A question on wood flour....

R

Rob_F

Active member
Is anyone in the MN/IA/WI area doing a build, or an active Restle coater?

I recently started at a new company producing significant amounts of wood flour, but I have no idea if it would meet the needs of a project. I'm going to try Restle coating with it, but I have no prior experience to compare to.
 
Good morning, Rob~

I am guessing that because you call your by-product "wood flour" and not sawdust, that it is indeed very fine. What comes out of my belt sander is flour-like. I would certainly consider it for use as a thickener with epoxy, to make fillets or for surfacing. I do not use it for coating foam decoys.

I suspect it is too fine for "Restle coating". I have experimented with several media. (Restle/Trestle coat uses ground corn cobs - I think "medium" size range.) I have tried saw dust from my band saw and table saw. Band sawdust is just right; table saw dust is too coarse. I have also used ground walnut shells (blasting medium) from Harbor Freight and the "special blend" Homer Coat from Homer decoys. I now tend to use my fine sawdust on decoy heads and Homer Coat on the bodies.

All the best,

SJS

 
Good morning Steve,

You are correct, it is quite fine. I'll Private Message for an address to Pencil Brook. My levels of "fine" and "course" are far from a practitioner's or crafts person experience. Maybe it's belt sander, maybe it's band saw :) I will also guess it depends on how sharp the blades are on the saw, which would likely change it's value to a user due to inconsistency. Also, the wood fibers used can change seasonally based on available processing stock and the region they are sourced from.

Any interest in Acrylic powders? Over a production run we accumulate several pounds of lost "wash" that we can't use due to QA. We have a couple manufacturers that can make use of it, but we outproduce their demand.

Very best,

Rob
 
Hi Rob,

I have tried using sanding sawdust for epoxy fillers and it was just too course for me but as Steve alluded to, every machine produces different results. Are you trying to create a market for your product or just hate to see it go to waste? Acrylic powder sounds interesting? I have no need for either wood nor Acrylic at the moment but will keep this in mind.
 
I am using Premium Select Vermont Wood Flour (John Bourbon's bandsaw dust) sifted through a flour sifter for my restle medium. It is certainly finer than Homer Coat, but keeps the details molded into the decoys and heads. I have used the same sifted wood flour as a epoxy filler and while it is much coarser than fumed silica (Cabosil) it did the trick on the large areas I faired with it. In those areas I could get after it with the RO sander. I would not want to have used it for simple, visible fillets.
 
Hello Pete,

We're a value-add manufacturer that specializes in niche and custom manufactured packaging solutions. We don't want to compete in commodity markets, say, turning the saw dust into camp fire starters. The wood and acrylic powders processing wastes we end up with do not currently fit our value added model and we are 99%+ a business to business operation. We do have some products in R&D we can incorporate the waste stream into, but these are a ways out from production yet.

My goal in the short term is to reduce our discard and create secondary uses for the left overs. There is a cash recovery issue, in that we need to decrease the cost of management of these items, but at this time we're not working on developing a marketable product. Ideally, I'd be looking at shipping 10lb bags to people with a T&M fee for processing/shipping/handling, in bulk, unfiltered, etc. The acrylic powders would be a hodgepodge blend of whatever we made that week.

I've got some ideas for value added products that would fit better in a single consumer model (think ordering wood flour by the quart vs 10 lb bag)... for these we would look at designing the product, then licensing it to a retail distribution partner and we'd maintain the manufacturing.

We're geared for shipping pallets, but can stick someone on filling 10lb bags.

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks!

Rob
 
Robin~

I use epoxy (1:3 Thin Resin with Medium Hardener from U S Composites) but do not mix it with the Homer Coat per se. Instead, I brush the epoxy onto the decoy then sprinkle the Homer Coat (or saw dust or corn cobs) over the wet epoxy. I work over a big plastic tub to catch the excess.

I discuss the process in this Tutorial:

https://stevenjaysanford.com/tutorial-painting-homer-eiders/

Homer Decoys uses Titebond III, I think. They have a very useful video on their website. I use epoxy mostly because I always have a supply on hand in the shop for boats and decoys.

Either way, after the epoxy cures (over night), I prime with an oil primer before applying my latex topcoats.

Hope this helps!

SJS

 
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