Excellent build. I'll be building one very soon. Might I suggest making the press handle about eight inches longer? Looking where your knuckles would go if something broke while you were pushing the handle down looks like you could lose a finger. Move your fingers out past the rear legs.
Great job excellent not a lot of wasted time in video, good tip to refer people to plan and not waste time explaining dimensions. To expedite the process instead of saying “CRACK ON” here in Wisconsin, we say “ GET ER DONE” Good job mate.
Great idea. When we pressed something similar in the 80’s we would add shredded candle wax, paraffin and other flammable materials to the wood, cardboard, paper mix. If you are near the sea, salt water works too and has an added benefit of depositing salts into the briquettes. Various dissolved mineral salts will add a bit of color to your flames and plain salt reduces the production of creosote in chimneys which in turn reduces the possibilities of chimney fires. Great video presentation and design. Wishing you a blessed week. Peace
In the 80’s at the fab shop I worked at, we built an industrial version of this with hydraulics. Only it was used to squeeze the moisture out of Honey Bucket dumpings waste. It was for a village so they could dispose of waste more easily. We tested it with aluminum cans and it would compress them into a solid block.
This is really great! Practical and useful. Yes, make some water channels on the base and set up something to recapture the water which can be put back in the slurry barrel. Compressed briquets will burn long and hot and are an excellent way to get a good fire going and help it last over night. Just a couple in the stove can make all the difference over night. This is why pellet stoves and pellet grills and smokers work so well and efficiently. Put a simple fan blowing at your briquet stacks to help dry them out a bit quicker. You want the moisture content to be very very low to reduce smoke and increase heat and burn time.
Great video!! Coffee grounds will help the bricks burn hotter and longer. Cardboard contains a lot of chemicals these days, fine for a shop burn or outdoors but indoors, bbq and smoke houses just keep to the wood, leaves, coffee!
For your slurry mix, perhaps a tumbler or a repurposed cement mixer to assist in the stir process would / could make things easier for you.. Could also add in strips of newspaper / old mail that isn't coated for the glossy picture.
Had been thinking about making briquettes with my saw dust, this is the exact plan I need! Thank you. I have used the wood ash and compacted them with diesel or kerosene and it worked well as a fire starter, but mixing that with the saw dust wood give a longer burn to get the fire started. I have also used petroleum jelly in my mix.
I bet if you extended the board that is doing the pressing past the front legs and make a lower shelf similar to your v block you would then have an integrated station to extract the finished pucks. You could permanently mount the piece you use to push the finished puck out to the extended end.
I use a paint stirrer paddle in my cordless drill to mix the shavings & coffee grounds with some water. I prefer flexi-tubs as the barrel is too deep to reach down into for every scoop & even if you fill it up, it gets a bit too heavy to move easily. Great demo, thanks very much.
That’s a nice press, I’ve seen the sawdust briquettes made with regular ol paraffin wax, they light off real easy and you don’t have to wait for them to dry.
Sorry for getting ideas here but... :) If you split the big pipe in half, added a hinge and a lock then you should get your logs out easier, not sure if the plastic holds up, you might need a steel pipe due to that. Another idea that hit me is that if you adda nose at the front on your press-bar, you get a longer stroke action there and can custom-make that side for pushing out the log which should simplify and quicken the work for you.
this is great, always when looking at woodworking video and they talk about the sawdust amount, I always have wonderd why they dont do this to recycle it for fuel, so good to se someone do this :)
This is awesome. I might give it a go and add some modifications. Longer handle (save the knuckles in case something goes wrong), and perhaps even a slightly under sized 4inch hole in the base (this would require a wider base on one end probably, but adding a hole that fits the briquette but doesn't fit the pipe could mean I could just take the pipe off the removable base, but it on the lever base and continue pushing the briquette all the way through the pipe and lever base into some sort of catchment system). I'm probably overengineering already, but it's a great design that is really accessible and easily modified. Thanks for sharing.
I like the idea of wrapping it in paper, that way if it does come apart, it is all contained. Great idea! Also, it would make it easy and convenient to package with wood bundles if selling out of your pickup truck bed.
That's a great idea! I've been trying to think how to squeeze some oil/sawdust mix into firestarters with minimal investment, this looks like a good way to do that Ideas for the mechanism - Get some paste wax onto it, helps things glide smoothly and reduces sqeaks and squeals Get a finish (varnish?) onto it, keep the water from the briquettes out of the wood Having a way to hold the tube up from the outside would make it very easy to get the briquette out at the end, but I don't know how to do that easily and simply.
Nice idea. If your extra removal cylinder had a spigot on the bottom dia 20mm that fitted inside your compression piston (big cylinder on top of smaller dia cylider in effect), that would be easier to stay in place while pressing out the briquette. It doesn't even have to be exact size cylinder. A bolt, acting as a locating spigot, through a bigger block of excess 2x4 would probably do it. Faster and easier to stay in place while pressing out the briquette.
I built an apple press from some oak sleepers from a Cork company, very strong, but you should definately use this to make cider! Excellent video by the way thanks a lot!
Great video and a brilliant idea. I've been throwing my sawdust on the compost heap, but with the price of logs, this will save a load of money over the year. Thanks for sharing.
I am actually wondering if with some modifications this could be used for leather embossing. I think it might need a floating anvil on top to keep the press aligned. Also if you added anvil with a wooden screw or a turn-buckle, you likely could have height adjustment as well. I may justy have to build one of these to experiment with. Thanks for pointing me to the article.
i was thinking about adding thickness to the briquette form (jubillee clip was the first thing that came to mind) and a hole to the bottom so you can push the briquette through, i'd have to re-think the bracing on the bottom though. great idea regarding the water tray. have you though about what you'd use to seal/preserve the wood against all that moisture?
I thought of building one of those as well and making my own sawdust bricks cause I do buy them however I had to decide whether it was going to be more productive to make more projects and sell them or make bricks. It’s somewhat of a tossup. A cord of wood is less than $300 and you would have to probably make 3000 bricks to equal a quarter of wood however it’s fun to think about that but then where do you store all those bricks you have to keep them dry
Please could you provide the portions of materials for the briquette ‘brew’. So I made the press and mould’s, I used coffee grounds and wood shavings but the pressed briquettes fall apart. Should I add paper and card board? Best ratios from your findings would be great.
Welding a rod into the center of an old saw blade and bend every other tip of the blade up and the rest down. Using this in a drill makes a really good mixing tool. These blocks can also be made in the same way with newspapers. People are always looking to give you a lot of newspapers.
Nice one john cracking way to use up the man glitter. I send all my shavings to a woman who has horses and she uses half of what i send her for bedding and the other half she mixes with horse manure and makes them into bricks to burn they burn fantastic 👍🏴 shohld definitely make cider 👊
Really great idea for something to do with all of the "waste" from woodworking instead of loading it up to the landfill. One thing to consider however, is the type of wood shavings/sawdust that you use. The vapors of some woods aren't good to inhale. Thanks for the inspiration. - Chris
Och aye, many a Mickle makes a Muckel, the best set up i ever saw was from that Yorkshire carpentry guy whose RUclips channel just escapes me. . That was a doozy.
Would using something like a spring cake pan mechanism (obviously something that can withstand the force) be up you alley to make? I wonder if just popping off a couple of latches would make getting it out a bit easier.
The plunger/discs of timber are all well and good, but seems like the hole saw is ready made for purpose and only costs like $5 at IKEA. You could buy or recycle filler like HDPE(milk bottles) or aluminium (recycled cans) if you needed it more durable or heavy. Just flip the saw upside down and mount it as your press’ piston/hammer
Glad to see more of your videos. I've made a similar thing as this using c-clamps. This is a much better idea. Going to give it a go. Cheers and Happy Days!
Have you thought about putting a medium thickness screen on the bottom. This should allow more water to be pressed out and reduce the amount of time needed to dry. Just a thought.
Very helpful!! I've been looking into this for a while now. I have an idea to add something to it to make it a little more versatile. What do you think about adding a blade to split small logs into kindling?
Great vid. Wondering if you could put rice og oatflakes in the mixture. This binds really strong. The great wall in china was build with sticky rice mortar
Also if you are to burn these briquettes in a regular stove you may want to look into a so called TLUD device. a thing that allows you to burn without virtually any smoke (since the device uses a secondary burn to prevent smoke from forming... The TLUD device is also useful to burn pressed pellets, scraps of small wood, twigs and large shavings as is... TLUD stands for Top Lit Up Draft... Look it up, very handy piece of kit...
What are the advantages to burning the briquettes over cutoffs or firewood? Do they burn hotter or cleaner? Do the burn slower? I never burned any before.
Great build! Just a quick question... those connecting arms between the levers appear to have the relative pressure running with the grain. If you had the opportunity to rebuild those connectors, would you feel it necessary to change the grain direction so the bolt isn't splitting the grain? Always impressed with your work. Excellebt job!
you've got enough clearance on the high side to fix a permanent dislodging station to the base & lever: lift the handle, put the compressed assembly onto a raised hollow base (with 2 guides for easy alignment), press down the handle so the permanently attached finger on the lever pushes out the briquette. That should improve your workflow on that end.
ever thought of building a fluidised bed burner? might have to make it really really small for heating a shop, but taking some heat off a larger one to heat the house would be worth a shot.
Great to see you. I was looking for your channel yesterday lol. Any chance of showing how to make a good solid pasting table? I don't have any experience
Maybe make the cylinder out of sheet metal with some latches welded to it to keep it closed when pressing but able to unlatch it to get the thing out easy.
I find mixing in about 15 % (by dry weight) of shredded newspaper works well to bind the briquettes together and keep them whole up until they get burned... To get nice and fine shreddings you may want to get a shredder or sharpen up a paint mixer to do the cutting as the paper scraps are being soaked. Soaking the paper separately is best for that idea... I also find it is not really needed to soak the sawdust very long. The paper needs longer to release the "glue" that is part of the paper manufacturing. If you ad dry sawdust to the soaked (3 days suffices) paper slurry you can start pressing almost immediately... but hey you can wait for the coarser bits (shavings) to get soaked for a day or if you wanted...
John, so disappointed there was no flame and sitting about drinking tea with water heated on your briquet fired hob. 😋🤣 Great video, reduce, reuse recycle! Next project should be to make bricks from your fire ash, followed by a new brick workshop.
Interesting vid, think i would not be using the plastic tube, but would use cardboard tube like carpets etc are wrapped round, this would negate the pushing out process, and cardboard burns!
Wood burning stoves tend to dry out the space they're heating up, so if the briquettes don't stink too bad - it could be a good idea to put them on top of the stove - that way they both dry faster, and keep the room from getting too dry.
Too labor intensive to use 😂. An interesting 2.0 design would be a machine to press them directly in the blue tub in one press per tub - that’d be really interesting!
That is a nice press and all and the process looks neat, 😁 but I see it is wasting too much time with that product. I just bagged my sawdust in small bags and burn it along with the wood and it burns fine maybe not as nice as the briquettes but it burns just fine get all the heat. The water slurry and the drying time is a hang up for me.
A length of two inch by half inch mild steel would save the press bar it would last longer too. Nice design I have a sack of coal dust that I could do that with. If I could make it, but unfortunately I'm disabled and can't do the same things that I am used to, plus my age is against me also.
Be sure and check out the update to this video with coffee ground and the briquettes burning here! ruclips.net/video/ZOgbyW9YtOk/видео.html
You say you are using 12mm because it is easier for you, but did you lose your 10mm socket? 😅
This link takes you to this exact video, not a new one with coffee grounds or briquettes burning???????????
@@stuartphillips8044 Sorted now
Excellent build. I'll be building one very soon. Might I suggest making the press handle about eight inches longer? Looking where your knuckles would go if something broke while you were pushing the handle down looks like you could lose a finger. Move your fingers out past the rear legs.
Great job excellent not a lot of wasted time in video, good tip to refer people to plan and not waste time explaining dimensions. To expedite the process instead of saying “CRACK ON” here in Wisconsin, we say “ GET ER DONE” Good job mate.
Great idea. When we pressed something similar in the 80’s we would add shredded candle wax, paraffin and other flammable materials to the wood, cardboard, paper mix. If you are near the sea, salt water works too and has an added benefit of depositing salts into the briquettes. Various dissolved mineral salts will add a bit of color to your flames and plain salt reduces the production of creosote in chimneys which in turn reduces the possibilities of chimney fires.
Great video presentation and design. Wishing you a blessed week. Peace
Thanks for the tip
Adding an aluminum can once in while helps prevent creosote buildup.
@@akbychoicedo you shred the can or just mush it in with the rest?
In the 80’s at the fab shop I worked at, we built an industrial version of this with hydraulics. Only it was used to squeeze the moisture out of Honey Bucket dumpings waste. It was for a village so they could dispose of waste more easily. We tested it with aluminum cans and it would compress them into a solid block.
What a great idea! This is something any woodworker can use. Thank you for bringing this to my attention and showing how easy this is.
You're very welcome!
This is really great! Practical and useful. Yes, make some water channels on the base and set up something to recapture the water which can be put back in the slurry barrel. Compressed briquets will burn long and hot and are an excellent way to get a good fire going and help it last over night. Just a couple in the stove can make all the difference over night. This is why pellet stoves and pellet grills and smokers work so well and efficiently. Put a simple fan blowing at your briquet stacks to help dry them out a bit quicker. You want the moisture content to be very very low to reduce smoke and increase heat and burn time.
Great video!!
Coffee grounds will help the bricks burn hotter and longer.
Cardboard contains a lot of chemicals these days, fine for a shop burn or outdoors but indoors, bbq and smoke houses just keep to the wood, leaves, coffee!
For your slurry mix, perhaps a tumbler or a repurposed cement mixer to assist in the stir process would / could make things easier for you.. Could also add in strips of newspaper / old mail that isn't coated for the glossy picture.
Had been thinking about making briquettes with my saw dust, this is the exact plan I need! Thank you. I have used the wood ash and compacted them with diesel or kerosene and it worked well as a fire starter, but mixing that with the saw dust wood give a longer burn to get the fire started. I have also used petroleum jelly in my mix.
I bet if you extended the board that is doing the pressing past the front legs and make a lower shelf similar to your v block you would then have an integrated station to extract the finished pucks. You could permanently mount the piece you use to push the finished puck out to the extended end.
My thoughts exactly. Improve work flow with integrated punch out jig.
I use a paint stirrer paddle in my cordless drill to mix the shavings & coffee grounds with some water. I prefer flexi-tubs as the barrel is too deep to reach down into for every scoop & even if you fill it up, it gets a bit too heavy to move easily.
Great demo, thanks very much.
Coffee grounds burn more efficiently and hotter than just saw dust and chippings. Mix them in with fine sanding dust also.
Problem with this is very few people outside of America even make what some call ‘real’ coffee that produces coffee grounds , we just buy instant .😉
@@druid799 I've lived in Canada all my life and I've literally never seen instant coffee outside of a workplace break room, and even then, rarely.
That's great except he has a woodshop not a coffee shop
Have you tried lighter fluid?
That’s a nice press, I’ve seen the sawdust briquettes made with regular ol paraffin wax, they light off real easy and you don’t have to wait for them to dry.
Moisture in the briquettes reduces the heat available when burning.
Sorry for getting ideas here but... :)
If you split the big pipe in half, added a hinge and a lock then you should get your logs out easier, not sure if the plastic holds up, you might need a steel pipe due to that.
Another idea that hit me is that if you adda nose at the front on your press-bar, you get a longer stroke action there and can custom-make that side for pushing out the log which should simplify and quicken the work for you.
All good ideas
this is great, always when looking at woodworking video and they talk about the sawdust amount, I always have wonderd why they dont do this to recycle it for fuel, so good to se someone do this :)
I put saw dust in microwave popcorn bags to use as a fire starter for my bbq. This is here is a brilliant idea.
This is awesome. I might give it a go and add some modifications. Longer handle (save the knuckles in case something goes wrong), and perhaps even a slightly under sized 4inch hole in the base (this would require a wider base on one end probably, but adding a hole that fits the briquette but doesn't fit the pipe could mean I could just take the pipe off the removable base, but it on the lever base and continue pushing the briquette all the way through the pipe and lever base into some sort of catchment system). I'm probably overengineering already, but it's a great design that is really accessible and easily modified. Thanks for sharing.
Go for it. I'm glad you found the video useful.
Like a hand press for hay bales. For my sawdust, I sometimes add a small bit of diesel oil, or used motor oil, and roll/wrap it in newspaper.
I like the idea of wrapping it in paper, that way if it does come apart, it is all contained. Great idea!
Also, it would make it easy and convenient to package with wood bundles if selling out of your pickup truck bed.
Great use for the sawdust and shavings.
brilliant thank you , I have a wood working shop near me , and thats a fantastic use of waste
That's a great idea! I've been trying to think how to squeeze some oil/sawdust mix into firestarters with minimal investment, this looks like a good way to do that
Ideas for the mechanism -
Get some paste wax onto it, helps things glide smoothly and reduces sqeaks and squeals
Get a finish (varnish?) onto it, keep the water from the briquettes out of the wood
Having a way to hold the tube up from the outside would make it very easy to get the briquette out at the end, but I don't know how to do that easily and simply.
Its a great design to press not just briquettes but press some other things as well… keep making cool stuff !!
Thanks, will do!
Nice idea. If your extra removal cylinder had a spigot on the bottom dia 20mm that fitted inside your compression piston (big cylinder on top of smaller dia cylider in effect), that would be easier to stay in place while pressing out the briquette. It doesn't even have to be exact size cylinder. A bolt, acting as a locating spigot, through a bigger block of excess 2x4 would probably do it. Faster and easier to stay in place while pressing out the briquette.
Good project, can definitely see using this press for many projects.
Check out the update video, you can seem them burning ruclips.net/video/hVeVEf5W8fM/видео.html
I think I could press apples with this! Might have to make some Cider.
I built an apple press from some oak sleepers from a Cork company, very strong, but you should definately use this to make cider! Excellent video by the way thanks a lot!
Top idea. Good to have tools that aren't one trick ponies
My first thought. hah
If you do make a cider press you will have to change the name of the channel, Man in Shed, off his head, with his cider press. 😂
Good idea, I recently purchased a wood burning stove and make my own fire starters and kindling from my scrap wood 😂
Great video and a brilliant idea. I've been throwing my sawdust on the compost heap, but with the price of logs, this will save a load of money over the year. Thanks for sharing.
Glad it helped
I am actually wondering if with some modifications this could be used for leather embossing. I think it might need a floating anvil on top to keep the press aligned.
Also if you added anvil with a wooden screw or a turn-buckle, you likely could have height adjustment as well.
I may justy have to build one of these to experiment with. Thanks for pointing me to the article.
There are lots of application this could be adapted to. I'm glad the video was useful.
Great idea. I do some leather work, and I am gonna have to try that, too!
i was thinking about adding thickness to the briquette form (jubillee clip was the first thing that came to mind) and a hole to the bottom so you can push the briquette through, i'd have to re-think the bracing on the bottom though. great idea regarding the water tray. have you though about what you'd use to seal/preserve the wood against all that moisture?
I thought of building one of those as well and making my own sawdust bricks cause I do buy them however I had to decide whether it was going to be more productive to make more projects and sell them or make bricks. It’s somewhat of a tossup. A cord of wood is less than $300 and you would have to probably make 3000 bricks to equal a quarter of wood however it’s fun to think about that but then where do you store all those bricks you have to keep them dry
Clever lever press. Great video thumbs up.
Thanks 👍
Please could you provide the portions of materials for the briquette ‘brew’. So I made the press and mould’s, I used coffee grounds and wood shavings but the pressed briquettes fall apart. Should I add paper and card board? Best ratios from your findings would be great.
Welding a rod into the center of an old saw blade and bend every other tip of the blade up and the rest down. Using this in a drill makes a really good mixing tool. These blocks can also be made in the same way with newspapers. People are always looking to give you a lot of newspapers.
Gardeners would buy the sawdust for compost ❤
Great press thanks. If you use ground coffee adding the used coffee grounds to the sawdust mix works really well too.
I will give that a try!
Nice one john cracking way to use up the man glitter. I send all my shavings to a woman who has horses and she uses half of what i send her for bedding and the other half she mixes with horse manure and makes them into bricks to burn they burn fantastic 👍🏴 shohld definitely make cider 👊
Looks great... maybe you can show us what they look like when they are burning.
Will do
Nice job thanks for the video make another video with them in the fire, see you on your next content
Will do cheers David
First time I've read that ..." see you on your next content ". 26 X 2024
I would recommend building something similar to push the bicket out
Really great idea for something to do with all of the "waste" from woodworking instead of loading it up to the landfill. One thing to consider however, is the type of wood shavings/sawdust that you use. The vapors of some woods aren't good to inhale. Thanks for the inspiration. - Chris
Och aye, many a Mickle makes a Muckel, the best set up i ever saw was from that Yorkshire carpentry guy whose RUclips channel just escapes me. . That was a doozy.
Have you tried compressing the sawdust without wetting it? This would also be great for pulped waste paper, or even a mix of paper and sawdust
This is really great! Love it!
Glad you like it!
How would adding dry pine needles to the slurry impact the briquettes? They tend to burn fairly quickly but they could smell nice.
You could do
Would using something like a spring cake pan mechanism (obviously something that can withstand the force) be up you alley to make? I wonder if just popping off a couple of latches would make getting it out a bit easier.
It would be better
I’m wondering if the same rig could be adapted to split logs …
You could be on to something, I need to try!
@@JohnMcGrathManInShed Also I wonder could it also be adapted to compress the wood chippings from a wood chipper it may have to be built a bit bigger.
Railroad track...rebar ...square steal tube...might as well plan for a cheater bar
Looks great man. Great to see you back on the channel. If you made it from steel box section, it would be even stronger i reckon.
The plunger/discs of timber are all well and good, but seems like the hole saw is ready made for purpose and only costs like $5 at IKEA. You could buy or recycle filler like HDPE(milk bottles) or aluminium (recycled cans) if you needed it more durable or heavy. Just flip the saw upside down and mount it as your press’ piston/hammer
The hole saw is the same diameter as the pipe, so it doesn't fit. Also I won't work with the centre pipe
Glad to see more of your videos. I've made a similar thing as this using c-clamps. This is a much better idea. Going to give it a go. Cheers and Happy Days!
Cheers Mark
Have you thought about putting a medium thickness screen on the bottom. This should allow more water to be pressed out and reduce the amount of time needed to dry. Just a thought.
Very helpful!! I've been looking into this for a while now. I have an idea to add something to it to make it a little more versatile. What do you think about adding a blade to split small logs into kindling?
It could work
How about garlic for acceleration of the fermentation of the saw dust?
That's the best thing I've seen
A drywall mud whip would work great to whip up the sawdust. Or an old cement mixer
Great vid. Wondering if you could put rice og oatflakes in the mixture. This binds really strong. The great wall in china was build with sticky rice mortar
Could work
Also if you are to burn these briquettes in a regular stove you may want to look into a so called TLUD device. a thing that allows you to burn without virtually any smoke (since the device uses a secondary burn to prevent smoke from forming...
The TLUD device is also useful to burn pressed pellets, scraps of small wood, twigs and large shavings as is...
TLUD stands for Top Lit Up Draft... Look it up, very handy piece of kit...
What are the advantages to burning the briquettes over cutoffs or firewood? Do they burn hotter or cleaner? Do the burn slower? I never burned any before.
they burn great when you dry them out, its just a good use for waste sawdust
Great idea John. thanks for sharing this one.
No problem, thanks for the comment
Great idea and great video. Thanks for the ideas John!
Glad you liked it!
Great build! Just a quick question... those connecting arms between the levers appear to have the relative pressure running with the grain. If you had the opportunity to rebuild those connectors, would you feel it necessary to change the grain direction so the bolt isn't splitting the grain?
Always impressed with your work. Excellebt job!
Its hasn't been an issue so far, I have an update video on the way, showing how everything it doing. Including how well they burn
How long of a burn do you get out of those?
About an hour, even longer and hotter with coffee grounds added
you've got enough clearance on the high side to fix a permanent dislodging station to the base & lever: lift the handle, put the compressed assembly onto a raised hollow base (with 2 guides for easy alignment), press down the handle so the permanently attached finger on the lever pushes out the briquette. That should improve your workflow on that end.
ever thought of building a fluidised bed burner? might have to make it really really small for heating a shop, but taking some heat off a larger one to heat the house would be worth a shot.
Great to see you. I was looking for your channel yesterday lol. Any chance of showing how to make a good solid pasting table? I don't have any experience
Adding a bit of clay to your slurry will assist in your binding and increase the temperature of your coals when burned.
Maybe make the cylinder out of sheet metal with some latches welded to it to keep it closed when pressing but able to unlatch it to get the thing out easy.
I find mixing in about 15 % (by dry weight) of shredded newspaper works well to bind the briquettes together and keep them whole up until they get burned... To get nice and fine shreddings you may want to get a shredder or sharpen up a paint mixer to do the cutting as the paper scraps are being soaked. Soaking the paper separately is best for that idea...
I also find it is not really needed to soak the sawdust very long. The paper needs longer to release the "glue" that is part of the paper manufacturing. If you ad dry sawdust to the soaked (3 days suffices) paper slurry you can start pressing almost immediately... but hey you can wait for the coarser bits (shavings) to get soaked for a day or if you wanted...
Great video! Sub. What is the blue barrel you used for the slurry? I think it would work great for my cyclone vacuum bin.
Thanks for the sub, the barrel is just a blue plastic barrel with a sealed lid you can find them online lots of places.
@ thank you all the way from Fresno California USA
Just as I logged in, you have logged out ... nice one !
Good video!
What’s that lovely block plane?
Its a Quangsheng Luban block plane
@@JohnMcGrathManInShed thanks John! I will now educate myself as to what on earth that means…
If you leave the slurry too long, could it ferment and burst the barrel?
Fun and useful project anyway!
I don't think that will be an issue
Outstanding video. Thank you. 👏🏻👍
You are welcome
When they dry, how well do they burn? Burn time?
They burn pretty good. In my stove, anything up to 2 hours for the pure sawdust type, add coffee ground, and it is even longer and hotter.
Now the winter can come . . . top!
How well do they hold together as they dry?
Pretty good, even better with coffee grounds added apparently
Thanks for sharing this, great idea.
No problem
I'm actually going to do the reverse - use my cider press to make briquettes!
Brilliant John great idea
Glad you like it
Nice project. Great way to use up that pesky saw dust
John, so disappointed there was no flame and sitting about drinking tea with water heated on your briquet fired hob. 😋🤣 Great video, reduce, reuse recycle! Next project should be to make bricks from your fire ash, followed by a new brick workshop.
wait for part 2 Whiskey by the fire side 😀
Interesting vid, think i would not be using the plastic tube, but would use cardboard tube like carpets etc are wrapped round, this would negate the pushing out process, and cardboard burns!
one other sing. how long dose one piece burn ?
thing
Looks good mate.
Thanks 👍
Wood burning stoves tend to dry out the space they're heating up, so if the briquettes don't stink too bad - it could be a good idea to put them on top of the stove - that way they both dry faster, and keep the room from getting too dry.
I have done exactly that🤣 , the coffee grounds briquettes smell great, I have been sharing updates on my Instagram stories
How do they burn?
the burn well, I have a follow up video showing them burning and ones I made with coffee grounds
@JohnMcGrathManInShed I saw it afterwards. Thank you
curious as to how long they takes to dry
it all depends on where you store them, I reckon I could add less water to the mix and have them dry quicker
We been using our log splitter for years, doing the same thing just take the blade off replacing it with perforated steel tube with cap
Great idea! I'd love to see a video of it if you ever get time to post it on TY. 👍
I would try to mixing the shavings in a concrete mixer
if you mix the slurry with boiling water and add some candle wax they burn way longer
You'll need to use a bonding agent , the sawdust by itself will crumble and fall apart when it dries
They don't
Very cool, Thanks.
You are welcome
Too labor intensive to use 😂. An interesting 2.0 design would be a machine to press them directly in the blue tub in one press per tub - that’d be really interesting!
Cool thing, i wouldnt mind automating such a thing, preferably to a point where one dont need to make the sawdust wet.
how long do one burn?
Supposedly better than logs, I'll do an update a let you know
“Firewood warms you twice” or “one man’s trash..”
Legend 👌🏻
Thanks 🤣
If you make a few more cylinder molds, you could get your kids to fill them and help you press them
....you got that idea from China...
That is a nice press and all and the process looks neat, 😁 but I see it is wasting too much time with that product.
I just bagged my sawdust in small bags and burn it along with the wood and it burns fine maybe not as nice as the briquettes but it burns just fine get all the heat.
The water slurry and the drying time is a hang up for me.
A length of two inch by half inch mild steel would save the press bar it would last longer too. Nice design I have a sack of coal dust that I could do that with. If I could make it, but unfortunately I'm disabled and can't do the same things that I am used to, plus my age is against me also.
And your junk mail works great
I just mixed about 30 gallons of oak shavings into my compost.