Hello Gary ,
Thanks much for the video !!
A year ago would you have ever believed it 
BBB
No Sir Wayne, sure wouldn’t, Do you have any thoughts on the choke versus the maximum amount of heat it will build leaving. Did my explanation make sense? Just seems like a bigger choke would allow more air flow, creating more heat in the fire tube and possibly letting it burn deeper into the char bed. Would that be a true statement? Thanks (wish you could have been there).
Gary
I suspect that’s why we all start out on a 6" restriction. Ha. “Training Wheels”. I suspect Wayne is in a better position to answer that Gary, and I wonder myself. I tried to not go over 900 and had trouble holding that on those hills. I have a 7-1/2", but I’ve not pushed it that far yet. Kinda gun shy after the last fire tube failure. Did you run that hot coming down? Thanks for making the journey, we had a great time.
Its amazing how many people know what you have in the back of your truck…(or Tracker, or Cadillac…lol ) since the show mountain men and there wood burning truck. Each morning at the motel I had a couple people asking about it and if it was what the guy on the show had. The motel manager came out and asked me if I could wait on her Dad to get there so he could see it. He has a small private resort on top of a mountain and was looking for an alternative source to run a generator. He invited me to see it which was about 10 miles away. This was Sunday morning around 11:00 A.M. We stayed in Clinton which was another 30 miles away from home, South of Marshall and him being another 10 south of that. I actually called Al to see if they had left yet because I thought this would be right up his alley, but unfortunately they where almost home already. We decided to go check it out and he gave us a nice tour of the place. He has a bunch of Onan generators that are coming from Kroger stores that are being shut down in Florida. Most just have the hours on them generated during normal automatic start and stops scheduled cycles just to make sure they work correctly during a power outage. He actually invited me back to go deer hunting sometime. Real nice fellow. Getting involved with Wayne Keiths D.O.W. has been nothing but a very positive experience for my family and me. Seems like I have met more nice people in the last year than I have in 20 prior. Thanks to Wayne and Chris for letting us participate . I took a few pics of one of the gen sets in case anyone is interested. He told me 2500 would buy the one in pics. It has a 4 cylinder Chrysler 25,000 K.W. Still made it home by 4:30 P.M. Filled up in with Dino befor we left, on the way to Marshall, and was just off from full when we got home, probably 3 or 4 gallons. Did I mention I love my little Dakota…hasn’t left me stranded yet.
Gary
That should have read made it home by 5:30.
Gary
Also forgot to mention we traveled a little over 700 miles total on the trip. SWEM…(except when giving the rides on the wet wood)…Lol
Gary
Doing the math - that’s at least 175 MPG. Can’t beat that with a stick . . . . or a Prius!
A great learning experience, and we saw that we can run a generator on the truck gasifier waste. Recycling at the highest level!
All, Hopefully I can catch a few of your videos while we head south on Friday towards the gulf and get into high speed land. Thanks for posting a few pictures for modem land. Glad to hear it was a good time. My business is nuts right now. Regards, Mike LaRosa
Wow, what a great weekend for me. I got home around 2 Monday afternoon. I slept for 3 hours and now back on the road to service 15 Walmarts and another 1500 miles.
First of all I want to thank Richard for the weekend and the plane ride! What a great guy.
I also want to thank 1-30 pull Al. For me to see the simple fire set up gave me a better understanding of how it works and how simple it actually is. I too learned the importance of fuel size. Pretty impressive making molten stainless steel in such a short period of time.
I also want to thank Carl and Gary for the ride in the mountains on wood. It gave me a good idea what to expect. I was impressed how well it actually handled the hills.
It was nice meeting Greg.
I will set the mini WK aside and start on the truck shortly. I did find a resolution to my hopper leak with stove gaskets.
What a great group of people!
I like your hopper lid and the way it latches, how does that work, looks like a great way to do it!
Pic 1 - We had a corner of the tarmac at Searcy County Airport all to ourselves. L to R: BIll’s mini WK, Red Classic truck, Al’s wannabe Dakota, Richard’s Woodsmoke Classic, White truck, Gary’s Dakota & Carl’s Dakota.
Pic 2 - Bill showing us his nickle plated mini.
Pic 3 - Gary & Carl’s proven road warriors/daily drivers.
Pic 4 - DOW Arkansas Meetup. L-R: Gary Langworthy, Al Denninger, Gary’s grandson Colton, Carl Zinn, Bill Shilling, Greg Henze (DOW handle Hunter Crumley) & Richard Craig
Sure had a great time! Thanks Richard for hosting.
Pic 1 - Richard shows his beautifully fabricated bare-bones 100% woodgas setup
Pic 2 - Bill flares
Pic 3 - Al shows the crowd how simple it really is… (ahem)
Pic 4 - Bill driving his portable power plant
Pic 1 - Richard takes Al up for a ride in his handmade flying aluminum beer can. Notice the DOW hats? What a beautiful job Richard did on this aircraft. It flew like a dream. And landed like one too… Praise be!
Pic 2 - Carl going out for a spin. He really had this driving in the mountains figured out. The truck runs like a champion.
Pic 3 - We woke up to early morning strafing runs both mornings. Gosh those powered parachutes look like fun. I didn’t have the nerve to ask for a ride though…
Pic 4 - Gary shows Greg and Carl under his hood. That’s what we did most of the weekend - talk, talk, talk. (just ask the ladies - Terry, Ruby and Beth)
Great job Al…you don’t realize how much fun we was all having until its over. Thanks for the pictures.
Gary
Yah, thanks for the pictures and video. I hope to see everyone at Argos or wherever it may be in the near future.
I learned that just when you think you have this woodgas thing figured out try something new and you will learn some more.
When I was doing my first simple fire demo we decided to try some slipped charcoal right out of Carl’s truck. I did not size and grade the charcoal, I just cleaned out my charcoal and dumped his in… Well, off I went with the demo. After trying and trying to get the weak gas to run the generator, I must have pulled the starting rope 30 times, I noticed that the paint was rapidly burning off the front of the 5 gallon can used as the gasifier. I checked it with my laser thermometer and found we were up over 500 F on the surface right above the intake tube. I shut it down immediately - an apparently none too soon.
After letting it cool for a while we opened the lid and dumped out the charcoal into another metal bucket and found about one inch of the stainless steel “sacrificial” nozzle melted into a puddle. Hooboy… The crowd’s eyes were big and there was no usual applause. I got thinking about it and came up with the idea that the charcoal bits were just too large for this application. It seems logical that the large particles allowed more air (too loose of a car-bed) to circulate between the bits and surely made the unit into a rapid-deploy smelting furnace (heater-mode) instead of pulling the charcoal gas out of the reactor to use elsewhere in the generator. It took only a few minutes from light-up to meltdown. It was surprising…
We dumped some remaining unused random sized truck manure over a 1/2" hardware cloth mesh I brought and resized the charcoal down to a smaller more evenly sized feedstock. Then we ran it over a 1/8" screen to let the fines fall through. (garden feedstock) Gary’s grandson Colton really enjoyed screening the charcoal. I mixed the resized charcoal with the charcoal I brought made from wood pellets. I also noticed that the corner of the plastic air breather on the generator was broken off and was apparently letting in more air into the mix than usual. Gary got some electrical tape and we fixed it up right quick. After a few more pulls to get a new air/gas mixture setting the thing fired up perfectly.
We ran the generator for almost two hours non-stop. Cool runnings, man! I fired it up a couple more times during the day in my usual way with the now properly sized fuel. It was all good, a couple of one-pull starts. Finally… All said and done I burned about an inch an hour of charcoal from the 5 gallon setup at little to no load on the generator. We did charge Bill’s battery and ran a light bulb, but that is a very small load. It would be nice to try it again and increase the load and find out just how much power we can generate and how much fuel would be used.
The variables are many. And we all learned a good lesson on feedstock sizing. The experiments could be endless with this setup. But the point of this unit - the way I intended and built it - was for experimental demonstration purposes only. I wanted a unit that was bare bones, cheap and easy to understand. It is designed as a teaching unit (first me - then others). It looks as close to a living diagram drawing as possible. I would not use this setup for extended use. It is amazing how many times I have demonstrated it in the past month and it is still A-ok. (I will need to make a new sacrificial ss nozzle though)
I had a great time… I rarely have anybody to talk to here on the homestead so I got my fix for a while. Thank you all who came and shared their joy of woodgas.
I guess I’m gonna have to figure out the video thing at some point soon…
I bought the remaining steel tube for the other half of my rails for BioWoody yesterday and hope to have that part done soon. A special thanks to Gary for sharing a water tank with me for my truck gasifier housing. (I’ll get even some day) My truck is turning into a group project now. I have used saw blades from Carl & Doug, a burn tube from Greg, and now a housing from Gary. I hope I can get mine running half as good as ya’lls. What a great group. I am blessed to call you friends.
And thanks Miss Beth for taking all the photos.
Al
Great pictures Al. I guess I was having too much fun to take any or easily distracted by loud flying things.
Your simple fire has inspired me to make one. It was a great demonstration. Thanks for bringing it.
I can’t wait to see your truck when it’s done. By the looks of the cooling rails, I can tell it will be a work of art. Nice start.
Hey guys ,
Much thanks for the pictures and videos !!! Although it’s kinda like putting salt on the wound as I view them . WOW I wish I could have made the trip !!!
BBB
Keep up the good work !!
Wayne