Ah yes JohnS
The volatiles <-> char <-> ashing ratios of the wood is key to understand and learn to operate around.
A fellow can adjust fuel moisture.
A fellow can adjust the chunk/chip sizing.
You are stuck with these other three as inherent in the actual wood characteristics.
Species blending sounds like the workable work-a-round alright.
Here with in the wetside PNW 90% of the woods available we are always fighting with too low of charring % woods also. Real easy to run outselves out of char and off the true gasification edge as you did. We Never have the spilled/slipped char that I see pictured in the easteners hardwoods fueled systems. I figure now that they must do this to me excesive slipping to pass through thier much higher exposed harwoods based flow clogging remaining ashes %'s.
We instead are always having to make our systems internally over-oxidized in multiple steps to convert our conifer inherent high volitials %'s. We do have wonderful low below 1% ash percents EXCEPT for the PITA low altitude river valley cottonwoods. Most here cut them down and let them rot in place as they fall.
Yes the bit’o cottonwoods we have here are the pits for fuels, fencing or building with.
No charring caplibilty at all with horrendous +/-10% of flow cogging ash left behind.
Thrifty; I get rid of my cottonwoods in the woodstove. MUST be sap down, out of leaf, cut down to get any use out of them. And Stinks if ever been wet again after seasoning drying. Then burns, smelling like cat pee to me. Those are the four trees left standing in leaf on the LH side of this picture. Typically 30" of snow up there for ~4 months of the year. I’m going to try “Alaska style” to girdle them one by one for in winter standing fire wood for the hunting/fishing cabin. Nothing to lose.
Hey! Got my Estwing “Fireside Friend” yesterday. I like it! 4 pounds - certainly not ever be a backpacking tool. Woodgasers manual armstrong chunk maker! Powered by peanutbutter sandwiches and squirrel/rabbit stew!
I cut some cottonwoods one spring several years ago and the sap literally gushed out of the stump.
Seems to me it rose about a half inch into the air for a little while.
The stuff I used in recent trial was well dried.
It’s a tough wood to split but no match for the Fireside Friend.
Here is one if it has not been mentioned here yet. Let the machine break in and be patient!!! I cant speak for any one else, but on my machines it takes a min of four hopper loads for the machine to become established enough to where I would feel safe to run an engine. This is in part that I use good ol Kingsford for start ups and this takes a bit to burn out. Then there is the natural insulation that needs to get established in the machine and this could take a long while to fully establish. The more my machines are ran the better gas they make. So dont give up and make adjustments or build a new machine after one hopper, let it go for a while and break in.
Hi MattR
You sure said a true mouthfull experienced Woodgas Truism there!
This actually does get talked about much on the Premium side with those building and learning then to operate WK vehicle systems.
Mr Wayne himself even after precharging with previous in gasifier made char-ash will open topped reverse blower burn raw wood up to 10 cycles to develope a good natural conditioned char-ash beds.
In our now instant gratification cultures that have been fueled with refined fuels for the last 60 years it is hard to re-train lost solid fuels combustion Arts. Patience. Patience. Patience. New Quality footwear. Quailty durable clothing. New gasifers. And new to gasifing people. All need some break-in, run in time.
I also run into a problem set with new gasifer operators as I have with woodstove operating training: “My new wood stove now smokes and no longer works the way it did when it was new!” Ekkk! Totally firebox and air flow clogged with built up/stacked up ash! “You do need to clean it out every so often.” And I demonstrate.
Then a month or two later, “Ok I cleaned it out like you showed me and now it opertates even worse!!” Double EKKKK!! They shop vacumed it out down to bare naked heat sucking out metal.
Solid fuel combustion devices NEED some char-ash to internal insulate, seal up and slope form.
Woodgasifiers for years now I’ve been harping to please, please operate at least 5, two hour batch cycles between each actual change or adjustment to be able to program/learn into the operator system range expereince base. How, and where it chokes, dies and fails is just as important as early designed in (lucked out) success.
Ha! The same now on ALL fuzzy logic IC controllers like power windows and doors. They must be fully cycled through the full range of movements several times to train the controllers after each forced reset and long term battery disconnect. PC’s been that way since the late 90’s. Our new drip coffee maker now too. Too damn smart means too damn obstinate dumb.
Ha! Our second season canoeing now for the wife and me. Not a single spill yet. Bad enough last year. Now very bad into the 2nd year.
I tell her we must Spill to learn to re-right, bail-out and re-board recover. Better to do this controlled and safe than unsafe, unexpected having grown too bold. I havn’t won on that one yet. And I am too chicken to force this issue. See . . . even some things Steve Unruh is afraid to bull through.
