How to make wood or leaf pellets manually?
Posted by Consequence_Green@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 20 comments
Without proper machine, just mcguyving it.
Posted by Consequence_Green@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 20 comments
Without proper machine, just mcguyving it.
Sweet-Leadership-290@reddit
PELLET MILL
https://richipelletizer.com/leaf-pellet-mill/
BugPuzzleheaded958@reddit
It's conveniently table-top-sized, provided that table is a monolithic piece of stone!
Sweet-Leadership-290@reddit
LOL. See my other post to this thread. THIS is the tabletop model!!!
Sweet-Leadership-290@reddit
MANUAL PELLET MILL
Sweet-Leadership-290@reddit
MANUAL PELLET MILL
Many-Health-1673@reddit
That would be a huge amount of work versus just using wood. I would imagine you would need sawdust, a binding agent, and a lot of pressure.
V1ld0r_@reddit
No binding agent needed except for what's in the wood already. It's all down to lignin but to get it to hold together the sawdust you need water and to pressure the crap out of it.
Many-Health-1673@reddit
So sawdust at 10-15% moisture, heat, pressure, plus the machine to make the pellets?
V1ld0r_@reddit
Yup. The pressure is applied by the machine that makes the pellets but yes.
Carboard briquettes are a far better solution for DIY though. As an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WygXmflk5o0
DecentParsnip42069@reddit
You have to have a pellet mill, there's no way around it. If you can find a metal piston and cylinder and a die plate to extrude them through, you could use a bottle jack to press it
TacoRepublic69@reddit
You could try fuel briquettes? https://practicalactionpublishing.com/book/2714/making-a-manual-fuel-briquette-press
Inner-Confidence99@reddit
Don’t know how to do that. We switched to a pellet heater because we can no longer lift wood for wood burning heater. My nephews come weekly to empty pellets into garbage can so we can dip out what’s needed.
Would love to still use wood heater just to hard on use both.
wageslave2022@reddit
You need a woodstove not a pellet stove.
JRHLowdown3@reddit
THAT is the answer, just buy the correct stove to begin with...
ShortManBigEggplant@reddit
A metal tube, and a rod that slips nicely into it. place the wet product in bit by bit. Use the rod to firmly tap it down. Repeat until whole tube is almost full and then slide it out to dry. Chop up into pellets.
Nerd_Porter@reddit
To form those pellets you need really high pressure and heat from that pressure. That's not easy to do in a simple setup.
Without firm pellets you are basically burning sawdust, which will burn way too fast.
If you really want to go without commercial machinery, you could consider trying to control the air instead of fuel. If your furnace very well controlled the air input, it wouldn't matter if you have a pile of saw dust to burn, it would burn slowly. Now here's the thing, have you ever heard of such a unit? I haven't. It also has a big problem: if you control (restrict) the air input, you have a much harder time evacuating the exhaust properly.
Long story short, it's tough. If pellets aren't going to work as DIY, you might consider making a system that burns small chunks of wood, which are much easier to make yourself.
j-mac563@reddit
Good luck. You will need a solid bucket, and a plate with holes the size you need, a lever for the pressure needed and some gearing. Chop up the wood and leave pretty fine, i would add a bit of water to ensure it is thouroly mixed. Then add some of the mix and pull the lever. Depending on how much you are going to need...buying the maching would be better. For a true prepping situation. I would use solid wood and not pellets. For a short term situation (major storm, a massive power grid outage - 90 or less) the pellet making machine should be fine. Long term (120 days or seasons) i would rather use solid wood. YMMV
Internal_Raccoon_370@reddit
I agree, I'd use regular wood too, not pellets. Going with pellets seems to be just adding a whole new layer of complexity to the situation that isn't really necessary unless the OP already has a pellet stove.
I do have a question: Wouldn't the wood need to be ground almost down to a powder? Every recipe I've seen for making wood pellets indicated something like a hammer mill would be needed to get the wood particles fine enough to force through a die at high pressure. "macgyvering" things is all fine and good, but it gets to the point where the complexity and expense involved in jury rigging something isn't worth the effort.
j-mac563@reddit
Yes, if the OP has a saw mill they will be using the sawdust that is generated, not the chips. Chips and chunks will result in either a huge jam or massive pellets. But i dont know how big of a pellet they need. The typical small ones, or simply a bucket of fuel that makes less of a mess than logs in the house
Ryan_e3p@reddit
I don't see any reasonable way to do it, successfully, with a reasonable volume that will have pellets that store and burn as intended when just "mcguyving it". If you're in need to burn something and don't have any machine to make pellets, just burn it.