Newspaper log/briquette maker- anyone got one? Used one?

[miljee]

Where you soak newspaper, then put the slurry in a brickshaped mold, squash the water out of it using 2 crossover handles, turn it out and let it dry. My parents had one years ago but I can't remember if it was any good. I recall making the bricks was time consuming and they took forever to dry out. True? I'm wondering whether it'd be at all worthwhile to burn in the outdoor log burner I'm buying.

we had one when i was a child. i remeber having a hairbrained schemem with my brother to make them to sell on. it took forever to make them and we dried them out in a barn. we never did sell them and my parents used them.

the moral is unless you have delusional children and a large barn probably not worth the effort.

hee hee! I asked my mother and she reckoned they took MONTHS to dry out and you needed like a barn to do it in!

and it's funny how all the ads tell you how long they burn for ('1-2 hours') but none tell you how long they take to dry!

We had one of these when I was a kid. It was a pretty poor design IMO as it was a lot of effort to squeeze out the water, it should have come with a long-handled attachment to get better leverage. They also didn't burn as hot or a long as regular wooden logs, although the blurb claimed that they did.

It could be useful if you have active, enthusiastic kids who need to be kept busy during a long hot summer, but much too much time and effort for a busy/lazy adult.

we've got one.

Tis a pita. We stopped using it.

The newspaper takes forever to soak, then you have to squish it all into the log-maker (a fun job for the kids... for five minutes! unfortunately, it takes hours and they've moved on to more interesting stuff, and you're stuck with it)

Then the logs themselves take aaaaaages to dry. If you did enough so that you were always ahead of yourself, it may not be that bad, but it took so long getting started, we just gave up and binned them all (in the recycle bin, not the bin bin)

My advice would be... don't bother.

OK, I'm going to WALK AWAY! And thanks for the input everyone.