Pine "Sawdust" Table saw fine? Chain saw size? Courser OK?

[lightload]

Hardcast, you got it down right. I'm still trying to find sawdust. While growing up, I lived next to a 100 ft high, 1 acre pile. Had I just known!

[borg]

I use fine wood chips form my horse stall. These were bought at a local feed and grain store as fine wood shavings. As long as they are dry, they come to a char and work excellent.
After many fluxes with these, I finish with a couple of bees wax fluxes.

I can't let go, LOL
You can use ANYTHING in the horse stall,, after all, it's all grass/hay. JUST MAKE SURE IT'S DRY.
You also should run it through some kind of strainer/grater before use.
YOU made me do it!

[country gent]

I have used sawdust from my mitre saws collection bag. wood from the chainsaw and right now am using pet bedding. The only diffrence I have seen is the finer sawdust "cooks" quicker drying out and charring faster to be ready to stir in and flux. The pet bedding takes a few mins longer to start to char letting me know its dry enough to start stirring. I also add a little parafin with the sawdust wood chips to speed the charing along faster and help clean and blend the alloy. The big thing is to do the same thing the same way or as close as possible to be consistant.

[mold maker]

The use of sawdust is 2 fold. When it flames up, it consumes the O2 at the surface and robs the oxides , leaving the metal to return to the melt.
Then the charcoal from the consumed sawdust serves as a barrier between your melt and the O2 in the air, retarding the formation of more oxides. It also insulates from heat loss. A win/win/win, and its free, or very cheap.
As an added benefit, stirring the charcoal through the melt or dip-pouring melt through charcoal (carbon), robs it of impurities that hinder good casts.
It's light weight so it floats quickly, and easily scrapes off the pot sides and bottom.

Regarding fans, place it on the other side of the pot pulling away from you, and there will be less eddie currents of fumes in your face.

[bangerjim]

How well do the commercial fluxes work?

Waste of your $$ as far as I have seen and read about. Sawdust is free and is the best most of us have found.

[borg]

How about fire log starter? wax and sawdust
Really cheap for those who can't get sawdust

[bangerjim]

Hardcast, you got it down right. I'm still trying to find sawdust. While growing up, I lived next to a 100 ft high, 1 acre pile. Had I just known!

You surely have cabinet shops around you somewhere down there? Look in the phone book and call them. I know of at least a dozen shops within miles of me. But I make so much of it my own in my wood shops, my wife uses it around plants!

Buy a pine 2x4. Clamp it in your vise. Get your hand saw out and make some sawdust! It does not take a "mountain" of it to flux your pot. Just be creative!

Do NOT use the sawdust from Home Depot or Lowe's as they cut pressure treated, laminate, fiber, and flake board which all have stuff in it you do not want to breathe. The smoke from filthy WW's simmering your re-melting pot is bad enough!

[bangerjim]

How about fire log starter? wax and sawdust
Really cheap for those who can't get sawdust

You still have to cut them up! And they are relative costly. Why not just cut up a pine 2x4? ANYBODY can get sawdust (or pet bedding at Walmart). You just gotta look.

[borg]

A $2.50 is not expensive for a 3.2 lb log from WM, a dull knife will cut it.
Now, if you get the flavored ones, all bets are off.

ETA Guess you might have a hard time finding them in Phoenix. LOL

[bangerjim]

It will surprise you but most newer houses here have fireplaces! And many have chimeras in the backyard. I have 3 firewood stacks in the backyard.

[Oreo]

The use of sawdust is 2 fold. When it flames up, it consumes the O2 at the surface and robs the oxides , leaving the metal to return to the melt.
Then the charcoal from the consumed sawdust serves as a barrier between your melt and the O2 in the air, retarding the formation of more oxides. It also insulates from heat loss. A win/win/win, and its free, or very cheap.
As an added benefit, stirring the charcoal through the melt or dip-pouring melt through charcoal (carbon), robs it of impurities that hinder good casts.
It's light weight so it floats quickly, and easily scrapes off the pot sides and bottom.

Regarding fans, place it on the other side of the pot pulling away from you, and there will be less eddie currents of fumes in your face.

THREE-fold. You missed one, and this is an important distinction most people here miss.

1. Is an oxygen barrier to prevent oxidation.
2. Is as a reducing agent. The carbonized sawdust returns oxidized lead and tin back to the melt

3. Is as a FLUX! Only wood does this. Not wax, not oil, not straw and grass clippings or any of that stuff. They will char and be a source of carbon but they will not be a true flux the way wood is.

There's a sticky somewhere on this forum that explains this in detail. Find it, read it, reap the rewards.

[Down South]

We had one of our members/vendors selling wood shavings at one time. I can't remember who it was but the stuff was good. I'm about out of it but it worked better than anything I had used before. Maybe my memory will pull it back up so I can post it.

[Down South]

I remembered. It was Pat Marlin's California Flake Flux. It's good flux but I don't know if he still sells it or not. If he does, I need to make another order.

http://www.lsstuff.com/patmarlin/flux.html

you can PM him using the member name PatMarlin.

Talked to Pat. He no longer sells his famous California Flake Flux. He has sold his mountain property.

Pine shavings or pine sawdust as mentioned in several replies works just fine.

[trixter]

How about fire log starter? wax and sawdust
Really cheap for those who can't get sawdust

I'm not trying to be a smart a$$ here, but why can't you get sawdust? A trip to a local lumber yard would be in order, or cabinet shop, or a neighbor who does woodworking. Just some ideas to help you out.

[bangerjim]

How about a 2x4 and a hand saw?!?!?!?!?!?

Or a Skill-saw?????

EVERYBODY has at least one of the above.

[1911KY]

Yea, this has been very confusing to me as well!!! 2x4 and any kind of saw!!!

If you absolutely don't have any means of creating sawdust, go to Lowe's or Home Depot back where they cut the wood for you. You can get it there free, according to a member on here. That's what he does.

[bangerjim]

Only problem with HD/Lowe's or any big box lumberyard is the cut nasty stuff (pre-treated/flake/particle/laminate/Formica/etc) that has glue and gunk and plastics in it we really do not want to breathe. The carp off WW's is bad enough!!!!!!! A cabinet shop is a good source as long as the do not do kitchen or bathroom counter tops! Hardwoods and pine only is preferable.

EVERYBODY as a Walmart near by, right? They seem to be everywhere! Get a bag of pine pet bedding......will last for a looooooooooooooooooooong time.

banger

[Oreo]

Pine pet bedding.

[RogerDat]

Pine pet bedding.

^^^^ Source for those without own pile of sawdust is this simple. Any Walmart, any pet store the pine shaving for hamster, gerbil or other rodent bedding. Cheap and available almost anyplace. I found shavings from a friend who planed a bunch of wood down works great. Finer than chainsaw or pet bedding but coarser than sawdust. That and he brought me three large boxes of it so it is the clearly my best option.

Chemical fluxes pull out stuff that is not desirable to lose from the alloy. They act in a totally different manner than wood chips. I think the article linked to in the sticky clarifies this really well. We don't really "flux" in the true sense of the word with wood shavings, any more than we truly "smelt" the metals when we make ingots. But then we don't truly want to flux thus purchase of chemical flux such as one would use for brazing or welding is not a good idea. We want to use the change in electron charge state of wood shaving turning to carbon to cause bad stuff to bind to it. We call it fluxing because we pull bad stuff out AND to distinguish it from "reducing" which is what wax does when it causes tin and to some extent I think lead oxide to recombine with the lead or "reduce" back into the mix. So fluxing, is different than reducing and the terms are close enough.

Pet bedding wood shavings are everywhere. Why waste time with a saw a 2x4 unless you have something to make. Whatever you use you do NOT want the stuff from HD or Lowes, treated lumber is not safe to burn so burning the sawdust is not safe. I know I have had them cut good number of treated lumber pieces. And plywood with glue and .... Not good.