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Shavings and sawdust uses?

F

Frank F

Joined
Oct 31, 2006
Messages
99
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8
Location
Massachusetts
Are there any household or yard uses for wood shavings and sawdust? When my woodworking hobby involved only flat work, the waste was managable. But since I started turning...well you all know how it is. The barrell fills up fast.

Searching the internet, I've read that sawdust is a good mulch to stop weeds and it's a natural herbicide. I also read that it's a good fertilizer! Huh? Bedding in stables was also popular, but I don't have any horses.

Is there a practical way to compress it for use in a fire place? Does anyone have any other ideas? I'm interested in what others do.

Thanks

Frank
 
Exercise Care with Shavings

Frank,

Exercise care with how and where you use certain shavings.

Certain types of shaving can be hazardous to the health of horses. Pine (and I think Cedar) are the only safe shaving that I know of for sure. The shaving need to be dry so as not to mold though.

I am in central Texas and have St. Augistne grass (Carpet Grass) in my yard.
Walnut will kill grass and nothing will grow there for quite a while. (personal experience)

I have spread oak, maple, mesquite, cedar, ash, and many rosewood family shaving in the yard with out any problem.

I have been told by the local gardening expert that all of these (less the walnut) could be added to the compost pile, in moderation of course.

There is a compost/mulch/dirt supplier near the house and I have taken my shaving to him in the past. He was glad to have what ever I could get him.

HTH
Clayton
 
Hickory, Mesquite, just about any fruit wood or nut wood, can be used for smoke in a slow BBQ. Shavings don't last long if exposed directly to the fire in creating smoke, even if they're water soaked prior to use. But I've found that wetting them and putting them into a steel can, encircled by hot coals, allows them to last longer as a smoking medium.
I'd agree that you've got to be careful how you use certain shavings because some of the wood we turn can be quite toxic. But I don't turn much exotic wood, just typical American made forest products.
 
Too many shavings added to a garden cause the soil Ph to change, and they reduce nitrogen as they use it during their breakdown process. Being in horse and cow country I can get manure, which I mix with shavings and sprinkle with high nitrogen fertilizer. Grass clippings can be substituted for chemical nitrogen making the mix organic. A little quick lime sprinkled on the mix will help keep the acidity down, a good thing in this area as the soil tends to be acidic naturally. You can also "pave" garden and wooded paths with shavings.
 
As Jake says, you can make them kill or nourish plants, depending on how you treat them. Lay 'em thick and acid - especially oak or cherry - under the electric fence to keep the weeds down, or use them as bedding for animals and compost back to soil with the added nitrogen.

Horse people like the light stuff, but the animals will eat cherry and founder on walnut, so those are weed killers. I burn the dry ones in winter, but the amount of wet roughing shavings is just too large to store, so they go out immediately to the pile or the stalls.
 
shavings

Whatewver you do, dont put them in flower beds close to the house. They will give tewrmites a good start. and I dont think you want that.Our city has a rollaround bin that we put clippimgs, shavings, small limbs in and they go to that kind of landfill, not your regular garbage landfill.Max
 
I used to take them to a yard waste recycling place, then an old friend said he would take all I could give him. Well, that was 500 or more 50 gallon bags full, and he still wants more. He will put a bunch out for paths, and in a year, 5 bags break down to a wheelbarrow full. Then he scoops it up and puts it in the garden for compost.
robo hippy
 
I put my shavings around the base of some of the trees in my yard, and under my grapevines. I have a pile 4' tall in my woodyard, the neighbor's chickens scratch it down, and I rake it back up. Several people get some quite often for their trees. One man puts it in his chicken nests. The FFA chapter gets it to put in their animal pens... And I start my fires in my shop woodstove in the winter with it, and my wife makes fire-starters for out fire place with it. She puts shavings in muffin papers and dribbles hot candle wax onto it. One starter will start three or four 3" logs to burning.
Like has been stated... do not put shavings near the house... termites.
 
I've put cedar and camphor shavings on fire ant mounds. I don't know if it kills them or chases them away. A friend did some carving and sanding in Spanish Cedar without cleaning the shed. Next day, a bunch of cockroaches belly up.

Joe
 
I pile it up in the back yard and let it compost down for a couple of years. Then I use it for mulch around plants. I put the compost into the dirt as I have adobe clay around here. It does use nitrogin while composting so I do add a little fertilizer. But the dirt loves it and therefore the plants love it.

My neighbor has an old blue VW bug in his back yard. I have threatened to shape my shavings pile (it is large enough) into the shape of a VW bug and then put a blue tarp over it so they match.:D
Hugh
 
Al Neighbors said:
I put my shavings around the base of some of the trees in my yard, and under my grapevines. I have a pile 4' tall in my woodyard, the neighbor's chickens scratch it down, and I rake it back up. Several people get some quite often for their trees. One man puts it in his chicken nests.
Click to expand...

Odd you should mention this. I had given truckloads of shavings to one of the ER nurses who raised chickens when I offered some to a friend up the road, who said they were not good for chickens. She said the chickens are so dumb they will eat loose dust, thinking it mash, and suffer malnutrition. I was curious, so I asked Becky if she had ever heard of it. She said she had, but she left the small stuff on the bottom of the bag for the rabbits just in case. FWIW

Oh yes, always volunteer to take back the "used" shavings, but keep them aerated because some manures are pretty exothermic.
 
Now your talking. I'll just put a binder with them and shape them like old washing machines and refrigerators and just put them on the front porch. Then I could shape some like old pickup trucks and leave then in the yard and let the Kudzu cover them. I'd fit in perfectly with my neighbors.
I have trouble getting rid of my shavings. I can only get a burn permit about every 4th time I call so it's hard to burn them. The garbage won't pick them up if they think they are shavings or in a black bag that weights over 45lbs (and they apparently assume a bag weighing 30 is 45) I don't really have a place to compost things. When they do get the best of me I simply make a run to the dump which is 17 miles away.
 
Unless they're from the more weather-resistant varieties like Cypress, or strong smelling, I just scatter a layer over our rough lawn out the back. No more than couple of inches thick. Then the next cut the catcher gets left off.

It's amazing how fast they rot down. We get about 25" of rain in an av. year (whatever that is these days).
 
My son has a large swing set for his kids and he can use many of the shavings I generate in the shop under the swings. Another friend uses them for paths, but I still have some that are composting with grass clippings. I add some comercial chicken manuer for nitrogen when I put them in the garden. So far the garden is growing well. I use maple, cherry and birch pimarily and rarely turn walnut or exotics.
 
Because this is a recent (geologically speeking) volcanic island, we don 't have anything here that resembles soil. If you want to pant something, you need to break up the volcanic rock and then pry each piece of rock out of the hole with a steel bar. The only need for a shovel here is to put the purchased manufactured "soil" into the hole created. Manufactured soil consists of ground up volcanic cinders and crushed macadamia nut shells. Somehow the roots find their way into the rock and everything growing is very healthy.

I use it to dress around the coffee trees and all other landscaping. In our climate, it pretty much disappears in about 3 months. After years of doing this along with grass clippings and soft tissue prunings, it still is a whole bunch of rocks and maybe a little more soil.

If there were some turners close by, I'd be begging for their discards.
 
Good for Raku

I give a lot of mine to my wife's pottery guild members who do Raku work. One woman told me she got the best results ever using my chips. I try to keep walnut and exotic chips out of the mix just in case. I also use some for mulch here and there. Some go in the trash and some in the yard waste pile down back of the pond.
 
shavings

I have just finished putting about 10-12 40gal bags around the trees, around the flower transplants, and around the cuke,tomato,squash,melon transplants-hopefully it'll prevent them from drying out as I am leaving town for 7 days. As the summer progresses I put more shavings as the vines grow, and it keeps the fruit from becoming muddy. I have 10 more bags waiting to be used up, and will create more in the summer. Gretch
 
Sawdust etc

This may sound a little simple but Walnut and exotics are poison to plants and animals, everything else can be composted alone or with leaves, grass clippings, etc.
And yes you can use it as mulch in gardens and around trees next to your house as long as it does not contact wood siding. With no wood to wood contact termites will not go from the mulch to the house. People have been using cypress mulch for years and years and there is not a termite problem there, what different in cypress mulch and wood shavings, nothing. So long as your mulch doesn't come in contact with the siding on your home, you're fine.
And if you think about it even if you do have termites in your mulch, why would they leave this easy source of food to go after a harder source of food?
Mike
 
IRISHMIKE said:
This may sound a little simple but Walnut and exotics are poison to plants and animals, everything else can be composted alone or with leaves, grass clippings, etc.
And yes you can use it as mulch in gardens and around trees next to your house as long as it does not contact wood siding. With no wood to wood contact termites will not go from the mulch to the house. People have been using cypress mulch for years and years and there is not a termite problem there, what different in cypress mulch and wood shavings, nothing. So long as your mulch doesn't come in contact with the siding on your home, you're fine.
Click to expand...

Or if you think that cypress and cedar and other "exotics" from rainforests which have to fight insects and fungi year-round have chemicals that make them unpalatable to termites, you might be closer to reality. If they had been made in factories instead of growing in the woods they would never make it to market.

Since foliage demands nitrogen, anything that uses it for the process of decay will retard foliage formation. Bad for grass, ok for peas which make their own.
 
Use walnut shavings against the weeds...

Consider sprinkling some walnut shavings in sidewalk cracks and on gravel driveways prone to weed growth. While it doesn't get rid of a lot of shavings, at least you can make use of the natural germination inhibitor (juglone; an allelopathic natural chemical) instead of having to buy weed killer, etc. for use on these areas. Works pretty well for me, here in central Iowa.

Rob
 
Don O. Jr. said:
I give a lot of mine to my wife's pottery guild members who do Raku work. One woman told me she got the best results ever using my chips. I try to keep walnut and exotic chips out of the mix just in case. ......
Click to expand...

I wouldn't bother separating the chips. A potter friend of mine also takes my chips and have found it doesn't matter, well, except the denser wood burns longer
 
n7bsn said:
I wouldn't bother separating the chips. A potter friend of mine also takes my chips and have found it doesn't matter, well, except the denser wood burns longer
Click to expand...

My main concern here is the smoke from woods that are well known as allergy sensitizers. I don't want to take a chance of someone having an allergic reaction from my chips especially if they don't know what's in them. I try to stick to domestic hardwoods native to our area, even though that's not a complete guarantee (example Walnut) either. I don't use many exotics anyway and don't use much Walnut either. I've helped at many Raku firings and it can get pretty smoky. Breathing in an allergen to which you are sensitve could be a big problem. Ever seen anyone who breathed in smoke from burning Poison Ivy ? Fortunately, I've only seen pictures of that.

I hope this does not sound defensive as it is not meant to be. Just me rambling on.
 
Walnut an Asparagus

Rob,

We had a thread like this last fall. I remember your are a professor of botany and was making the case against using walnut around plants unless you wanted them dead. I was so frustrated with the grass and pigweeds in my asparagus patch last year I did not care about science and ran an experiment against your posted advice.

I buried my asparagus patch in at least 8" of shavings. Virtually every chip I turned this winter went on the asparagus. This mix included maybe 40% walnut as I got a nice log last fall. Added good dose of fertilizer at the time of the first warm day. The results have been little or no grass so far and asparagus about 3 weeks later than my nieghbors. BUT the bad news is canadian thisle shoots right thru all those shavings.

I know your are right about walnut but I hoped for pre-emergant protection rather than herbacidal effect. Which mode of action is Juglone from Walnut?

Frank

PS: Sorry for my lack of agri science terminology.
 
Wouldn't make a lot of evolutionary sense to have juglone in the wood. Not as if anything is likely to take root there anyway. Now the roots, husks and leaves are good candidates, and that's where the hot stuff is found, along with the bark. They fall to the ground, or are in it, and leach the stuff into the soil.

Pigweed and grass are nothing. I've got bindweed, and the roots go all the way to Hell - where they should stay!
 
MichaelMouse said:
Or if you think that cypress and cedar and other "exotics" from rainforests which have to fight insects and fungi year-round have chemicals that make them unpalatable to termites, you might be closer to reality. If they had been made in factories instead of growing in the woods they would never make it to market.

Since foliage demands nitrogen, anything that uses it for the process of decay will retard foliage formation. Bad for grass, ok for peas which make their own.
Click to expand...

I have 2 to 4 inches of shavings around my Azealas and they are 8 to 10 feet tall. I also use it around my Easter Lilies and Amaryllis. The Easter Lilies are up to 4 feet tall and some of my Amaryllis put out 3 stalks of flowers this year and it is their first year in the ground. I didn't expect them to even flower.
I hope you didn't think I was calling Cypress and Walnut exotics, I was talking of Cocobolo, Redheart, and the like. I don't know enough about them to use them so the safe thing is to not use them.
 
No, I'm calling them species with natural insecticides. Though at this latitude cypress and walnut would be exotic.
 
Primarily a germination inhibitor...

Frank Kobilsek said:
Rob,

We had a thread like this last fall. I remember your are a professor of botany and was making the case against using walnut around plants unless you wanted them dead. I was so frustrated with the grass and pigweeds in my asparagus patch last year I did not care about science and ran an experiment against your posted advice.

I buried my asparagus patch in at least 8" of shavings. Virtually every chip I turned this winter went on the asparagus. This mix included maybe 40% walnut as I got a nice log last fall. Added good dose of fertilizer at the time of the first warm day. The results have been little or no grass so far and asparagus about 3 weeks later than my nieghbors. BUT the bad news is canadian thisle shoots right thru all those shavings.

I know your are right about walnut but I hoped for pre-emergant protection rather than herbacidal effect. Which mode of action is Juglone from Walnut?

Frank
Click to expand...

Hi Frank...

Juglone has its highest concentrations in the bark, roots, and leaves of walnut trees, but still is present in the wood of the plant in lower concentrations. The chemical will leach out of the wood, bark, or other plant parts over time and repeated wetting by rain, etc. into the surrounding soil. The effect of this chemical is to interfere with metabolic enzymes needed for normal plant growth and development in non-walnut species. (This is what gives it the allelopathic effect - killing or stunting potentially competing other plant species with the walnuts, young or old.) Thus, the most sensitive plants are those in rapid growth - usually young seedlings, hence the "pre-emergent" type of control. The chemical has limited use as a true [non-selective] herbicide [ such as Roundup (tm) ], but if it's present in large enough concentrations, it can still cause stunting of growth in more mature herbaceous (non-woody) plant species.

If the Canadian thistle is continuing to grow through the walnut shavings (and a quite deep layer at that!), I suspect that these plants may have arisen from established, deep tap roots that are not as easily effected by the juglone at the surface..... ...you'll need to zap these with some contact herbicide to kill them off, root and all. You probably did get some pre-emergent effect from the walnut for other plants, but not for those established plants with taproots; since the asparagus continued to grow through the shavings, it, too, must have been relying on deeper roots.

If you'll be at the AAW Symposium in Richmond, we certainly can talk more about this... I'll be the guy there with the beard that looks like a woodturner ;)

Hope this answered your question....

Cheers,

Rob
 
Last edited:
As I was sorting chips...I recalled another use.

I'm bagging the Osage Orange and Butternut/Walnut chips separate. I have a friend that wants to use them as a dye source.

TTFN
Ralph
 
Hugh
SWMBO says the most common are things like metal salts, or just plan salt (I'd have to get in touch with the person that is getting them to ask her, and I know she is gone for the weekend)
 
Ed Reiss

Some years back, a friend in Pensacola had a camphor tree that he wanted pruned.

Turned a bunch of neat bowls and vessels from the spoils....and had a ton of shavings. Figured I'd put them under our mobile home to chase out the bug critters living under there. Worked great! By the next day, no more bugs under the house....they all migrated UP into the house!

To make matters worse, my wife had an adverse reaction to the camphor wood smell....after making me clean up all the shavings, she forbade me to turn anymore camphor.:cool::cool:
 
Why not reuse some of the shavings back into your turnings? I save for example, Bloodwood shavings and use that inlayed into maple for a contrasting look when turning plugs for some people. Other than that I keep sawdust on hand for cleaning up oil spills,etc.
 
shavings

Hi,

I have the intention to buy a machine (Weima) which makes bricks out of shavings - good to burn.
I want to avoid the high oil prices.
Don'( you have such machunes in America? Or does the system does not work?
It costs about 1000 dollar which is less expensive than oil.
Squirrel
 
squirrel said:
Hi,

I have the intention to buy a machine (Weima) which makes bricks out of shavings - good to burn.
I want to avoid the high oil prices.
Don'( you have such machunes in America? Or does the system does not work?
It costs about 1000 dollar which is less expensive than oil.
Squirrel
Click to expand...

City dwellers are pretty much prohibited from burning wood, because there are so many in such a small area. They don't have chimneys capable of handling wood smoke, nor the stoves, so it would require a large investment.

Country people burn wood as fuel. I among them, but it's my sweat that takes dollars off the fuel bill. If I have to buy the wood at $125/cord (120cm x 120cm x 240cm), I can expect our local species to deliver over $400 worth of heat compared to propane prices. That's after I haul it, cut and split it, stack to cure then load into my wood room during the winter to hold as needed. Lots of work. Warms me many times. In the woods in winter felling, in the yard in summer splitting and stacking, when I bring in a cord at -30 in the winter, and finally when the fan starts circulating my heated air. There are people who cut and split who will deliver the same cord in shorter lengths for $240, saving a few steps, but I'm not old enough to make that worthwhile -yet.

Any type of press would get shavings compact enough to handle. Publications like "The Mother Earth News" and back-to-the-land books have plans. I just roll mine in the daily paper (Motto - "Yesterday's News Tomorrow") and use them for tinder. Makes them useful spring and fall for warming the chimney to draw and igniting my kindling. From December to March the fire does not go out save by accident, though I shovel shavings in to get them out of the way. I think I'd explore the purchase of an old manual press and build a box to stuff shavings in rather than spend the money, unless there were more to this item than your description indicates.
 
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