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Old 5th October 2012, 03:32 PM
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Fowler VF Fowler VF is offline
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Full Name: Nick Helme
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Herefordshire
Posts: 315
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No real easy answer to this. Commercial ram and screw briquetters rely on pressure forcing the material through a set of dies, you need friction through the dies to cook the wood and get the lignin to turn "tarry" and bind it all together. You then need a long run of briquette trough to allow it to cool back down and solidify. I know one briquette plant that has to run almost a tonne through every time it starts up before the dies are hot enough to get it to bind together.

You need dry sawdust, wet stuff doesnt cook up properly in the dies and wont bind. You will also get steam formed in the hot dies, at the very least this will bubble and pop the briquettes apart before they have bound. In worst case they can explode in the dies; again I know of a plant that blew the back wall out with nothing more that pressing a bit of sawdust into briquettes.

You can use additional binders to reduce the pressure etc, things like molasses were traditionally used; but this is very much (literally) a black art. And I cant see you being very popular carting sawdust logs coated in molasses through the living room!!

I just dont know of a way of doing it on a small scale. maybe get some small paper bags and bring in a bit at at time to go on the log burner? Or, as previously suggested, there are a number of good workshop heaters that will burn sawdust.
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