Burnable firewood bundle packaging?

[mahonda]

I have a customer who wants bundles without plastic preferably something that can be used to start the fire. I want something strong. any ideas or do you know of a product?

Thanks

[4genlgr]

4 or 5 wraps of old fashion butcher paper should hold the wood together but it might slip out the ends, although a little package tape would cure that. now a handle for carrying???

[Louis]

cardboard box, 1 cube foot. if the box is dry they work well.

[Mooseherder]

How about some of that brown twine rope that is used for packaging.
I can break that by pulling it too hard.  A few wraps around the bundle should hold though.
It probably wouldn't start the fire but Seems like it should burn okay. ???

[Magicman]

Poly hay string/twine.  I haven't actually tried to burn it, but I think that it would burn.  Whatever you use needs to be water/weather resistant to keep the bundles from coming apart.

Poly strapping would be another idea.



A strap around each end would hold the bundle secure.  Just a thought.

[Autocar]

I am not sure what it is called but there use to be a protective wrap around rolls of wire. Its brown paper about six inches wide and was real springy, when you pulled on it it would streach out and pull stuf back togather and burnt good also.

[Ironwood]

We like "untreated" baling twine, truckers hitch knot then some half hitches to lock it down. Inter-tied from one to the other creates the "handle" to carry the bundle. It is slow compared to a wrapper, but much nicer in the camp.


Ironwood

[JohnG28]

Baileys sells a kind of paper for covering slash piles and to help start them on fire when burning them.  Im not sure how strong it is as Ive never used it, but might be something to look at.

[mad murdock]

I think that the bailey's paper is Kraft, a coarse type of cardboard.  Sisal twine is natural, and burns up completely with no black smoke, unlike poly twine, which is plastic based.

[JohnG28]

Mad murdock, your right, I just checked their summer catalog and it is Kraft paper.  Unfortunately they show a minimum order of 15 rolls, not sure if you could get less online perhaps.  Does say that its water resistant though.

[mahonda]

I make bundles now with stretch film and some with poly strap. They work great but they are concerned with the smell and poluting it will put off when people burn it. The cardboard box might work if it had a natural glue base. I think people are probably just to picky but if they are the ones paying ya'll know that means thier right any way. thanks for the ideas!

[Randy88]

How about baler twine, not the plastic stuff but the cycil like they used on small square bales for decades, you can still buy it and it burns great, the plastic stuff not so good for burning but we always burned the nonplastic, I'm not sure about the spelling, I could go out to the shed and look I think I've still got some left from years back but it does burn good, just wrap it around the bundle and then tie a loop in it for a handle to carry it.    If the stuff is halfway dry it burns pretty good we used to use it for starting brush piles on fire all the time, as far as holding the bundle together if its tight enough it might work with enough wraps and if you have a bundler rig up somthing to hold the ball of twine and let it wrap it around for you and just tie off the end and make a loop and you've got a handle.   When we went camping years back thats what we did and used the twine to start the fire so we put a lot on the bundle and threw in the packaging on the food and it started right up, either that or use the regular wrap and throw a small container of starter fluid in with the bundle and sell those as a prepackaged "kit" to start fires and tack the cost onto the bundle or wrap some excess paper in the bundle along with the wood and do it like your already doing it just stuff some extra paper in it for them to help start the fire, just make sure its not old playboys or somthing offensive to moms and you should be good to go.   Just a thought

[Ironwood]

Randy, that is what we use. Natural sisal baling twine. I was going to drill a hole in one big piece and slide in some newspaper ;D "KIT"

Ironwood

[Randy88]

Maybe patent it and sit back on easy street and rake in the big bucks off the patent.    Maybe spread out the idea a little and market it to different types,G, PG, R, and XXX with the centerfolds attached, as they say its all in the marketing, remember if you strike it rich you gotta share in the mega profits

[Ironwood]

 :D

Ironwood

[mahonda]

I am so offended!!! I can't believe that you guys are so sick! only a mad man would burn a playboy  :D

[Randy88]

Technically you wouldn't be burning it, the buyer would, well who knows what he'd do with it, anyhow if it sells firewood I'd say go for it.   The other way to look at it is to think recycling and going green, its not ending up in a landfill after your wife or girlfriend finds it, your just redistributing it and putting it back into circulation, remember its a marketing thing.   So now the perk would be "enviromentally friendly, going green, no waste, reading material included with pictures to illustrate, self ignition source if desired, no toxic chemicalls in the packaging materials, firewood "  new low intoductory price of $8.95 per bundle, quantity discount available.   Also on the XXX version with the quantity discount for an added fee we can leave the entire ignition source intact and undamaged by not being bundled along with wood, make those nice warm fires even better with some of our reading material to help pass the time and that way only you tear out the desired pages to use to start the fire and that way no article is destroyed and leave you hanging in suspense.     Oh come on guys you gotta admit its a little funny, nobody had ever thought of that for a sales slogan have they?    And the best part is nobody will ever look at the date on the cover to see if its an outdate magazine and the articles aren't up to date.   

[Buck]

this "going green" needs some thought.....there may be Obama bucks to fund such a worthy venture. ???

[beenthere]

I am so offended!!! I can't believe that you guys are so sick! only a mad man would burn a playboy  :D

Also, mothers burn 'em.

[CRThomas]

I have a customer who wants bundles without plastic preferably something that can be used to start the fire. I want something strong. any ideas or do you know of a product?

Thanks

Around the Holiday Season I wrap my bundles in Christmas paper

[Ron Scott]

I've seen rolls of heavy brown craft paper used for wrapping the firewood in arm load size bundles in place of plastic. It can then used for starting the fire.

[tjdub]

I'll second the sisal twine idea.  If you can find anybody around you who still feeds small square bales, you can get it for free and it's already tied into convenient loops to boot.

[Al_Smith]

Baling wire ,binder twine and duct tape will fix just about anything .The problem now of days is finding the twine and wire .

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

Mahonda

I understand you customers desire to have you go Green, but Plastic wrap is fairly environment friendly when you consider how many bundles you get out of a single roll. On average, you can get 200 to 220 bundles out of a single roll of wrap. If the users were to toss the plastic in the trash rather then burn it, it would equate to a slab of plastic 12 inches long, 10 inches wide, and about an inch thick. Not a lot of waste when you consider it wrapped 200+ bundles. A arm full of 2 liter plastic soda bottles would generate about the same amount of plastic waste.

If they do throw it in the fire, it virtually burns in a matter of seconds with minimal odor.

I would be concerned about trying to wrap it in paper type products. Split pieces often have protruding slivers of wood and knotty protrusions were branches were attached that could easy puncture the paper and allow it to continue to tear. When you stack the bundles prior to delivery, during delivery, or at the time of unloading, I would fear that the weight and contact with one another would also damage the paper wrapping and cause bundles to break apart. Likewise, if you do not bundle the wood tightly, the pieces will simply fall out the end of the bundle. Cord would be an option, but I can assure you it will take much longer to make and tie bundles with cord. On average, we can make a bundle, start to finish in about 30 seconds. Would think that cord would take at least 1 -2 minutes per bundle and be pretty hard on the hands when you continually try to pull it tight.