Sawdust

[1775usmarine]

Bought 2 55gal drum size bags of pine sawdust for $5/each. They come in heavy duty clear bags. If you're near Galien Mi check them out.

http://krumriesms.com

[BNE]

How much fluxing can one guy do? Wow, 110 gallons of sawdust!

[Bazoo]

Anyone in my area need sawdust message me. Bring your own box.

[1775usmarine]

How much fluxing can one guy do? Wow, 110 gallons of sawdust!

I'm new to the game so figure get as much as I can now of everything casting wise before 2020. I got plenty of reloading stuff to last me 3yrs but want to focus on primers and powder come Nov. Some of the dust will be used for rabbit bedding.

[Bazoo]

I use sawdust for flux when melting weights into ingots. It seems it helps remove the garbage. I don't scrimp on it, maybe use 1/3 of a coffee can of sawdust for 40-50 pounds of weights. Then I flux with wax after the initial sawdust fluxing.

[lightman]

That sounds like a lot but if you have the space to store it the price was certainly right. I would probably try to find some metal barrels or trash cans to put it in to keep mice out of it.

[georgerkahn]

I, too, am a sawdust user, gleaning mine from under one of my table-saws. I simply dropped a piece of surplus plastic window material atop stand opening, and the 'dust accumulates at a rate pretty close to my fluxing need use.
The reason I'm posting this is to add that LOTS of wood nowadays isn't "pure" wood. Sawdust from Wolmanized wood (aka, "pressure treated") uses a copper azole process making its fumes -- when heated/charred/burned QUITE TOXIC to breathe. Also, several repetitive saw cuts on many different painted wood pieces sawdust will also produce toxic fumes if/when used atop the lead pot.
I know, way back, I never gave this a thought -- hence, this post, to give a "headsup" to others.
(It is for these reasons I exclusively use ONLY dust from my table saw and planers.)
BEST!
geo

[Burnt Fingers]

I made my own sawdust with a miter saw.

I hooked my cleaned out shop vac to the collection port and took a 2x4 pine stud and started taking very shallow cuts off the end. Just the thickness of the saw blade.

It makes a lot of sawdust very quickly.

[1775usmarine]

That sounds like a lot but if you have the space to store it the price was certainly right. I would probably try to find some metal barrels or trash cans to put it in to keep mice out of it.

I did also pick up 20 14gal plastic containers from a local teflon tape manufacturer for a buck fifty a piece. They came with screw on lids. Just had to wipe out the ptfe powder residue.

[pworley1]

I have a saw mill and give saw dust away by the trailer load.

[dimaprok]

I, too, am a sawdust user, gleaning mine from under one of my table-saws. I simply dropped a piece of surplus plastic window material atop stand opening, and the 'dust accumulates at a rate pretty close to my fluxing need use.
The reason I'm posting this is to add that LOTS of wood nowadays isn't "pure" wood. Sawdust from Wolmanized wood (aka, "pressure treated") uses a copper azole process making its fumes -- when heated/charred/burned QUITE TOXIC to breathe. Also, several repetitive saw cuts on many different painted wood pieces sawdust will also produce toxic fumes if/when used atop the lead pot.
I know, way back, I never gave this a thought -- hence, this post, to give a "headsup" to others.
(It is for these reasons I exclusively use ONLY dust from my table saw and planers.)
BEST!
geo

Yep, the one I picked up for free from Home Depot is like that, it doesn't smell nice like real pine or whatever and what I do is sprinkle the layer in the pot before I start casting to prevent oxidation and used to endure unpleasant burn smell until it fully chars and then one day a realized I can speed up the process by just igniting with lighter and the whole thing burns out pretty quickly and whats left is what you want.

[gwpercle]

I use the shavings out of our pencil sharpener . No sweat to make it , nice cedar wood smells good , has a bit of fine powered graphite in it already ... It's great for fluxing and puts to use something that normally gets thrown away.
Best of all it's free and you don't have to drive anywhere to get it .
Try it some times... you might like it .
Gary

[jsizemore]

Anybody that has a wood-mizer type saw mill setup is glad to give sawdust away. Fella I get mine from cuts on a daily basis and usually spends half an hour with a snow shovel per day. Fine dust that chars quickly compared to shavings and chips.

[DiverJay]

I made my own sawdust with a miter saw.

I hooked my cleaned out shop vac to the collection port and took a 2x4 pine stud and started taking very shallow cuts off the end. Just the thickness of the saw blade.

It makes a lot of sawdust very quickly.

A table saw with a dado blade works even quicker.

[Bookworm]

Something I've always wondered:

The slot one makes in a piece of wood whilst cutting is called a 'kerf'.

Why is the detritus from the cut called 'sawdust', and not 'kerfwaste' ?

Has anyone else ever wondered about that ?

[Bazoo]

The dust from a saws teeth is called swarf. Wood dust in general is sawdust for some reason.

[David2011]

Yep, the one I picked up for free from Home Depot is like that, it doesn't smell nice like real pine or whatever and what I do is sprinkle the layer in the pot before I start casting to prevent oxidation and used to endure unpleasant burn smell until it fully chars and then one day a realized I can speed up the process by just igniting with lighter and the whole thing burns out pretty quickly and whats left is what you want.

Sorry; I'm not sure what you picked up at Home Depot but if it was sawdust there's a virtual certainty that it has plywood/particle board shavings loaded with glue and it may have pressure treated wood shavings as well. All of those are bad things.

[1775usmarine]

Did my first casting using the saw dust. It definitely is pine and out of the lee ingot mold majority were shiny ingots albeit rippled. Ended up with 60lbs of soft lead ingots in almost 7hrs of casting with a lee 10lb bottom pour. Now to get a hotplate.

[Hamish]

I'm new to the game so figure get as much as I can now of everything casting wise before 2020. I got plenty of reloading stuff to last me 3yrs but want to focus on primers and powder come Nov. Some of the dust will be used for rabbit bedding.

Just remember, you're going to use sawdust to smelt and smelt alone! By the time you're alloy is clean enough to make ingots and start pouring bullets, the ONLY stuff you're going to want flux with in your casting pot is a bit of candle wax.

If you're using a bottom pour pot, you will tear your hair out getting all the ashy crap out and having it block the orifice! (I do use a bit of flux core solder while casting, but that is for the solder, not the flux.)

Do yourself a favor, no kitty litter, no crayons, nothing but a little candle wax for casting, but by all means, avail yourself of the sawdust for initial smelting and cleaning,,,,,.

[1775usmarine]

Just remember, you're going to use sawdust to smelt and smelt alone! By the time you're alloy is clean enough to make ingots and start pouring bullets, the ONLY stuff you're going to want flux with in your casting pot is a bit of candle wax.

If you're using a bottom pour pot, you will tear your hair out getting all the ashy crap out and having it block the orifice! (I do use a bit of flux core solder while casting, but that is for the solder, not the flux.)

Do yourself a favor, no kitty litter, no crayons, nothing but a little candle wax for casting, but by all means, avail yourself of the sawdust for initial smelting and cleaning,,,,,.

I've got a bunch of candles in the garage so I should be set on that. I've been reading up on here almost everyday about something. Got the alloy calculator working on my phone so I can mix my stash of 30/70 solder and pewter into the soft stuff and clip ons.