DavidB, I’m thinking that Ford is a flat head? If so, how well does it run on charcoal? I’m planning in the spring to try one of my flat heads on charcoal.
not mine. The earliest te20’s and the ones later assembled in the US used the continental(ford) flathead. Mine has the standard engine in it an overhead valve english design. I’m really not sure it would make any difference. I’ve never found it lacking in power. On gasoline I’m barely above neutral on the throttle, on charcoal I’m less then a third. I’m a timid tractor driver… That S tine cultivator didn’t even come close to over taxing it. I’ll let you know when I plow.
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It seems the link to DOW is missing ?
Great blog post. Hopefully it gets some people thinking practically about what can be done in future challenges.
its there its the blue backslash underneath the words… Still getting the hang of it…
There fixed it…
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Great blog, David.
Kind of special to me, since I have a tractor just like yours. Also I love that WW2 slide-show. Some of the photos are from around here.
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I dont know if Chris still posts. He was always a treasure trove of pictures from gasification history.
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Ha! Ha! Of course you mean Chris Seymour, Kansas for the historic pictures.
DavidB in the past I have slammed people (Chris Saenz) for wanting to blog and not forums broadcast. I was wrong. Wrong. WRONG.
Forums and most YouTubing leave you open to just any-old-body with a heartbeat, the urge, and fingers to blah-blah “improve” your shown efforts.
Blogging I’d say for sure disable return comments. Use it as a, “this is what I am doing”. You: nicer than me might add, “and your own results may vary”. Cranky old me anymore I’d say take-it or leave it . . . and do this quietly.
Henry Ford did good by making farm tractors small, affordable, lighter-usable for the small farmer. But it was H.Ferguson with his three-point hydraulic inline shaft PTO system who really made these into versatile. And make-it-as-practical-as-possible Ferguson would have used the more fuel efficient OHV engine system of course.
Regards on your now efforts
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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Fergusons were the most built tractors on the planet ever. Even carried an expedition to the south pole.
Ford played his characteristic hardball monopoly strategies to get Ford engines in the Fergusons.
There are volumes that have been written about the Ford /Ferguson handshake that happened between The two Henries. https://irishamerica.com/2004/02/a-tale-of-two-henrys-their-tractors/
Its a fascinating story.
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Looks awesome.
Keep posting! One day I’ll try to do the same.
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Hey Arvid, good to hear from you.
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Well to say its been a while would be an understatement. Tonight I broke out the gear and ground and sifted some charcoal. It started off as an almost full 50 gallon drum and ended up as 35 after ash dust and small stuff was removed. Its the agricultural fair this weekend so I wanted to put on a decent show… Its good to be back in the black hand gang. Im building a new filter as well that will be for later though.
Cheers, David
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Hi David, I hope you also share pictures of what you show at the Ag Fair.
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Hi DavidB,
Off to an annual AG fair myself.
Time for a new custom made up wood-for-power hat to be made up.
In practical black of course.
Last year I went with custom logo’ing of “Free The Carbons!”
Maybe . . . just maybe . . . this year go with, “Freedom of the Black Hand”, eh.
Regards
Steve unruh
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By “black hand” do you mean running on charcoal?? TomC
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Well TomC, as you’ve discovered woodgas soots and condensate refined down “tars” are mighty Black too.
S.U.
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I’ve been thinking about a new filter lately. The 5 gallon bucket and gamma lid were ok but The problem has been I’ve never really had much success with the cyclones as the dust seems too light or is moving too fast. The idea here is that in stage 1 the gas goes into the steel tube and is forced to turn just like the cyclone. This will also cool the gas. The rod with the scrub pads adds turbulence and forces some dust to stop. The it goes into the upper filter section where a pool filter does the rest. Hopefully it all comes together very soon…
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OK, now I know why people ask for a sketch when i post an idea for some new idea. You even gave us some pictures, but I still can’t get it straight. I like the idea of a two-stage or three stage filter.
Stage one: dirty gas enters at the top of the cyclone either tangentially or with a spiral air ramp so dust can be taken down to the bottom container (preferably through a restricting ring with an opening about the diameter of the inlet). Then the cleaner gas exits upward through the internal outlet pipe (preferably with a diameter larger than the inlet but smaller than the cyclone diameter).
Stage two: gas from cyclone passes through scrub pads.
Stage three: the gas is filtered through the pool filter.
Is the cyclone in the bottom half of the steel pipe and are the scrub pads in the top half? Is the cyclone entrance pipe located between these two sections? is the entrance pipe tangential or do you have an internal air ramp?
I like the way the paper filter hangs along side the cyclone.
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Not to pull to far off the practical into whimsy . . . .
But I had the black fitted cotton baseball cap logo stitched up as:
BLACK HAND
FREEDOM
This was done in white thread large font all capitals Bold.
We have at our County Fair a % of mixed races and no dark skinned people gave notice or objection.
Home later my wife DID object.
I’d expected this and black permanent marker darkened the BLACK HAND top line.
Looks great!!
Bold white on black FREEDOM pops right out.
Then the raised thread kinnda’black BLACK HAND on the true black background get folks to stop, squint a bit to puzzle-out. Then wonder and ask, ???
Just what I wanted. Ask me. And I’ll tell. Wood-for-energy. D.I.Y. wood energy. Raw, or woodcharcoal. They are both annual made solar energy. Infinitely renewable.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Hopefully this helps clarify things a little… Here is a hot restart and a walk around. Basically the front of the long metal lower tube is the cyclone action/cooler, the back half has the rod with the copper scrub pads. Then it goes up to the Spa filter which is waterproof and washable. The whole thing is tipped back a bit for condensation to drain to the end… My charcoal is damp right now so I’ve already pulled some water off of it. It has less then an hour of time so far… Some stills for Steve soon.
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