I like that you showed both options with no bias. Not everyone has the patience or skill to rig something up, and some people have plenty of scrap wood and pipe to rig something up quick and easy. Both valid solutions.
@Brian Mouton their purpose is to create heat. Not flames. And they do that job quite well. My point still stands about the requirement of previously existing flame.
Okay for all those people who keep banging on about the bad side of this i would like to share some of the good this idea does. 1 i live in ireland where you have to pay quite a lot of money for the companies to take away recycling materials, so they make money taking your paper, cardboard, etc. 2 they also use a lot of chemicals in there process. 3 they sell you back recycled products at twice or three times the price of the normal product even though you have paid them to take the materials they need for said products. You are being scammed on a huge scale. 4 in this country they are prohibiting the burning of turf putting hundreds of workers out of work and the price of gas and electricity is going up by 40 percent for the third time this year. Winter here is freezing and people can't afford heating so they do what they can to survive. I know I'll get a lot of haters for this but the truth is the truth. We are being manipulated illegalise solid fuel so gas and electric companies profit even more, plus gas and electricity bills are half to the government in taxes for carbon tax and a plethora of other taxes on a country that is already the highest taxed in europe.
I absolutely love your homemade version. Great proof of concept to inspire others for their builds. I bet i could build your version for under $50, even with jack. Great engineering you have shared. Thanks.
All the shiny cardboard from things like cereal boxes and soda cases has a thin layer of polyurethane on it. If you are burning these for cooking, or heating where fumes can enter the living area, you may want to remove those sprayed cardboard types and keep them for separate, outdoor only applications.
I made a similar machine to press round logs and I used HDPE sheets (cut to size and shape) to use as spacers in between each scoop of pulp. This enables me to create not just logs but also discs which can be used for a shorter burn if need be...
Centre of piston is threaded, so you can double the length/height of lift, simply wind it out, so no need to add block, and help make process a little quicker and easier! But nice simple press! Also, if mold forms on blocks during drying, add some salt to mix, stops mold growth, cheap and easy! Cheers.
Your machine is much better than the Amazon-baught one, but if you add a wide bowel underneath you could catch the flowing water and this way you'd hit 3 birds with 1 stone: you'll keep the soil clean, make a lesser mess, and reuse the water over and over again. Great video! Thanks 🙂
I too have a lot of sawdust from woodworking and cardboard from boxes. I made one of the presses to your design. Works brilliant. Thanks heaps for sharing. Recycling at it's best.
Your version is way better. Am curious how much better your bricks burned compared to the square ones? How much better does 100% cardboards logs from your press burn compared to 60/40 paper/sawdust?
Your own design is superior in overall performance, in my opinion. I honestly believe you get extra credibility; because of your honest Scottish accent. My mom and her parents are from Glasgow. I am in Irvine California. Nice video thank you for making it happen.
I like the round ones better, they look like they would burn more even and dry out quicker. Nice job on the build, it looks like it will last years longer then the amazon one.
Definitely prefer the center core out in your design. In my mind, I would imagine it burns hotter, and pulls air over the burning surface creating more complete combustion. Would be interested to see a comparison using equal rights of starting materials and what your ash weight is after burning.
Love your idea. Might copy it. Perhaps a metal press with a mold to make squared brikets with multiple holes on the end briket will be a nice upgrade to the system. Thanks
I did this 14 yrs ago. Used sawdust, paper/cardboard. Got my saw dust at a local mill dirt cheap. Peanut hulls, cocoa hulls also worked well. The down side. Little to no coals for retained & regenerative heat. But, that's a minor issue. As for chemicals. Treat your wet slurry with a lye rinse/bath. Press down on the mass and scoop off the top liquid, then rinse again with fresh water and put in mold to press.
excellent design the only suggestion id have is to raise the bottom a little an add something to funner the waste water into another container allowing the fiber impregnated water to just pe perpetually re added to the mix which eliminates those people who think its negative for the runoff to re enter the environment and saves any waste, iv also used things like garden waste for the fibrous add in instead of sawdust as i dont off tern have access to sawdust myself
First time seeing your channel, but the video was very professional, well made and your voice over was very clear and informative, so I've subscribed,. I look forward to exploring your back catalogue and seeing your new videos as well.
I watch and upvote videos like this, not because I will ever make DIY cardboard Briquettes, but because in the future I will want to make some weird random thing and I want there to be a video out there telling me how to make it.
Can definitely relate. I have plenty of dead trees around to cut down and process that makes this genius idea completely redundant and unnecessary to me, but I'll be damned if this isn't super cool and something I want to make anyway
I have a few different ideas for modifications to your DIY press. They may sound a little complicated, but if you can visualize it, you'll see what I'm talkin about: 1: Mount the bottle jack upside down at the top of the press. You'll probably have to shorten it to bring the fully extended piston to the 2nd line. 2: Mount a removable tray to accommodate the Amazon press. Mount the shelf/tray at the first marker line. (For better versatility, try to fab up a bracket that can be installed & removed so you can make both bricks & cylinders) 3: The press: I can't really tell how wide each section of the Amazon press is, but it looks like maybe a 4x4 is just about wide enough to fit in the black tray. Fab up 4 of those onto a plate, and that plate mounts to the cylinder on the bottle jack. That way you can press 4 bricks at once - you may need to upgrade your bottle jack though. Best way to visualize it: Picture an upside down F The long line, is the floor plate. The short middle line is the removable tray for the amazon press Mount the amazon press in the middle line (ie: the tray on the finished version) Line up the plate with the 4x4's on it with the piston on the bottle jack If you want to make the hollow cylinders instead? Just remove the tray & amazon press, put it off to the side, and use your original dies.
great idea to use a jack. I live in Zambia and am working with artisan briquette makers using sustainable charcoal. I will certainly show them your video.
Back in the bad old days, Dad used to get all the free local papers he could lay his hands on and make briquettes for the living room fire. He made a wooden segmented frame out of scaffolding planks, with house brick sized compartments, and a base + lid from an old solid oak door he'd cut in half. The lid had blocks attached that fitted into the frames compartments to squeeze the briquettes. To compress it all he used about 20 bleeding great coach bolts with washers and nuts. It looked "Heath Robinson" as hell, but it worked impressively well. He could form 15 briquettes at a time using that thing, and he'd do 10 to 15 batches most Sundays during the summer, That house also had a back boiler in the living room fireplace that fed radiators in all the other rooms, so making the briquettes meant it cost almost nothing to heat the place right through the winter. I've got a vague memory that he also used paraffin to soak the paper for some batches so he could use them as big fire lighters. :D
Loved the idea of the homemade press. I was looking at videos to learn about machines that turn wood and sticks into saw dust when I came across your video. I now have an additional use for saw dust. Thanks again for sharing your ideas.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but after creating the 4 briquettes with the amazon press, before removing them take another 4 briquettes and place them on top (having 8 briquettes in the press at the same time) and press them again that way your able to press more water out of all of them and this way the bricks in the end will be twice as larger and with less water.
I'd be willing to do this if I could make the fill process on the cylindrical form faster and create a setup with 20 or more tubes. That would cut down on the labor time significantly. The round brick with a hole through it is definitely a better design.
thanks for the video bud. my parents own a store and they have tons of cardboard just going to the dump so i decided for a little extra cash that id make these to sale as ricks of firewood.
That amazon press looks flimsy as hell. Yours is far sturdier and produces a superior product. Will be building yours when I go to make ours. Nice work buddy 👍🏻 this warrants a SUB
Your press is far superior to the Amazon press. Your round bricks will not only dry quicker because you have pressed more water out but will most likely burn longer because they are much more dense. Thanks for sharing bud.
this is them burning th-cam.com/video/g5oH96-GGu0/w-d-xo.html are charcoal briquettes not for a bbq if it ever stops raining in Scotland i will try them
I come from a mining village whre everyone had solid fuel fires till around the 80s. I can tell you a way to keep warm that doesnt need a press all you need is newspaper water your hands and somewhere to dry them. Take your papers place them in the sink and then fill with water. leave it for 20 min. Rip off strips about as wide as your hand and from the paper and each strip should contain all the pages from 1 full newspaper. Schrunch it into a ball squeezing as much water out as you can. Once dried these little suckers burn just like coal lovely and hot. The same thing should work with cardboard it will just need more soak time. Top tip they dry out faster near the fire
Brilliant vid!!! I’d love to see a video on how you made the briquette press. I’d be interested to see how you for around the potential for bursting nailed or screwed joints with the pressure from the jack. 👍
My property produces about 2000 pounds of leaves every year and that's only the ones that are raked off the grass I plan on mulching them with my mower then raking them up and compressing them the same way thanks for the idea
When Im burning large amounts of cardboard, I just roll it into a log. All you have to do is lay it out flat and start rolling. Add more pieces to roll into it as you get the end to make it bigger, then tie it together with a natural fiber twine. Just put a real log on top when burning so that it doesn't pop apart when the string goes. I can make a log in about 30 seconds, have no equipment, or dry time. Not to mention it actually burns versus how this briquettes tend to smolder
I believe the goal here is not just to burn cardboard for disposal, but to manufacture a dense fiber brick that burns a long time for heating purposes. Rolled cardboard as you describe would be far less dense and would burn faster, which is ideal for disposal purposes, but not for off-grid heating.
In one of his books, John Seymor recommended doing pretty much the same thing with newspapers, soaked in old cooking fat/ motor oil. A recommendation you´d probably think twice about making today... Anyway, a trick of his I liked was to use old bailing wire to tie those briquets together. They don´t burn, and if you like you can just pick them out of the ash to reuse.
It's cool creating a method using such inexpensive materials - such as a bottle jack. A basic scissor jack probably would not have the same compression force as they tend to top out at 1.5 ton and basic bottle jacks in pickup trucks are often upwards of 5 ton, but even stronger ones are not terribly expensive. Using an electric bottle jack or log splitter would make things much easier. If the base of the compression cylinder is elevated some device could be inserted after the pressure was relaxed to facilitate using the jack to extrude the completed brick. You can also convert this design into a general use home compactor for other waste such as plastic and lightweight metals (food cans, softdrink cans). You could create compression molds and merely switch each one out when you have different materials to compact and deliver at a later time to local recycling centers.
Questions! How much pressure does it take from the hand-jack? Could you for instance make it to fit 4 pipes to speed up the process? And what is the burntime for a round briquette vs, for instance, a common use wood log?
It seems like the hydraulic press works much better. You can put a lot more pressure on them so they stay together better once finished as well as burn slower since they are more dense. The hand press just doesn't do the same kind of job.
I just love people who are inventive and practicle, my wife orders loads of junk from Amazon so we have stacks of cardboard and I have just fitted a multi fuel stove so I will be giving this a try, thanks for the info.
I wonder how practical it would be to reclaim that "wastewater" and re-use it for the next batch of briquette slurry. It seems unlikely to be contaminated with anything that wouldn't end up in the briquettes in the first place.
I like the idea of anything free, especially heating - if you get hold of a paper shredding machine, I feel that may be useful addition - not to shred cardboard, but any newspapers, letters, junk mail etc - then add thta to your mix. Saves on the rubbish bins too !!
Yours looks to make a better product. You could cap the center pipe so you don’t have to be sooo careful when filling. Might speed up the loading process
Even though your homemade press takes longer, it looks like it does are far better job than the one you bought on Amazon. I hope you will do a burn test so we can see which one burns the longest. My guess is: your homemade one is far better when it comes to burn time. Thanks for your video Totally Chilled.
It looks like his are more dense which would make them burn longer, but they also have more surface area to burn which would make them burn faster. So It's a toss up which way it would go.
Would be nice to see if you make a build list / build video. I just got a new apartment with a fireplace, and a good way to make my own briquettes would be nice.
Great video and I like your calm tone. Also - i reckon there is a heap of design creativity here - great going to sleep thinking material. Thanks. Haven't seen these since I was a kid in the 70's
I think your press is still better, nice build.
I agree. I like the results of the DIY press better than the rectangular block press.
Concur!!
Could you tell us how you built that lovely press in another video??
@@bbikermama Plans and lengths would help too. His build compacts better, and might be better for mushrooms... 😉
I like that you showed both options with no bias. Not everyone has the patience or skill to rig something up, and some people have plenty of scrap wood and pipe to rig something up quick and easy. Both valid solutions.
Make a video of the briquettes burning.
As you requested th-cam.com/video/g5oH96-GGu0/w-d-xo.html
Your press not only works better, but it looks like a ton more fun to use as well, making the job more enjoyable.
Add starch in the mix, it's cheap, and it'll increase firmness too when it's dry. It's what they use for coconut charcoal briquettes
By the look of that end result i would say the home made one is better. Is the burn time different between the two types of logs?
Any chance you can do a burn test followup?
I was just here to say the same
@@njc110381 same, he said 1k subscribers.... and now he has 1.2k
@Brian Mouton as opposed to wood logs that you can just light up with a match, right?
@Brian Mouton their purpose is to create heat. Not flames. And they do that job quite well. My point still stands about the requirement of previously existing flame.
Probably not anytime soon. The square one is still drying.
Okay for all those people who keep banging on about the bad side of this i would like to share some of the good this idea does. 1 i live in ireland where you have to pay quite a lot of money for the companies to take away recycling materials, so they make money taking your paper, cardboard, etc. 2 they also use a lot of chemicals in there process.
3 they sell you back recycled products at twice or three times the price of the normal product even though you have paid them to take the materials they need for said products. You are being scammed on a huge scale. 4 in this country they are prohibiting the burning of turf putting hundreds of workers out of work and the price of gas and electricity is going up by 40 percent for the third time this year. Winter here is freezing and people can't afford heating so they do what they can to survive. I know I'll get a lot of haters for this but the truth is the truth. We are being manipulated illegalise solid fuel so gas and electric companies profit even more, plus gas and electricity bills are half to the government in taxes for carbon tax and a plethora of other taxes on a country that is already the highest taxed in europe.
Well said 👏
Perfect! Well said and backed up with logic and truth.
I absolutely love your homemade version. Great proof of concept to inspire others for their builds. I bet i could build your version for under $50, even with jack. Great engineering you have shared. Thanks.
Funny how everything is ready to use when it's the consistency of porridge! Plaster, cement, wattle and daub... porridge 😉👍
Depends on how you take your porridge!
Soggy and wet
so true
I've been raking up leaves today & thinking they could be made into briquettes. Your home made press is inspiring. Thank you.
Can you please publish a follow-up video on how either of the bricks burn?
Could you show a dried out one burning on the fire? Also how long do they take to dry and how long do they burn for?
Just for you th-cam.com/video/g5oH96-GGu0/w-d-xo.html
All the shiny cardboard from things like cereal boxes and soda cases has a thin layer of polyurethane on it. If you are burning these for cooking, or heating where fumes can enter the living area, you may want to remove those sprayed cardboard types and keep them for separate, outdoor only applications.
Is there a separate binding agent or is it just pulp and water.
I made a similar machine to press round logs and I used HDPE sheets (cut to size and shape) to use as spacers in between each scoop of pulp. This enables me to create not just logs but also discs which can be used for a shorter burn if need be...
I would like to see another video of these things being burned or used. I like to see how efficient the recycling of materials has become.
Your press is brilliant, well done!
I would really like to see how each one burns compared to the other. Great video.
Yea, I was hoping he burned both types of logs and see the difference. I bet his with the hole, burn better.
Got any videos on how they burn? What effect does burning cardboard briquettes have on your flue?
Great video. This is what TH-cam videos SHOULD be like! No muss, no fuss, and does exactly what it says on the tin. From a fellow Scot 🤓👍🏴
Nice video. I'm interested in what your drying time is and a follow-up video on burning them with burn times included.
Id like to see a video of these burning
Centre of piston is threaded, so you can double the length/height of lift, simply wind it out, so no need to add block, and help make process a little quicker and easier! But nice simple press!
Also, if mold forms on blocks during drying, add some salt to mix, stops mold growth, cheap and easy! Cheers.
That would not make it faster. The travel distance is the same, so you have to adjust the thread every time. Quicker with a block of wood. 🙂
@@MikkelTK you wind the piston out prior to starting, which means no need to remove and reinsert jack, of course that would save no time at all!
Your machine is much better than the Amazon-baught one, but if you add a wide bowel underneath you could catch the flowing water and this way you'd hit 3 birds with 1 stone: you'll keep the soil clean, make a lesser mess, and reuse the water over and over again. Great video! Thanks 🙂
I too have a lot of sawdust from woodworking and cardboard from boxes. I made one of the presses to your design. Works brilliant. Thanks heaps for sharing. Recycling at it's best.
Your version is way better.
Am curious how much better your bricks burned compared to the square ones?
How much better does 100% cardboards logs from your press burn compared to 60/40 paper/sawdust?
Your own design is superior in overall performance, in my opinion. I honestly believe you get extra credibility; because of your honest Scottish accent. My mom and her parents are from Glasgow. I am in Irvine California. Nice video thank you for making it happen.
I like the round ones better, they look like they would burn more even and dry out quicker. Nice job on the build, it looks like it will last years longer then the amazon one.
This has saved me a lot of working out I will make this using my log splitter to compress the mix thank you very helpful
I tried making this a few years ago and failed miserably, you've given me some motivation to try again. Brilliant video thanks a lot.
You can do it!
Definitely prefer the center core out in your design. In my mind, I would imagine it burns hotter, and pulls air over the burning surface creating more complete combustion. Would be interested to see a comparison using equal rights of starting materials and what your ash weight is after burning.
I'd be interested to see burn test between the two.
Great idea.
Interested to know how long you dry them and how they burn.
Thanks.
Love your idea. Might copy it. Perhaps a metal press with a mold to make squared brikets with multiple holes on the end briket will be a nice upgrade to the system. Thanks
I like the way yours turn out best. Nice idea! Nice build.
I did this 14 yrs ago. Used sawdust, paper/cardboard. Got my saw dust at a local mill dirt cheap. Peanut hulls, cocoa hulls also worked well. The down side. Little to no coals for retained & regenerative heat. But, that's a minor issue. As for chemicals. Treat your wet slurry with a lye rinse/bath. Press down on the mass and scoop off the top liquid, then rinse again with fresh water and put in mold to press.
The press you made with the center hole is better. Show them burning.
I think your home made one is much better! Seriously tempted
excellent design the only suggestion id have is to raise the bottom a little an add something to funner the waste water into another container allowing the fiber impregnated water to just pe perpetually re added to the mix which eliminates those people who think its negative for the runoff to re enter the environment and saves any waste, iv also used things like garden waste for the fibrous add in instead of sawdust as i dont off tern have access to sawdust myself
thats really cool your press is a far better idea than the amazon one well done .
If you capture the runoff water, the binders are dissolved in it, re use the water and your bricks will hold together even better
I’ve seen other channels add oil to the mix as well. Catching the runoff and reusing would help reduce this waste.
I wonder if the chemicals from cardboard and magazines would kill plants if you used it to water them? Or if the fibres would act as fertiliser.
@@Walkingthroughtreacle Good question. I certainly wouldn't use it on food plants, but maybe on strictly ornamentals???
I prefer Your home made machine , it’s looking more sturdy and squeezes more water out. Great job 👍
First time seeing your channel, but the video was very professional, well made and your voice over was very clear and informative, so I've subscribed,. I look forward to exploring your back catalogue and seeing your new videos as well.
Awesome job. Never stopped to think about making my own. THANKS!
I am seriously impressed! Didn't even think this was possible. Very useful to know, these days - thank you.
You just saved me from spending $25 each week on starter logs for starting my fireplace! Thanks!
you should spend it all using my amazon affiliate link 😊
I watch and upvote videos like this, not because I will ever make DIY cardboard Briquettes, but because in the future I will want to make some weird random thing and I want there to be a video out there telling me how to make it.
Can definitely relate. I have plenty of dead trees around to cut down and process that makes this genius idea completely redundant and unnecessary to me, but I'll be damned if this isn't super cool and something I want to make anyway
Would like a follow-up video. How long did each take to dry, how long did the burn. Was the Amazon one worth the money?
I have a few different ideas for modifications to your DIY press. They may sound a little complicated, but if you can visualize it, you'll see what I'm talkin about:
1: Mount the bottle jack upside down at the top of the press. You'll probably have to shorten it to bring the fully extended piston to the 2nd line.
2: Mount a removable tray to accommodate the Amazon press. Mount the shelf/tray at the first marker line.
(For better versatility, try to fab up a bracket that can be installed & removed so you can make both bricks & cylinders)
3: The press: I can't really tell how wide each section of the Amazon press is, but it looks like maybe a 4x4 is just about wide enough to fit in the black tray. Fab up 4 of those onto a plate, and that plate mounts to the cylinder on the bottle jack. That way you can press 4 bricks at once - you may need to upgrade your bottle jack though.
Best way to visualize it: Picture an upside down F
The long line, is the floor plate.
The short middle line is the removable tray for the amazon press
Mount the amazon press in the middle line (ie: the tray on the finished version)
Line up the plate with the 4x4's on it with the piston on the bottle jack
If you want to make the hollow cylinders instead? Just remove the tray & amazon press, put it off to the side, and use your original dies.
C'est vraiment genial. Very intelligent !Super job ! Long live Scottish from France !
great idea to use a jack. I live in Zambia and am working with artisan briquette makers using sustainable charcoal. I will certainly show them your video.
Much like the rest of the commentators on here, a burn comparison would rock!
I checked the channel and did not see one.
Sorry for the delay th-cam.com/video/g5oH96-GGu0/w-d-xo.html
@@TotallyChilled Thanks.
Back in the bad old days, Dad used to get all the free local papers he could lay his hands on and make briquettes for the living room fire. He made a wooden segmented frame out of scaffolding planks, with house brick sized compartments, and a base + lid from an old solid oak door he'd cut in half. The lid had blocks attached that fitted into the frames compartments to squeeze the briquettes. To compress it all he used about 20 bleeding great coach bolts with washers and nuts.
It looked "Heath Robinson" as hell, but it worked impressively well. He could form 15 briquettes at a time using that thing, and he'd do 10 to 15 batches most Sundays during the summer, That house also had a back boiler in the living room fireplace that fed radiators in all the other rooms, so making the briquettes meant it cost almost nothing to heat the place right through the winter.
I've got a vague memory that he also used paraffin to soak the paper for some batches so he could use them as big fire lighters. :D
Outstanding. The hole in the middle is genius. Thanks for sharing this!
Loved the idea of the homemade press. I was looking at videos to learn about machines that turn wood and sticks into saw dust when I came across your video. I now have an additional use for saw dust. Thanks again for sharing your ideas.
I've wondered about those presses, yours looks way better than store bought.
Yeah I agree yours may take a little bit more time but I think they will burn longer because they are more dense
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but after creating the 4 briquettes with the amazon press, before removing them take another 4 briquettes and place them on top (having 8 briquettes in the press at the same time) and press them again that way your able to press more water out of all of them and this way the bricks in the end will be twice as larger and with less water.
This video should be titled: " How I MADE a better product than amazon could deliver to me in the same time"
*Can't help thinking you did enough precision woodwork to build a windmill there :-)*
Haha true!
Awesome! Additionally, you have one of the best sounding accents I’ve ever heard. Amazing!
Be interested to know if two years on if you have or would change anything in the design.?
I'd be willing to do this if I could make the fill process on the cylindrical form faster and create a setup with 20 or more tubes. That would cut down on the labor time significantly. The round brick with a hole through it is definitely a better design.
thanks for the video bud. my parents own a store and they have tons of cardboard just going to the dump so i decided for a little extra cash that id make these to sale as ricks of firewood.
Instead of the jack, could you set up a big screw and crank?
Excellent machine! Well done with your own better solution!
How long does it take to dry so you can burn them. This looks like a great idea !!
That amazon press looks flimsy as hell. Yours is far sturdier and produces a superior product. Will be building yours when I go to make ours. Nice work buddy 👍🏻 this warrants a SUB
Your press is far superior to the Amazon press. Your round bricks will not only dry quicker because you have pressed more water out but will most likely burn longer because they are much more dense. Thanks for sharing bud.
i love it. i think i’m going to do this with square or rectangle steel tubing so i can stack them for campfires
Can you make a video where you fire up the briquette? How does it compare with the charcoal briquettes?
this is them burning th-cam.com/video/g5oH96-GGu0/w-d-xo.html are charcoal briquettes not for a bbq if it ever stops raining in Scotland i will try them
Your build is fantastic! Great work sir.
Kudos for the build and the recycling!
Brilliant idea. Yours is better than the cheap Amazon knock off.
Impressive bit of backyard engineering.
I come from a mining village whre everyone had solid fuel fires till around the 80s. I can tell you a way to keep warm that doesnt need a press all you need is newspaper water your hands and somewhere to dry them.
Take your papers place them in the sink and then fill with water. leave it for 20 min. Rip off strips about as wide as your hand and from the paper and each strip should contain all the pages from 1 full newspaper. Schrunch it into a ball squeezing as much water out as you can. Once dried these little suckers burn just like coal lovely and hot.
The same thing should work with cardboard it will just need more soak time. Top tip they dry out faster near the fire
I like your video. straight to the point. I hate videos that waste my time with stuff that I don't care to know.
You should sell your design on Amazon, it would be a big hit, manufacture a "pro" version, i would buy your version
Brilliant vid!!!
I’d love to see a video on how you made the briquette press. I’d be interested to see how you for around the potential for bursting nailed or screwed joints with the pressure from the jack. 👍
I made one this morning. Took about half a. But I had everything. Slightly different in design. But will do the same.
My property produces about 2000 pounds of leaves every year and that's only the ones that are raked off the grass I plan on mulching them with my mower then raking them up and compressing them the same way thanks for the idea
When Im burning large amounts of cardboard, I just roll it into a log. All you have to do is lay it out flat and start rolling. Add more pieces to roll into it as you get the end to make it bigger, then tie it together with a natural fiber twine. Just put a real log on top when burning so that it doesn't pop apart when the string goes. I can make a log in about 30 seconds, have no equipment, or dry time. Not to mention it actually burns versus how this briquettes tend to smolder
I believe the goal here is not just to burn cardboard for disposal, but to manufacture a dense fiber brick that burns a long time for heating purposes. Rolled cardboard as you describe would be far less dense and would burn faster, which is ideal for disposal purposes, but not for off-grid heating.
In one of his books, John Seymor recommended doing pretty much the same thing with newspapers, soaked in old cooking fat/ motor oil. A recommendation you´d probably think twice about making today... Anyway, a trick of his I liked was to use old bailing wire to tie those briquets together. They don´t burn, and if you like you can just pick them out of the ash to reuse.
It's cool creating a method using such inexpensive materials - such as a bottle jack. A basic scissor jack probably would not have the same compression force as they tend to top out at 1.5 ton and basic bottle jacks in pickup trucks are often upwards of 5 ton, but even stronger ones are not terribly expensive.
Using an electric bottle jack or log splitter would make things much easier.
If the base of the compression cylinder is elevated some device could be inserted after the pressure was relaxed to facilitate using the jack to extrude the completed brick.
You can also convert this design into a general use home compactor for other waste such as plastic and lightweight metals (food cans, softdrink cans). You could create compression molds and merely switch each one out when you have different materials to compact and deliver at a later time to local recycling centers.
Excellent video. A great idea. Will be very handy especially with the price of gas and electric going through the roof. Many thanks for sharing
Questions! How much pressure does it take from the hand-jack? Could you for instance make it to fit 4 pipes to speed up the process? And what is the burntime for a round briquette vs, for instance, a common use wood log?
Great idea. Cylindrical press is best for final product.
It seems like the hydraulic press works much better. You can put a lot more pressure on them so they stay together better once finished as well as burn slower since they are more dense. The hand press just doesn't do the same kind of job.
I just love people who are inventive and practicle, my wife orders loads of junk from Amazon so we have stacks of cardboard and I have just fitted a multi fuel stove so I will be giving this a try, thanks for the info.
I'm having a go at your method. Definitely looks better than the bought one which looks like a strong breeze would break it.
Yup, I would prefer your press for sure. Good job!!
I wonder how practical it would be to reclaim that "wastewater" and re-use it for the next batch of briquette slurry. It seems unlikely to be contaminated with anything that wouldn't end up in the briquettes in the first place.
Thank you for the critique ,, a child's paddling pool seems a likely solution
Yours looks pretty good, but others have said, a burn test would be nice.
I built almost the same press. Mine uses a scissor jack and is made from pvc and steel grate. Nice build sir!
Your press is better. Ditch the piston for a long handled lever with a pivot behind and it'd be much faster.
I like the idea of anything free, especially heating - if you get hold of a paper shredding machine, I feel that may be useful addition - not to shred cardboard, but any newspapers, letters, junk mail etc - then add thta to your mix.
Saves on the rubbish bins too !!
Yours looks to make a better product.
You could cap the center pipe so you don’t have to be sooo careful when filling. Might speed up the loading process
I think your DIY press is better than the Amazon one.
Even though your homemade press takes longer, it looks like it does are far better job than the one you bought on Amazon. I hope you will do a burn test so we can see which one burns the longest. My guess is: your homemade one is far better when it comes to burn time. Thanks for your video Totally Chilled.
It looks like his are more dense which would make them burn longer, but they also have more surface area to burn which would make them burn faster. So It's a toss up which way it would go.
Your press produces a better quality. The Amazon press seems easier and more portable. Well done!
Got a video of you burning them?
Great video! Here in the states we have hand operated can crushers you may want to borrow some design ideas from.
I just stomp on them with a boot
I made my own one of these too lol th-cam.com/video/4YRz1guVu50/w-d-xo.html
Would be nice to see if you make a build list / build video. I just got a new apartment with a fireplace, and a good way to make my own briquettes would be nice.
i just knocked it together didn't make any plans
Your press is much better than the Amazon one and I think the hole in the middle helps it to dry faster and probably start on fire faster, well done 👍
Great video and I like your calm tone. Also - i reckon there is a heap of design creativity here - great going to sleep thinking material. Thanks. Haven't seen these since I was a kid in the 70's