Making wood pellets

[Tooljunkie]

OK so what did I miss? first sawdust then you ran the pellets through again? A dumb question maybe, but WHY?

The sawdust was a little wet and its too fine. So by passing it through again, it goes through die a little tighter. heat starts to build from friction and at 180 degrees the pellets start to bind. The stuff i was experimenting with was difficult to bind. As the moisture gets closer to 10/12 per cent the steam turns to smoke and dust is almost nil, and hard pellets form.
Its all trial and error, more error than trial i think.
Made rougly 1/2 ton from that sawdust, wasnt as easy as i hoped.

A tree service was working in my area,they were happy to unload in my back yard. So now i can work with larger material, should go well.

 

[skeets]

Cool so the hammer mill will be getting a work out,, I wana see this all coming together. Looks like some work involved but dayum that's a lot easier then lifting chunks of wood into the splitter and then stacking and unstacking and dragin in to the house and,,, wow Im tired just thinking about it,,

 

[coachgeo]

I would like to experiment with binders for larger bio-Logs made of paper, wood chips, grass etc. any suggestions?

 

[Tooljunkie]

No binder, coach. Just pressure. The first time i tried making a pellet as an experiment i used my hydraulic press. Piece of plate, 3 holes drilled 1/4" a pipe welded to it And a ram. It amazed me that it wouldnt do a thing,split the 1" black iron pipe though.
Welded it back up and heated plate with a propane torch. That stuff flowed out in the shape of pellets, hard and shiny. Worked but would take a month to make 40 lbs of pellets.
There are piston style briquette presses,cylinder bore tapers to increase pressure. Shredded newspaper,wood chips grass clippings and 180 degrees of heat something should happen.

 

[ShaunBlake]

...

There are piston style briquette presses,cylinder bore tapers to increase pressure. Shredded newspaper,wood chips grass clippings and 180 degrees of heat something should happen.

Unless piston-type machines are making logs, wouldn't their output be too low? I'd like to see how the flat-die machines work; that vid in the URL you posted was fascinating!

 

[Tooljunkie]

Will be making several videos, i hope i can help someone with the knowledge i have gathered. For this week, its vacation time in Drumheller,Alberta. Man, this place is cool!!

 

[Tooljunkie]

Vacation is over. Started the hammermill up today and prepped some stuff for pellets,spruce willow and maple is what is im grinding to size.

Ingersoll groundskeeper 10 hp chipper shredder feeding into a Gehl grind all. It has removeable screens, i chose a 3/8" screen.makes something close to powersaw chips. The plastic tote tanks are my storage for chips as well as pellets for now. The cyclone works great, except when tank fills, then it blows everything out the top.

Would like to grind and dump right into pellet mill, but not enough ptos around.

 

[olthumpa]

A REAL pellet making machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fo236Hfaqs

 

[Tooljunkie]

Lol. Nuf said.

 

[skeets]

Bloody rabbit of the Grail,,,,lol,, Is that hammer mill a grain mill?

 

[Tooljunkie]

Could be,screens i have for it range from 3/16 to 3/4" holes.
Making this size material.
Sitting at 13% moisture,ready to go into mill. A couple more totes full and i will have enough for a day of pelleting.

 

[ShaunBlake]

Vacation is over. Started the hammermill up today and prepped some stuff for pellets,spruce willow and maple is what is im grinding to size. View attachment 18175

Ingersoll groundskeeper 10 hp chipper shredder feeding into a Gehl grind all. It has removeable screens, i chose a 3/8" screen.makes something close to powersaw chips. The plastic tote tanks are my storage for chips as well as pellets for now. The cyclone works great, except when tank fills, then it blows everything out the top.

Would like to grind and dump right into pellet mill, but not enough ptos around.

Hope your vacation was perfect (when you get home, you feel like you need a vacation to recover). You've got me worked up, and I'm looking forward to more info and hopefully some vids of your operation.

Looks to me like you have the chipper feeding the mill via a 6" flex tube -- how in the world to you get the material to move that far?

Re: the cyclone blowing out the top -- don't you get hints when the tanks are near full, like a Doppler sound effect? Would it help to cut a hole in the tanks and fasten some lexan or such for a window?

How many tanks do you use, and are they located in an arc so you can just swing the output tube from the full tank to an empty one? And I've gotta see how you empty the tanks! That has got to be some load when they are full!

Thanks, I think (I'm starting to experience a desire for a pellet-mill operation, and I don't even have a wood-burning stove, much less a furnace... <sigh>)!

 

[Tooljunkie]

Wood chipper is also a hammer mill,theres a big blower in it as it can also vacum leaves and small twigs.
The intention was to arc cyclone to each tank, but filling one tank is enough for one day.i just hoist cyclone and use forks to move tank.
I have cut a 12" square hole in the corner of tank, this allows me to even out chips in tank or it piles up in middle.
Replaced stove pipe to cyclone with 5" abs sewer pipe(new) now chips travel so much better.

I plan to raise tanks and lay on side, and just draw chips out corner hole using a hoe. Dump straight into mill.

 

[skeets]

This just keeps getting more interesting

 

[CaveCreekRay]

Dangit TJ! MORE PICTURES!!!

Without seeing your creative invention the narrative sounds like a Red Green script! ("MORE DUCT TAPE!")

This is way cool.

I have a big TroyBilt Tomahawk II chipper with hammers and different screens for grinding to different size "chunkules." After following your thread, I can see another use for it. I hear in the Midwest, farmers used these things to grind up corn for feed. I use mine for tree branches and other desert stuff, usually covered in needles or 2-3" daggers. Turns 'em into "fluffy green non-threatening biomass."

I am constantly amazed at the inventiveness of the human to meet a need. Wouldn't a settler from the 1800's be amazed at what people have come up with?!?!

MORE PICTURES! NOW!

 

[Tooljunkie]

Had i found a decent used tomahawk i would have bought one. Thats what i was originally after. Could have saved me a step.

Found one locally for a good price, but guy selling it couldnt make time to drag it out of storage. Strung me along for a couple weeks. I had to move on.

 

[RCW]

TJ -

I have a 10hp garden chipper/shredder that makes "mulch" that looks much like your picture. Pretty heavy duty, softer woods fly through it, and it does a good job with hard maple too, but much slower.

Your project has had my interest from the start.

Now I'm wondering if a have a decent start.

Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[CaveCreekRay]

RCW,

It "wood" seem we both do have a first start.

All we need now is one of those blue doo-hickeys to hitch up to our three-point to mash back together the trees we used our chipper shredders to explode into little tiny chunkules.

Oh yeah.. and I don't have any trees around where I live. I haven't figured that part out yet. I am thinking that is a showstopper.

A friend of mine in New Hampshire bought a used trailerable saw mill. He's retired and takes down trees for people who pay him to haul them away. With a saw mill he sliced loads of the free hardwood and used it for stairs in his house and other gorgeous projects. So plentiful is wood up there that he ended up BURNING some absolutely GORGEOUS 4" old growth pine lumber he cut up that nobody wanted. Out here that stuff is super pricey!

If I lived up where you guys are, I'd be doing this in a heartbeat and possibly trying to do it commercially for local sale. Sounds like with the prices pellets are going for, there's money to be made if you have access to wood. Down in Texas they have a wonderful hardwood that grows like mad: Mesquite. It burns really well putting off loads of heat. If I were out there, I'd be setting up shop. People cull out acres of Mesquite because it grows like a weed.

The Chilean Mesquite out here grows too slow.

(sigh)

 

[Tooljunkie]

Isnt mesquite used for smoking meat?
Pellet smokers are getting popular,40 lbs of pellets for smoking sell for 20-30 dollar. Go figure.
Tried sawmill sawdust.bandsaw mill. A little fine, but mix in larger material and it helps.
But if you get the waste wood from the mill,slabs are easy to chip. May try pelleting tomorrow.

 

[RCW]

Ray - -

True on raw material 'round my 'hood.

People think of New York as in NYC. But about 70% of upstate NY is wooded. Was about 20% pre-depression, and farmland going dormant converted to forest. The climax forest here is hardwood, generically birch/beech/maple. Oak, cherry, ash, etc. mixed in.

During FDR tenure as President and the Depression, there were many Civilian Conservation Corps camps that planted softwood plantations on former farms bought out by the State. It put men to work,, and we have 80,000 acres of plantation in our county alone. Much is non-native Norway Spruce. I used to cut that on State land for pulpwood in my younger days.