Turning woodworking dust and chips into burnable "logs"

[Sparktrician]

There was a company that, unfortunately, appears to have gone belly up this year that made bricks of highly compressed wood chips called Liberty Bricks.  I bought a couple of tons of them on pallets and they ran my little wood stove all of last winter virtually problem free.  One thing I really like about them is the regular size and density.  The consistent size makes it easy to stack the packages of bricks very neatly, and the density prevents critters like carpenter ants and termites from using them for food.  I'd hate to try to make a ton of them one-at-a-time, though.  I usually ran 3-4 of them at a time in my stove, and they lasted about two hours before the next batch needed to be loaded. 

[smile]

Do you know if they added anything to the chips to help adherence?

What was the size of the blocks?

Once I figure out what I am doing, I will incease the output from a block at a time to about four blocks at a time.

Frank, as I understand it, there are no additives.  They are VERY tightly compressed.  When I get back to Virginia this weekend, I'll measure them, and if you like, send you a picture of one by itself, and a pack of ten of them.  Each brick weighs ~2 pounds, and each pack weighs ~20 pounds.  Even the wrapper can be used to get a fire going by rolling it loosely and stuffing it between the bricks, then lighting it. 

From a web site that describes the bricks: "Liberty Bricks are made of highly compressed, recycled wood chips and sawdust from the Petersburg, Virginia area sawmills and wood processing facilities. These bricks can be burned in any woodstove, chimney or fireplace just like regular cordwood. Liberty Bricks (per skid) provide as much heat as a cord of wood without the splitting, hand stacking, mess and bugs. Liberty Bricks also emit half the particulates (smoke) and take up half the space as compared to cord wood, not to mention they are conveniently packaged 10 bricks per bundle (22.5 lbs per bundle / 90 bundles per skid)." 

And from yet another web site: "Liberty Bricks are held together by the force applied to them during the manufacturing process. Wood fiber is fed into a mold, where a large ram puts thousands of pounds of pressure on the fiber and compresses it into a Liberty Brick. The bricks are held together by the rejoined fibers in the wood and natural resins.  No glues or binders are added."

[smile]