchase manufactured pellets?

[furthermore]

Oh I certainly don't manufacture my own, you buy them in bags. Most people buy them by the ton if they're using them for whole house heat. My parents have an insert that goes into the fireplace so they use it to heat the downstairs of the house. My uncle has a pellet boiler and radiant heat, so he heats his whole home with pellets. If I'm remembering correctly, the pellet tech was invented at the University here to deal with the sawdust waste that the paper (and lumber) mills create