What can be made from sawdust and shavings?

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:47

With access to large quantities of wood waste, for example, from furniture production or a carpentry workshop, an enterprising owner wonders what can be made from sawdust. The answer will depend on how he wants to use them. In the presence of artistic talents, sawdust and shavings can be an excellent material for the realization of creative ideas. And if you have a private house, cottage or livestock farm, then wood waste will be an excellent help in the garden or in the garden, on the farm or in the chicken coop.

Businessmen can be advised to start producing fuel or construction briquettes. You will learn useful tips and ideas for private business from the article. In it, we will look at simple examples of what you can do from sawdust with your own hands at home.

Litter in animal husbandry

Sawdust and small chipsperfectly absorb moisture and biological waste. They are sprinkled on the floor for cows, pigs, horses and other domestic animals. According to farmers, sawdust that is too small is harder to clean, but it absorbs liquids better. And large sawdust and shavings do a poor job, and they need to be laid on the surface in a large layer. Therefore, it is advised to make a mixture.

The best thing you can do with sawdust for quality bedding is to add some fermentation materials to the mix. They remove unpleasant odors and even generate heat, which will save fuel for heating in the cold season.

Use for vegetable gardens

Let's look at what can be made from sawdust. Gardeners have long used them to mulch trees, sprinkling circles around them. It is also convenient to cover the soil in gardens and greenhouses with sawdust and small chips. They protect it from freezing, help retain moisture after watering. Also, bedding on the ground prevents weeds from germinating, and a dry crust does not form on the soil surface. Thus, soil compaction does not occur, and this is of great importance for the qualitative growth of garden and berry crops.

A layer of sawdust on the site reduces the effect of cold air on the roots, prevents wind and water from washing away beneficial nutrients from soil layers.

Now you know what can be made from sawdust, but there is one little secret. It is best to use stale shavings for agriculture, otherwisethey mineralize slowly and can at the same time consume a lot of nutrients from the ground, thereby taking them away from garden plants and acidifying the soil. It is advisable to first let them rot in the compost pit, sometimes turning them over with a shovel. In this case, sawdust can be sprinkled on the surface of the flower beds and even in pots with indoor flowers. They will only fertilize the land, and the plants will produce more.

This is interesting

What can be made from sawdust and shavings, the inhabitants of North America came up with. There is a place in Guatemala called Antigua where Easter is celebrated every year with great pomp. On Holy Week, a huge number of believers gather in the village, who come from all over the country to watch bright processions and interesting performances of ancient events that happened to Jesus Christ.

Directly on the streets of the city, anyone can take part in an unusual action, namely, to create a carpet on the road from sawdust dyed in different colors. They are carefully sifted, stencils are made, sometimes canvases are laid under the drawing. Some people add real flowers and green plant leaves to the carpet patterns.

Prepare for the procession of believers 12 hours before it starts. Subsequently, the entire ceremony moves through the streets, stepping on these works of art. Some people make such carpets in their yard or even in their apartment. Through drawings and ornaments, people convey their religious feelings.

Papier-mache material

We are all used to the fact that traditional papier-mâché is made of paper, but ifthink about what can be made from sawdust, then the answer will be - the same papier-mâché. To create a thick mass, fine material is selected and PVA glue is added to it. After thorough kneading, a dense plastic consistency is obtained, which is perfectly molded.

Masks and small sculptures can be made from it on a solid base. After hardening, this papier-mache is quite strong, it can be painted with acrylic paints and varnished.

Wood paste crafts

What can be made from PVA glue and sawdust, you already understood, but you need to know the exact recipes for making wood paste for modeling so that the figures and other crafts are durable and do not crumble after drying.

Let's look at some of them:

• 2 tbsp. sawdust, 1 tbsp. wheat flour, the same amount of starch, a teaspoon of PVA and 1 glass of cold water. Mix all dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Dissolve the glue in water and gradually pour it into the rest of the ingredients, stirring constantly.
• 2 cups sawdust, 1 cup wallpaper paste mixed with the same amount of water. For complete dissolution, you will have to wait 10 minutes. Then mix everything with sawdust, but not immediately, but adding liquid in parts, while stirring all the time.

After making a dense mass, you can sculpt crafts, like from plasticine. To dry, cover the work with a cloth and leave in a dry place for a day. Do not expose to the open sun, so as not to get cracks. If workvoluminous, turn it from side to side several times to dry evenly on all sides.

Decoration of dishes

Let's see what else can be made from sawdust. The dishes on which figured patterns are applied look beautiful, as in the photo below. To make such beauty, sawdust takes the smallest, resembling dust. Then you can proceed in different ways. First, create the necessary pattern on glass or clay using PVA glue with a brush, and sprinkle sawdust on top of it. Lightly press the drawing with a napkin or directly with your hand, and pour excess sawdust onto the surface of the table.

You can do it differently. First, mix a couple of tablespoons of PVA with sawdust in a container, achieving the consistency of sour cream, and apply strips to the object of creativity with a brush. Do not forget that all drawings are done only on the front side, if you want to use the dishes in the future.

Dacha decoration

Knowing the recipes for making wood pulp and having a few molds, you can make decorative tiles to decorate the walls or floor of the house in the backyard. Such a design technique will be the answer to the question of what can be done with sawdust in the country. After all, you will agree that the same tiles will look beautiful both on the wall and on the floor of the room.

With their help, by the way, you can update the surface of an old table or cabinet, putty mass holes or cracks in the floor and furniture. Using small sawdust with the addition of chips or shavings from different types of wood, you candiversify the look of your work.

Briquettes for space heating

In connection with the latest trends in the rise in price of various types of fuel for heating, many are wondering what can be made from wood chips and sawdust. This is a cheap junk material that will be happily sold for a penny both in private carpentry workshops and in furniture factories that do not manufacture chipboard.

You can, of course, use ordinary sawdust, pouring them into the boiler. They will also give heat, but the efficiency will be much lower. Therefore, some entrepreneurs are engaged in pressing them into briquettes. If desired, you can make them at home using a homemade press. On an industrial scale, in production, such fuel briquettes are made on granulators. In your household, it is important to choose sawdust of the same consistency, you can add 10% clay, mix it all with water and dry the mass in the sun. Briquettes can be squeezed out through a manual press, or they can be laid out in small molds. In any case, they will give a wonderful heating effect on cold winter days.

What can be made and sold from sawdust

A wonderful warm and light house is obtained from the so-called wood concrete. Some have not even heard of such material, but arbolite blocks have been used for a long time, several rooms were even built from them at Antarctic stations. The blocks resemble large bricks that are easy to transport and carry. They can quickly be cut to any size with a simple saw. In finished walls wellscrews are screwed in and nails are driven in, they are warm and breathable, environmentally friendly and strong. Their surface can be plastered like regular bricks.

For the production of wood concrete blocks, chips of coniferous trees, such as pine, spruce or fir, are used. Also good material for blocks is obtained from poplar, birch and aspen chips. You can’t take only beech and larch!

First, all wood is disinfected so as not to cause fermentation processes when mixed with water and cement. This may result in voids or swelling of the material. Chemical treatment is carried out using a mixture of calcium chloride with liquid glass and aluminum sulfate. In addition, the chips are additionally treated with an antiseptic to get rid of insects and bacteria.

Only after preliminary preparation, a plasticizer (1% by weight) and Portland cement (up to 15%) are added to the sawdust. Then the resulting mass is molded and dried for at least 2 days at a temperature of 60 °C.

As you can see, the use of sawdust can be found in a variety of ways. This is an excellent material for both creativity and construction and household work.