- Sep 1, 2022
- 24
- 4
As stated elsewhere, I am a born-again DIYer and the idea of buying compressed sawdust does not fit my MO.
It's hard to justify buying a pellet mill so I came up with a method of making something similar with just the tools found in a typical basement workshop.
All that is needed is a table saw and/or a band saw and scraps of hardwood. Split logs for firewood is a good place to start.
What we going to make the pellets from are strips of wood 1/4" thick and any length or width that is convenient.
You can buy 1/4" wood at Home Depot but that also takes the fun out of it.
I like to start with a split log with at least one fairly flat face and run this through the table saw with the rip fence set at about 1/4".
Set aside the first few small pieces for kindling and rip as many useful pieces as you can safely get from the log.
Take these pieces to your band saw and rip them the long way into 1/4" square pieces but stop before you get the end so they all stay together.
You can use a table saw for this but it wastes a lot of wood.
So now you have a comb with very long teeth which you finally cut across to get "pellets" that are roughly 1/4" cubes. Again, a band saw is a better choice for the additional reason that collecting the finished pellets is much simpler with the slower speed of the bandsaw blade.
It takes less than ten minutes to make enough pellets to fill a pellet tube and you have total control of your product. You can mix and blend with sawdust, shavings and other pellets for total control of the burn rate and smoke production.
Attached pic shows the final cross cut.
Jack
Astronomy, Beer, Cheese, Fiber, Gems,
Nature, Radio, Sheep, Sausage, Silver
http://schmidling.com
It's hard to justify buying a pellet mill so I came up with a method of making something similar with just the tools found in a typical basement workshop.
All that is needed is a table saw and/or a band saw and scraps of hardwood. Split logs for firewood is a good place to start.
What we going to make the pellets from are strips of wood 1/4" thick and any length or width that is convenient.
You can buy 1/4" wood at Home Depot but that also takes the fun out of it.
I like to start with a split log with at least one fairly flat face and run this through the table saw with the rip fence set at about 1/4".
Set aside the first few small pieces for kindling and rip as many useful pieces as you can safely get from the log.
Take these pieces to your band saw and rip them the long way into 1/4" square pieces but stop before you get the end so they all stay together.
You can use a table saw for this but it wastes a lot of wood.
So now you have a comb with very long teeth which you finally cut across to get "pellets" that are roughly 1/4" cubes. Again, a band saw is a better choice for the additional reason that collecting the finished pellets is much simpler with the slower speed of the bandsaw blade.
It takes less than ten minutes to make enough pellets to fill a pellet tube and you have total control of your product. You can mix and blend with sawdust, shavings and other pellets for total control of the burn rate and smoke production.
Attached pic shows the final cross cut.
Jack
Astronomy, Beer, Cheese, Fiber, Gems,
Nature, Radio, Sheep, Sausage, Silver
http://schmidling.com