What is the best kind of sawdust for the fur shed. Is there a difference in sawdust from sanding or cutting?
Thanks

There's a huge difference between sanding dust, which is called wood flour; cutting dust which is more like chips; and shavings from a planer or joiner. They all have use, what are you using it for?

Like KenaiKid said, big difference. I have a two-stage dust collector in my shop. It has a cyclone separator that collects all but the finest sawdust before it reaches the filter. The super-fine stuff ends up in a bag below the filter. That's the dangerous stuff you don't want to breathe or have around open flame. So don't use very fine sawdust in you fur shed.

All the larger stuff except for really big shavings like from a hand plane will work good in your shed for rubbing grease off skins, tumbling media or soaking up coon grease on your floor.

Most of mine gets either composted or used for chicken coop bedding.

I want to use it for grease in the fur shed.

if you know any one with power planner that is the stuff to get it is all little curs

when you go to sweep a spray bottle that you can mist the area with will keep the dust down also.

an old trick to getting a very clean sweep is to moisten shavings and toss handfuls of them around the floor then sweep them all up with the corn broom and it collects more of the fine dust , dirt , dander than a dry sweep alone.

The best source IMO is a cabinet or millwork shop, which will have mostly shavings. Second choice would be a sawmill, truss or panel plant, which will be cutting chips. There used to be a shop right up the road from me that would give away all the shavings/dust people would haul because it saved them from disposing of it. Like Lugnut said you want to avoid the fine sanding flour; the good news is that most of those sources do very little sanding so even if it's all mixed in a single stage collector the dust should be minimal.

Of course if you don't need a lot you could just buy packages of shavings for animal bedding.

Be sure that itis hardwood sawdust.

Why must it be hardwood?

Softwood like pine may have rosin or sap that you don't want in the fur.

How about Douglas fir?

Doug Fir is prone to having pitch pockets, I wouldn't.

Any pine fir will have sap or pitch in it don't use this for tumbling your fur or cleaning it, it will ruin it.

I used to get all my sawdust in 40 lb bags at a local large mill that sold it for such things as cleanup, but I used it in my tumbler for cleaning and polishing my fur, as well as clean up on the floor

The had separate bags of hard wood as well as pine, was about $8.00 a bag back then about 20 years ago.

I use livestock bedding, fine grade

Be careful of the type of sawdust you use for cleaning fur, look at it very closely under a magnifying glass before using it. Some sawdust will look like a miniature corkscrew and will get locked into the fur fiber and is almost impossible to remove. Obviously you don't want that type.

Before your mind is set on sawdust, I'd like to highly recommend used carpet instead. It doesn't get into everything like the sawdust. It does a great job of soaking up blood and oils in the fur shed. If you have an especially bloody area like under the skinner or fleshing area you could put down a rubber mat under it do it holds the blood until the carpet can get it soaked up. In the spring, roll up the carpet and dispose of it. Much easier clean up. You can ask anywhere that replaces carpet they will get you all you could ever need free, if you don't see it along the curb to pick up.

I like the carpet idea. Ishtar still get some sawdust to clean pelt edges.

I do very little finishing fur but 20 mule team borax works great for that for me, a little goes a long ways.

X2

x3

maple sawdust. American Wood Fibers. Resin is removed, kiln dried, graded as to size