Making Charcoal

[awemawson]

VTSteam, how are you compressing your brickettes?

I can see it being imensely boring doing the odd ton or two by hand

[vtsteam]

I am compressing charcoal by hand for experimentation purposes. The odd ten pound melt won't require a ton.  I doubt I will use ten pounds of charcoal to melt ten pounds of iron. If I was doing it by the ton I wouldn't use a 55 gallon barrel to make charcoal, either.

ps. if this did work out okay, I'd consider making a mechanized press. That might be a fun project in itself.

[Ashlyn Katarzyna]

I tried the above with wheat flour and used 91% rubbing alcohol as the wetting agent.  I didn't let it dry but it lit instantly and burned for a while on its own, it didnt crumble when i picked it up either, I concur that probably will last a while.  I was just curious if there were other wetting agents that would be better doesn't seem like stuff that contains water is the ideal thing. I know in pyrotechniques most guys use denatured alcohol to form up a charge since it doesn't contaminate star burst and lift charge compositions. 

I've been looking for a way to load up my furnace on good charcoal. Store bought sucks I can burn them up in about 15 minutes on high and the slag left behind is less than desirable.  I got all of this free lumber from the desert this afternoon, it took a few trips in the Ranger to get all of it that wasnt eaten by termites, people take it upon themselves to dump stuff in our desert unfortunately they've been doing it for awhile and that is one reason why we are losing the ability to use it.


 Everything I have gotten has been from the desert. This score of fuel should last me a few years, or if we do it by furnace re-lining quite a few.

[oldgoaly]

there is a fairly cheap version of coke called petroleum coke but it is too fine for most things, so I will try you suggestions on a bonding agent, I've already got the carbo-coke.

[vtsteam]

Chad, sorry I hadn't seen your earlier message for some reason. I wasn't successful at melting iron in my sawed off cupola furnace with charcoal (not compressed). Even after adding an extension. Charcoal works well for melting aluminum.

oldgoaly, since Ironman has suggested coke itself as a binder I wonder if your petroleum coke could work that way with charcoal, or with itself? The catch is that in general to fuse coke you need high temps and lots of heat, which kind of defeats the purpose of a fuel, particularly a purchased one! Can it be compressed at low temperature?

But maybe if you used the flour as a low temp adhesive, and coke as a high temp adhesive for charcoal, or for itself, briquets could be made that stayed bound through the burning process.

Where do you get "petroleum coke"? Are you in UK, US or elsewhere?

[oldgoaly]

I'm near St.Louis Mo. and a foundry supply house stocked it.  I have used it in my coal forge, bank it behind the coal. I'm wondering if one was to grind up a percentage?  Have not used much pressure as finding a holder has not happened.  This is like a coarse sand like a 30-40 grit.  when it gets heated and doesn't blow away it will bond and burn very hot.

[vtsteam]

Well, I guess I won't be trying it. No foundry supply companies in Vermont.

[John Stevenson]

Send your surplus timber over here Vtsteam - it may burn fast but my log burner has quite an appetite and at the moment I'm reduced to burning willow which is very light and fast burning!

Andrew,
Pop up with that little 4 x 4 and I'll load it up.

Every Monday morning, 6.30 am I get one of these dropped on the drive.



8' x 4' x 4' full of dry beech offcuts from the local furniture factory.

[awemawson]

Blimey John that's a blast from the past - do you have a backlog of post reading ?  You could have brought one of those with you when you came down the other day 

Glad to see you've got the forklift fixed 

[John Stevenson]

That's what you get for putting the clocks back 

Nearly got the truck done.
Sparky came out and spent a good hour going thru it, found a small stud diode had gone short.
Removed it to get a new one but everything still works with it removed ?

Waiting for him to get a new one before I venture out on the road with it, just using it round the yard at present.

When you have had one of these go runaway it makes you wary when you switch on. Good news is the plastic wheelie bin has now expanded to nearly it's full size but still got a bent wheel and a few cracks in the top.

[Ashlyn Katarzyna]

.......Not convinced that the mix will work, it wouldnt burn with a torch held on it or in the fire pit, I know why now and its too much work to make something that is the by product of burning wood.  flour is cheaper than sugar with the 2% tax on sugar here its a losing game.

[vtsteam]

Photos restored after Photobucket fiasco.