What do you carvers do with all the sawdust?

Taken a survey here. Not much at all on this, in the archives. Mostly tools etc.
So,
Are you inside or outside?
What are you using for breathing masks, goggles, etc.?
Leave sawdust all over, or sweep up?
Environmentally ok to leave dust all over plants, grass?
All those stupid details!
I wanna hear 'em!

Good with compost, (unless you're using old phone poles) you can mix it with manure and it breaks both down quickly.

If it's chips it's fine for gardens, just to keep moiture in the ground.

If it's fine dust,it can also (if you have other creative outlets) be mixed with clay and when fired will turn the clay sort of pummicy.

Roger Welsh has a series of books on restoring tractors. He's not a mechanic, in fact he makes jokes about being a dummy about it.

He spends quite a bit of time writing about "setting up a shop" and has a million good ideas about workspace.

One of my favorites is that he has an old franklin stove which he set up in his. (He lives in Nebraksa) and he fires it up an hour or so before he starts work in winter...and he also uses it to get rid of solvent rags, greasy newspaper, sawdust and other things which can be dangerous to keep around as they are combustable.

He will actually use the stove to hold the stuff. If they do combust, they are in a stove.

Ballest for trashcans. Keeps them from tipping over, in the dust storms , herein Vegas.

Send it to fast food places so they can roll it out, stamp out the shapes and make chicken nuggets out of it. :)

also ceramic studios use it for raku.

Just bag it and sell it on ebay as tiki dust.
:wink:

This is a good question and the wrong answer can lead to some really serious health problems later.

Whenever you are creating powdery fine sawdust without an really good dust collection system, you should always wear some sort of a mask or respirator. I dont have a good dust collection system so I attach my jet vac to the dust bag on my table saw. I will use straps to mount it near my router when routing. I always try and get the vac close to the dust source.

Inevitably dust still goes everywhere anyway. I will vacum the dust off the floor when finished because sweeping stirs the dust up again.

A good way to test if you need to wear a respirator is to blow your nose at the end of your project day and see if sawdust comes out on the tissue. If so, you NEED a respirator.

Certain man made materials like MDF have some really nasty stuff in them. I believe that MDF has formaldehyde in it on top of the fact that its already MADE from sawdust. Certain exotic woods like Teak have TOXIC sawdust. The silica content in Teak that makes it so sea worthy is the same reason that breathing it will do some damage to your lungs.

Woodchips are different. They do not create airborn particles that float up your nose an into your lungs.

I wear a mask when sanding for the reasons MM adviced. I have built a table for sanding on. It has a top that is lots of little holes and sits on top of 2 inch deep box. On one end of the box is a hole in wich I can put my shop vac into.

Kinda like this

These lids are great and the collected dust can be mixed with glue to fill cracks or as floor dry.

Reminds me of my high school graphic art days...airbrushing makes multicolour snot.

If you have some of the cheap white masks, you can draw a horizontal center line and two dots to look like a monkey nose. These probably suck, I'd use them for novelty purposes only.

Eeek! Eeek!

As far as sawdust goes, I'd use it in the garden, or at least in the compost bin!

So snorting it isnt the answer????

I sand outdoors when I can and let it blow into the neighbor's yards... :)

I don't usually have sawdust but the woodchips from chisel work either goes around plants in the yard as a mulch or what I am doing right now is filling a paper lawn bag with chips and bark for use next month at a campfire we are having. You can also burn it in a chimenea.

Lake Surfer wrote:
I sand outdoors when I can and let it blow into the neighbor's yards... :)

Your neighbors yard must be completly covered at the rate your carving lately..

On 2005-05-09 09:28, Monkeyman wrote:
...Certain exotic woods like Teak have TOXIC sawdust. The silica content in Teak that makes it so sea worthy is the same reason that breathing it will do some damage to your lungs....

When I first started carving palm, I was using a dremel carving bit and no mask. I would cough for a day or so after each session (palm is loaded with silica).

Now I use a disposable respirator made for drywall sanding. My lungs have improved dramatically...

Here's another good tip that I got from Raffertiki. My goggles would always fog up while using the grinder or Dremel. Following John's suggestion, I now use a full plastic visor type mask, which won't fog up, keeps the face nice & cool, and offers lots of protection. It also keeps the dust from blowing in your eyes.

A-A

Sawdust & small chips can be used for firestarters, just loosly fill a paper cup 3/4 full with the sawdust & chips and cover with melted parafin wax. After they cool you peel off the cup & store the firestarters in a cool, dry place away from flames 'til you need'em.

I have a portable dust collector that works half well when I turn it on. I have a Shop Vac that works almost as well when I turn It on and I have a couple different brooms and bench brushes that work really when I can find them and use them. When I finally DO use something, The collected dust goes wherever the particular machine sends it. Trash bin for the brooms and brushes. dust bag for the collector and the 10 gal tub of the vac. I do clean up once in awhile when I can't find the tools I'm looking for. I Do breathe a lot of dust. I have masks that fog my glasses,,when I wear them.

i hate sawdust
I hate foggy glasses
I hate to sweep and vacuum.
The dust collector is noisy.

Ok what about this......

New from Tiki Room and Carvers world wide,,,,, " Island Tiki Cereal".. High in fiber and crafted with love...

It would sell... I can see a whole industry.. fiber bars, Cake mix, Wood filler, Notin say's loving like Tiki Fiber

If you have stables nearby, they sometimes use sawdust or mix sawdust with other materials for bedding in the stalls. Or any place that keeps various animals, or has to clean up after animals, I'll spare you the scatalogical details, but one horse can go through a LOT of sawdust.
Small wildlife rehab places also need all the free materials they can get, and use sawdust for some enclosures.

Pretty cool stuff here. Thanks all for contributing.
Props to Good ol' Sam, Whaine, thanatos etc. for making me laugh my arse off. I'm sending magic Mcnugget cereal dust to each of you!

I'm carving an eight foot basswood log in
my garage right now...when i'm sanding the
dust clumps together like cotton candy...
i'm gonna put it on a stick and sell it at
the carnival this year.

I like carvin the palm because all dust and scraps go directly to the...

GREEN WASTE!!!
green trashcans are my friend....

I'm not quite sure where the rest of the dust goes.

I mix my saw dust with my dog's food. It makes them regular.

Oh my God, I'm just kidding.

I am on the scroll saw every day and I also use a planner and table saw a lot and I make tons of redwood sawdust and shavings and scraps. In the winter we never are short of firewood. In the summer I mostly throw it away. Sometimes if I have nice clean shavings and dust I scatter it throughout the garden and it looks kind of cool.

I don't have a dust collection system but I always use a good 3m cartridge respirator - always. It helps a hundred percent. I really notice the difference. I used to use those cloth dusk masks but they didn't work very well. Home Depot sells respirators in the paint section. The latest mask I got at a wood working show and it is silicone and fits really good. It doesn't fog up my glasses and you can change out the cartridges when you want to. It's definitely worth it.

Inside, outside... all the same to me… I use a GOOD 2 canisters mask when sanding and simple sweep up... My feeling is it is only a tree, seed, leaves, bark or dust, all the same. I just don’t like breathing the fine dust when I have to power sand, so I use the 2 canister mask.