Sawdust

[DaveYanakov]

I've spent the last two days running storm-felled logs through our sawmill, creating enough sawdust to fill the bed of a pickup truck twice over. Combined with the recent addition of glass panels I got to thinking.

Sawdust could be created as a saw byproduct fairly easily and would require zero new block IDs. It could be burned in a furnace as is (comparable burn time to sticks). It could be cooked in a cauldron with glue to form particleboard, identical to glass panes as far as thickness and durability but non-transparent. It also opens up options as an alternate material down the road since composite boards are generally sturdier than a straight plank. In theory it could also replace plank blocks as a building material by adding a damage value variant to the plank block. Tree farms are all well and good but getting free additional wood is a good reason to go through the step of cutting logs into planks on a saw rather than splitting them en masse on a crafting table.

[Magmarashi]

Sawdust is crazy explosive when subjected to open flame while particulate in the air, burns fast and hot while idle, and can be compacted and burned into charcoal briqs of superior quality and heat(Ogalite, from Japan).


It also makes Pykrete and...nothing much else.


Better wooden materials would be nice, that's true. Being able to cobble together an extra bit of wood or two from sawdust leavings would be of benefit if you were doing a run in the desert, but anywhere else you can't spit without a tree giving you a dirty look. Especially since the 1.8 update added huge forests. What use would particle board itself be in terms of using it like panes/iron bars?

[Camerinthus]

Thinner walls could be a nice look.

[Magmarashi]

Yeah, but they would just look like shanty..towns...

Ok, I like this idea, I want to be able to build some shanty houses stacked up on fences and roofed with hammered out metal sheets

[DaveYanakov]

Sort of build District 9 for the NPCs after you steal all their building materials from the village?

Stronger wood opens up options down the road for parts that need to be higher strength but shouldn't be made out of metal.

Can also be used as a replacement for mattress stuffing. Excelsior used to be pretty common up til synthetic fiber became cheap enough to use for stuffing. Also makes excellent mulch. There's a lot of uses for chipped or ground cellulose.

[CheGiuAn]

The problem is, by for example cutting a wooden plank block into half with the saw, you get 2 pieces of wooden panels, which from you can recraft the wooden plank block. This seems like an infite source of sawdust.

[DaveYanakov]

Yes it would be an infinite source of sawdust. The same way a tree farm is an infinite source of wood. If you're willing to put in the time and effort to build a contraption to make sawdust there is no reason it shouldn't be available since it would actually be more difficult seeing how there is no way to automate the reassembly process. You would need to have a chest at the end of the line to catch corners and then manually turn them back into planks before tossing them back into the assembly line. Alternately you could just leave it as a byproduct of your automatic tree farm.

[Dutchy]

I approve of this idea. :)

[echo off]

i like the idea, especially the glass plane like thin walls. not so much the replacing planks idea, but the rest is cool

[DaveYanakov]

Never said it would replace planks. Particle board/plywood would be something completely different, possibly not even available as a standard block since you're never going to see particle board a meter thick.

[echo off]

sorry, i mistook what you meant by:

In theory it could also replace plank blocks as a building material by adding a damage value variant to the plank block.

you just mean when the user decides what to put down, not the actual block. combining the two could make for some very interesting architecture :)

[DaveYanakov]

Fair enough, I suppose I did say that at some point. It would be a different texture tho.

[BigShinyToys]

After rereading this I have changed my mind . I like it could be use full . Only on one condition The saw only produces saw dust when cutting WOOD blocks into planks so people cant exploit the two panels make a Block thing.

[Mason11987]

After rereading this I have changed my mind . I like it could be use full . Only on one condition The saw only produces saw dust when cutting WOOD blocks into planks so people cant exploit the two panels make a Block thing.

I think we have a winner here. This would be awesome, and would be a reason to use the saw instead of the inventory to make planks.

[Magmarashi]

And a wood panel would require more then just the sawdust from a meter block of wood, too

[echo off]

hell yeh, you would only get a handful of saw dust per cut, and you'd need at least 16 handfulls before you could do anything, except make fuel.

[Urian]

An interesting idea. Can you think of more possible uses for it that A) are historically/scientifically accurate, B) fits the atmosphere of BTW and C) wouldn't use (too many) blockIDs and wouldn't bee to difficult/demanding to code? The wooden panes would fit with the blocks introduced in 1.8 but they're also mostly an aesthetic block, aren't they?

[Deepsniper]

Here are some ideas for sawdust that wouldnt even use up a block ID.

-mulch/ferilizer (put it in the caudron and it can act like a composter jsut like dung and food)
-a type of fuel maybe?

and an off topic one for fun
- fake snow (mix it with bonemeal and you can get a snowball?)

[Stormweaver]

you could make it into boats

I know it's a bit of a step outside of realism, but it could be pulped (rendered?) and converted into paper, on the offchance paper becomes useful for something other than bookcases anytime soon.

[Deepsniper]

you could make it into boats

I know it's a bit of a step outside of realism, but it could be pulped (rendered?) and converted into paper, on the offchance paper becomes useful for something other than bookcases anytime soon.

Paper could be useful on.... maps? no wait we have those already... paper hats?... paper boats?... FC will shoot me for those ideas...

[DaveYanakov]

Wood panes would be aesthetic but they'd be a very easy one to do. Just add a recipe and a different damage value to call on a different texture.

Some forms of pottery, such as the Raku process involve sawdust. While plopping a freshly fired pot into a dustbin full of sawdust would not be practical, if a unit of sawdust were mixed with a clay ball, it could be used to form a different type of clay which could be turned to make alternate pottery objects or components (hopefully) without having to mess with the code used to create vases, planters and crucibles.

Mixed with glue it's often used to fill in holes and gaps in joins. There could be many, many uses for a viscous liquid that when dried has similar properties to wood. Mixed with tallow, it creates an efficient fuel for fireplaces and wood burning and/or pellet stoves. Mixed with wax and pine pitch it also makes a lightweight, waterproof resin. All of this mixing could possibly require the rotatry crafting drum initially proposed by Stormweaver.

As a hopper filter, it could be used to remove liquids from things thrown on top, similar to the netherrack refining process. Rather than exploding into a ghast, an unpowered hopper using sawdust could break and generate a water source, flooding the area and destroying any wiring or torches left unprotected.

Mushroom growers often use it as an easily sterilized medium for spores. Heaps of sawdust could possibly be mixed with mushroom spores to fill a planter, creating a planter that generates mushrooms instead of flowers.

As for the paper, which is completely unrelated, it could be used to make lightweight armor. Native americans prized books as trade items because the paper when torn out and stuffed into a shield created something that could stop bullets. It's relatively bulky and would require the use of a great deal of paper but reed farms have never been difficult to make. Paper can also be stacked several layers thick and (when treated with a waterproof resin, hint hint) be used as a container. Buckets, cardboard chests, tubes for storage of potions, tubes for dynamite, etc...

Speaking of dynamite, sawdust was one of the early stabilizers used for the nitroglycerin. It's also explosive on its own when dispersed in the air, possibly creating a tool to fill a mob trap collection room with fire using a bellows and hopper arrangement. Oh, and it really is used as fake snow when mixed with white paint.

The main thing I was (and still am) thinking of was the particleboard though. An intermediate material that is stronger than wood and easier to work/more easily obtained than plate steel.

[echo off]

i don't think it'd be entirely aesthetic... there's some value in being able to create rooms inside your home using thinner walls.

but yeh i suppose it is mostly aesthetic, unless it's also used as a fuel/fertilizer. maybe it stretches bonemeal out, so you mix 1 part sawdust with one part bonemeal, and you get 2 parts fertilizer? or we could get all dodgy immigrant bakery, and mix it with wheat to make extra bread XD

[Dirdle]

Pulping sawdust and passing it through a rollers-filter to make paper would be so sweet. Potentially somewhat useless, but a good feeling of "I did this thing and exactly what I expected to happen, happened." Paper armor is a cool idea. Paper hats! Being on fire! Plus, as far as I'm aware, the idea of a "crushing hammer" sort of device has been floated around a lot, and could be used to press paper into tough layered material. Plausibly.

[Urian]

Alright, I suggested it in the golden features suggestion thread.

[DaveYanakov]

Thank you for the support Urian. It should be noted that I always put thought into everything I do, it's just that sometimes that's more due to insanity than prudence. ;)