Hi guys i have been hanging on ur guys every word for awhile now . lots of reading and learning .
Im from north austraila
Im about to start my first build . it will be for my 1967 international ex AUS army truck it has a 282 cu 6 cly (engine was redesigned from ur USA red diamond by repco race engines for the army ) and weights in at 5 ton (yes very heavy)
Question 1
I like the JO Olsson Volvo WK type gasifier but was wondering i know he uses mostly soft wood and the wood i have access to is our very very hard wood only is it the best choice ?
2
As the wood is very hard (making it hard to chunk) i would like it if i could run it in a more like split fire wood size . im thinking that the tall stright sided old WW2 stile hoppers would be better for this and be less likely to bridge ?
That’s enough for now . but looking forward ti ur replays
Hello Phil, it’s hard to give you any smart advice, but a few words,…
The size of the gasifier, in my opinion, is never too big, because wood needs time and temperature to convert into gas, especially hard wood in large pieces takes a lot of time. The hot zone must be adjusted to the engine and also the size of the wood, so that the pieces do not get stuck, my method is to use three levels of air nozzles, the upper ones are practically the width of the wood hopper, so the wood collapses nicely in the middle,…
The size of the hopper is also important from the point of view of drying the wood and removing excess water.
Hello Phil,
I remember reading something by a missionary in the Outback. He said redgum wood was the best.
There were a lot of gassifiers (gas producers) in Australia during WW2. I have the impression that most of them used charcoal. Charcoal is usually considered to be a simpler and easier way to get started.
Tone Šuštarič has a gassifier for his tractor that seems to be very effective. See Tractor with gas? thread.
I would suggest charcoal in this case because no matter what you use for the source, one helpful part for any gasifier is consistency in the fuel size. Simply charcoal is easier to break up into a consistent size with less equipment or at least less expensive equipment. It gets brittle and much easier to break up.
If you decide to stick with gasification and keep going, then you will understand the workflow and hopefully learn about better ways to process the fuel you have. You can experiment with it when you are making charcoal, because consistency in size helps make more uniform batches of charcoal as well.
I get the easier to break up charcoal but Im going to be on the road most of the time as this will be built into an off road camper so making charcoal my be another step . i would rather stay with just having wood gasifier
I understand, you weren’t looking to make a religion out of this. But I’ve seen many people take on a very ambitious project at the start and then become discouraged and quit the whole business. Better to start small and simple and then build on that. Almost none builds just one gasifier.
Rindert
Yeah i have noticed that .im a sort of both feet in (my mouth usually) lol kind of guy and have a very good understanding for making engine related stuff . here’s a sterling engine i built with my boys in a few hours just because when i asked one what they wanted to do that arvo one said I DON’T KNOW what can we do . i said anything u wont and he said WELL WE CANT BUILD AN ENGINE .lol CANT WE I SAID and this was the out come . in the end i got sore from holding it and just put it down .
You might start with the chunker then. I might start with a screw chunker, those tend to be smaller and use smaller material, with the idea maybe you could take it with you. I don’t think you are going to haul Wayne’s with you in a camper. And at least around here, it isn’t hard to find piles of twigs or brush along side the road or in a yard or field that someone wouldn’t care if you took.
Yeah that might be an option and yes Keith’s chunker although very cool looks a little big to transport around lol ill look into a screw chunker . the truck dose have a very big pto shaft driven winch not sure if i can make something using cable power to chunk with
The real trick is probably going to be what size wood you have to chunk.
You might be able to disconnect the shaft and use that as your chunker output, maybe with another longer shaft. I am not really familiar with those.
You probably should read Wayne’s book no matter what direction you are going. It will give you a solid foundation of what you are doing regardless of whether you build his system or not.
Hi Phil X. welcome to the DOW.
You’ve explained enough now on your desires to be able to give directions.
Your wood will be native hardwoods.
Your vehicle/engine will be a knock-about, slow travel out and about vehicle.
So first understand that both a raw wood gasifer or a pre-made charcoal gasifier need internal rather compacted beds of from wood, char chunks. Not too big of char chunks with large gap spaces. Not too small of chunks with gasses flows clogging packing and with fines.
You get that in a charcoal gasifier by breaking up and size sorting; and fines sifting out; the charcoal made from wood spilts and sticks.
So the reason in a raw wood gasifier to chunk up the wood splits and sticks is to pre-make your to be internal converted into charcoal chunks that lower down that will make up the thermal-chemical final gas making bed.
Extremely portable in a transit vehicle you will really just want to just saw for the chunks. Take less power. Is more compact. Have extra carbide inserted toothed saw blades. Have a 12 volt hand grinder to dress up the carbide teeth. Use some type of “bed” sawing system either moving the saw into the fence held wood lengths. Or a moving-bed system that moves the wood lengths into a fixed position rotating saw blade.
Watch the fingers!!
Actual stick length fed wood gasifiers have been done. These work much, much better with a rapid to char converting conifer woods. Still needing some around the outside “char-breaking” ports and operator attention with a breaking up metal rod as needed.
True excellent charcoal making hardwoods devolve into charcoals too slowly in long splits and sticks to be able to feed the gas for a large engine as you propose. In my experiences.
You do have wet times too, yeah? So do follow the systems with features able to handle wetter woods by top hopper steaming releasing.
And by the released remaining steam passing down through the char bed; some being converted. The remaining condensed out of the downstream gas before the engine. The prize is being able to use your year-around, found woods. Not efficiency maniac’ing, numbers chasing.
All woodgasifier system will work much better with pre-dried woods. Possible from a live-at, long-term yearly situation. Just not possible for a traveler using what the can find.
Yes. That would be the Wayne Kieth system.
Traveling, for scrounged woods he saws. Home, he shear chunks.
Regards
Steve unruh
Wow there is some great advice there and yes the goal will be not crazy good mileage but be able to use scrounged wetter woods of all types as YES WE HAVE A MONSOON TIME OF YEAR. nice to know the WK type handles this
. yes the drive shaft can be removed from the winch and i could posable set up a flanged shaft close to the winch and just move the shaft from one to the other .
Im glad there is someone with experience with hard wood . I was wondering about how fast the hard wood charcoals as it lasts along time when burning in an open fire ( like 6hrs) . i know that the WK chunker would not last long with most of are AUSSIE hard woods . So sawing would be the go and moving bed the best for a shaft drive system
The wood that was in the Power Pallets when it arrived here was red gum chips , looked like it came from from a wood chipper , the weird thing was the charcoal they used in the filter chamber was hardwood charcoal and it was as hard as nails and clean to handle , i would have loved to know what it came from as it burns very very clean .
I dont think you will have too many problems with your local gum up there splitting and chunking should be fairly easy with fresh green wood and then allowed to dry .
Dave
So i have quite a few old LPG cylinders for main body of unit and in thinking hardox plates welded in for the hot zone .but my understanding is that the Hopper should be made from light gauge to help with condensing the vapour from tge damp wood . is this right?
