Sawdust and curlies

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229
Location
Vernon, WI
Kind of an odd question, but what do you guys do with your sawdust and curlies off the lathe? Just throw it in the trash? I guess before owning a lathe I've never created this much sawdust to think about anything other than throwing it in the trash. I have a good sized pile of some from bloodwood. Really neat red color and smells awesome! ...anything creative to do with it?
 
Most of mine goes into the "green bin" for curbside yard waste pickup by the city. Some folks use it as garden mulch (but you should avoid using walnut, since it acts as a herbicide). I've saved curlies (not the sawdust) from cedar, with the intention of making the little drawer and closet freshen-uppers, but never got around to doing anything with them.
 
I can't speak of curlies from lathes, but the dust from my saws and planers goes to a friend of mine up the road for his horse stalls. Any farms with horses or cows near by looking for curlies???

Tom
 
My sweetheart has a dog (a small one thank goodness), so she regularly does "yard patrol" for "land mines" :). We keep a small bucket full of shaving handy for her to put the doogy-doo in until garbage day. The shavings dry it out quickly and there is almost no odor as long as we start each week with fresh shavings.
The rest of it goes into the compost pile and eventually gets used in the raised beds.

cheers
 
be careful using them for animals. The dust can be a problem, I live on a farm that has loads of horses and they won't touch the stuff. Someone just took 10 bin bags of the stuff off me for chickenrun however, again a mud probably.

I use it to make paths in the garden, ideal for muddy places in particular. Soaks up the moisture and takes ages to rot down. Anything up to 12 months IME

Too much used as compost will rob the soil of nitrogen. Alternatively if you have access to paper bags, bag it up and burn like logs. Don't throw onto a fire mind,it'll explode as the dust in the air catches.

Pete
 
We have a large flower and vegetable garden. The noodles that don't go there are put onto a compost pile. Sometimes a local machine shop gets a couple of bags from me to soak up oil.
 
Depends on what type of wood

Apple and mesquite go into the barbecue, so does a few other fruit trees. I don't turn oak, but if I did, I would put that into the barbecue too. What I don't use up I give to friends for their barbecue.

Most other chips go around the trees and flowers beds.

I found that black walnut and bubinga kills poison ivy and most other plants. I also understand black walnut is not good for bedding horses. I have no idea if this is the same for chickens.
 
Quite a bit of mine accumulates in my shoes and gets inadvertently tracked into the clean house.

Until now, I have been throwing them into the trash, but will start using some for compost and dog logs.

John
 
Mine go the the local Shinto shrine, the priest there does compost of all the leaves on the shrine's grounds, and he LOVES to get my curlies and sawdust, as it breaks up the "Leaves Only" compost really well. Without the sawdust/curlies, he says the compost is a bear to mix and turn, as the leaves just become a lump, or brick.

I'm pleased to help him out, as he has been so good to me with wood :thumb:
 
Right now, I have a nice pad of curlies that is 6" tall on my garage floor. Per the request of LOML, they will be out of there by weeks end! I have a 40 gallon trash can that I put them in, that's full right now too so I need to replunish the piles around the trees, a few plant beds and fill in the mud holes along the driveway. My MIL and sister also want some for flower beds.
 
I think this weekend I'll take my small pile of curlies from the floor (Ned, you did find that piece of my chuck you dropped into the pile, right? :rofl: ) and the stuff in the bottom bag of my DC and mix it with some charcoal ash and topsoil when we work on the second half of our first garden this weekend. We're trying the lasagna approach-ish, making a raised bed without the border bits. Trying to do things cheaply, since I'm only employed until the end of the month - our lettuce is looking good so far, so (mostly) free salad looks to be a big part of the menu in July.
 
If you're serious about your garden, you shouldn't put uncomposted shavings on unless you're also adding a nitrogen supplement, such as manure of some sort. Uncomposted wood shavings will absolutely starve your plants of nitrogen. Trust me on this. Also, it would be a good idea to test the pH of the soil regularly afterwards, as they can really acidify the soil as well. I have a pretty substantial compost pile, and a VERY substantial pile of shavings from turning. I'm actually starting to look into giving it to a place locally that does commercial compost sales; they use bruch chippings, leaves, and composted chicken & horse manure and call it "paydirt". All I can say is that the stuff does work. Anyway, I have about a pickuptruck load of shavings right now that I'm trying to get rid of! Anybody want some?
 
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A neighbour of mine use's any oak or beech curlies to smoke the salmon and trout that he catch's. This he does on a home made smoker, he may try other hardwood's as fish and time allow.:wave::wave:
 
Hi,

Be careful about putting any shavings directly on flower or ornamental bedding. I killed several plants by putting dried Cherry shavings on them. If you compost them and mix them up w/other things, perhaps it will be ok. Bernie is-in my experience-always an accurate and dependable source of information. At first, I was throwing them away. Then, I spread them around areas where I had lots of weeds and no need for growth. Now, I give them to my neighbor who raises horses. but I will check and see if they are doing ok with it. Luck, Hilel.
 
Well, I just worked in about 2-3 cubic yards of shavings into my compost pile, which I thought was all it would take. I have about another cubic yard that didn't get mixed in. As Stu mentioned, its VERY hard to turn compost that is just leaves. It seems to compress very well to itself; as the leaves break down, they sort of glue themselves to each other. You could really feel the warmth in there, however!! I googled "woodturning shavings nitrogen speed up" and found info on a site from Montana State University, which seemed pretty well tested. It suggested 3.5 lbs actual nitrogen, which works out to either: 17lbs ammonium sulfate, 15lbs of blood meal (expensive), or 11 lbs. ammonium nitrate, or 8 lbs urea as necessary for balancing the nitrogen content of 1 cubic yard of fresh shavings.

I decided to go ahead and try this, and added a 40 lb bag of 10-10-10 fertilizer to my compost pile as I worked in the shavings, paying close attention to be even. This isn't quite as much nitrogen as 11 lbs of ammonium nitrate, but its what I had on hand, and the compost pile was already FULL of nitrogen, at least by my estimation of what went into it; weeds, grass clippings, veggies, leaves, old potting soil from repotting plants, garden waste, etc......

I watered the pile heavily, as the shavings were really dry after sitting in the sun for several days. I was actually quite surprised. Its been pretty dry here lately, but the humidity is high in VA. Go figure. I'll post again in a couple months as an update.



Happy gardening!! (and turning, of course)
 
Local Home Repair Group

Up to now I have just let the shavings accumulate in my driveway, then I haul them to the city yard waste dump for free. But I don't have a truck or trailor, so this gets a little inconvenient. I just found out this last week that there is a local home repair group that helps low income home owners with improvements and repairs. Evidently they always have a ton of old paint that need to be disposed of. The only way they can trash the paint is if they mix it with wood shavings! So, they will provide a barrel and come and pick up your shavings for free! I haven't contacted them yet, but this sounds like a sweet deal. It would be interesting to see if your town has any services like this.....although it seem kinda doubtful.

Hutch
 
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