I would like to open up discussion on this.
I am a Premium Life Time Member of this DOW site.
When I rebuilt the gasifer truck that was from the book that Wayne originally built. All of my building on it went to the premium WK side. I have also done many up grades to the truck that are not apart of the WK gasifer design but I placed them on my thread in the premium side so it would be all in one thread of what I had done. A example of this is the Auto mixer rebuild that is on the truck this is not in the book, “Have Wood Will Travel”. It is not part of the how to build a WK Gasifier. So my thought is I would like to see the rest of the members see what I am going with the truck with non related WK Gasifier building. Many improvements have been made and ideas from members that are not in the HWWT book. The question is where is the line for this.
We use to build the cooling rails all solid one piece. But it is now done a better way in modular form. The cooling rail system, Condensation tanks, gauges, filters, hoppers, have been around for a long time. But the fire tube and how it is built has not. You can search the website all you want on passed design of wood gasifers and you will not find The Keith Gasifier (WK), it is a new concept in designing and is unlike any thing else. That is where I think the line should be drawn. Not the new cooling rack I designed or a new lid for the hopper that Chris Saenz design. I personally feel I am not really sharing to the public members what I have been doing with my truck because it is not on the open side of DOW site.
I know this is tricky, a couple of years ago I was talking to a member that had been a Premium member, but had gone back to the free membership and we were talking about the WK gasifer fire tube design on his thread topic. We were not in a WK topic side. Chris Saenz the administrator let us know not to do that. Oops, I apologized for my mistake.
So in general I feel if I am going to add improvements the the truck to make the gasifer run better, it should be okay do it in a manner is to not jeopardize how to build a WK Gasifier that is explained in the book.
“Boy I hope I did not open up can of worms here”. OPEN FOR DISCUSSION.
Bob
Hello Mr. Bob .
Great question .
Let us run this by Chris , he is the one that really put a lot of time into it . Maybe full time for a year or more .
One of the ways I handle it is with two topics . I have an open thread with my V-10 Ram and and another thread on the premium ( repairs and details) .
Thanks for bringing up the issue I guess it should have been address earlier.
Edit .
I find myself between a rock and hard spot often . I very much would like to share information but when I put proprietary information in the public domain I feel I have betrayed all the premium members 
Okay Wayne, I didn’t realize you were doing this with your V-10. I see the DOW driving habits videos are in the general side. I feel if we can let more people see the WK Gasifier on the out side and us working on them the better. Even looking down inside one will not help a person to build one. Thanks Wayne.
Bob
Great this is being discussed.
Another “grey” area that gives me fits lip-buttoning is the hopper external cooling tubes.
Unique to the WK.
And not really just cooling tubes. Actually upper system re-circulation tubes. Then . . . the unique upper system internals, blank, blank, blank that allows these be be part of an internal condensates wring out down to your tertiary tars. Nobody else I know doing this level of refining and fuels vapors capturing that I’ve ever read.
See . . . .
You WK fellows define this as yes, or no, please.
Thanks
Steve unruh
Another issue - I don’t know if it can be solved or not - is the barrier to do with buying a membership from abroad.
Personally my interest for gasification got a boost when, for example, our new Ukrainian friends Joni and Vitaliy showed up. With the increasing number of forign participation, solving the issue could be a win-win.
Well, not to complicated for me. Only to avoid tax rules in Europe. Paid once, going to do it again. Take so much info away and I like to read a real book. Only the sun is free. It is normal to pay for the rest. Super that there is so much for free here. If one is really engaged/enthusiast, payment should not be a problem. And like some said, if money is a problem for someone, community is so good to solve that. Thanks anyway for the open part/info
Yes, it is a real contribution. For me a hobby and only if there is time available.
Joep, you’re in the Netherlands, right? You bought the membership? I was under the impression it wasn’t possible from this side of the pond.
It is a YES. And the blank, blank, blank is hidden inside. You just can’t hide the hopper tubes that for sure.
Bob
As far as I understand, membership is no problem, the book is the problem. Import rules, and they are different for every country. Understandable that it is to complicated. Mr Wayne gave me a refund, thanks but not really nessecary. And really curious about the book. Real book, not digital.
Chris ,Is there a problem sending the book to Australia ? i wouldn’t mind premium having sat in the dark for so long now it would be good to see what you wood gas guys are talking about .
let me know if i can join /buy it through paypal or whatever
Dave
Hello All,
Reread the home page Premium membership guidelines.
It does not say no international orders will be processed.
Only those to EU signatory countries due to a new VAT taxing law effective 2015.
This is much more that just money. The seller must register. Set up accounts in each individual EU country. Collect the VAT money at each sent to countries rates. Then send on the collected up moneys. Records. Auditing. So either all subsidize support this extra handling expensed - distasteful. Or a surcharge - equally distasteful.
So again not just about money. How do you pay back a single fellow trying to grow a farm, raise a family, and do a work out job? You simply cannot.
So as I read it Dave you are fine in Australia.
The Ukrainian members OK too.
Russia not and EU member. Our Russian members OK too.
And what a few of us here have offered is personally sponsoring Premium membership to one EU locked out.
We buy the membership and book. Membership a “gift” personally us to you in your name. Book sent to us individually here USofA. Re-sent as a personal used-book “gift” then from us to you.
I have already committed for this years “gift” “exchange”. Part of how I pay my Lifetime.
S.U.
Hi Bob,
For me this is a “no brainer” since i had the honnor to meet quite a few of you people and Wayne, Chris,…
I don’t share anything what i build with WK knowledge or products derived from what i learned from you or others on the premium side.
Might be that i have many other idea’s on how to do it or how i could “improve” someone else’s idea’s and try to claim credit for it, but i just can’t.
In premium i would share detailed knowledge, but still carefull selected, in general i give general info…
But as every premium member know’s, i haven’t build a WK yet, nothing shared on premium side…
I learned most by what others achieved that " it can be done" and i show to others that “it can be done”
Less on how did i do it… more on what did i learn from others…
IMO, if it is a WK build, it will always be a WK , be it with improvements, to stay on premium
If it is a “imbert” built, it will stay an imbert unless you ad some WK style improvements…
If your improvements are WK specific invented, not previous used in other designs, then i would keep them on the premium.
Overall, it is a great question, from a great person, asked to a great group of persons…
Hi folks,
Excellent question and I’ll try to clear up any ambiguity, along with some backstory.
For some reason, woodgas folks have a tendency to guard jealously their million-dollar ideas. When I got into this around 2010, you couldn’t talk about certain systems openly, there was a lot of bad blood and secrets, accusations of copying, etc. I know of a half-dozen systems like this. (I’ve since learned most of the secrets and laughed.) The only one actually driving around however was Wayne Keith.
When I first went to visit Wayne in 2011, he let me crawl all over his truck, looking at his control systems, plumbing, condensate tanks, valves, etc. I watched him light it, and looked in the hopper. He showed me exactly how he drove the truck, and even let me drive it. At that time, he hadn’t released any info about the internals of the gasifier, which to be fair, are pretty well hidden from external view. I was actually planning to take the lessons learned and apply them to my own gasifier, which wasn’t nearly as well built or reliable… Then I got a call from Wayne in January 2012, and this site was born.
Wayne had the only system worth “stealing”, and he decided to let everyone in on it.
We’ve always followed that same guideline for what is and isn’t kept hidden about the Wayne Keith system (WK for short). Anything you can see, is free. External systems like cooling tubes etc, are not specific to Wayne’s systems, even though he’s done a better job designing them than previous builders. But without the special hearth or “firetube” system you haven’t got a WK gasifier.
I think I can speak for both myself and Wayne here. We don’t consider the gasifier design intellectual property. Nor is it patented. The point of keeping it hidden and pay-for-access is to help support Wayne and myself, and this website. People buy in looking for the “secret sauce”, and the serious ones tend to stay as members of the community.
We printed a book too, because people like books. The website has way more information, it’s more up-to-date, detailed, and interactive (it’s hard to ask a book questions). But if you’re going to charge $50, people want something to hold in their hand. Real handy to take to the garage or fab shop. It’s a good book, we put about a year of effort into writing it. A second edition is probably overdue, but there’s no budget for that.
Do I think the cat is out of the bag? Probably. Somewhere, someone has re-posted our videos, digitized our book, and probably pirate-shared the whole thing. But they can’t steal the community of users, access to a community of actual DOers. That’s our true value as a website, the 150+ on call problem-solving thinkers, who can help you with your project. And, ironically, most of this is available for free. People receive help all the time on the public side, we only restrict discussions of Wayne’s gasifier internals.
Now, we have a lot of people like @Bobmac building new systems, improving designs, and keeping the process going. Is it still a “Wayne Keith” gasifier? Do we own all the improvements “you” made?
It’s the wrong way to look at it. You own your design. We’re not charging people for your improvements, just to have a look at Wayne’s internals. So, if you expose the WK internals, or your improved iteration of those internals, we keep that discussion on the Premium side. If you’re building a shiny cooling rack, or a new hopper design, that’s fine to show off publicly. Again, nobody’s going to take your external systems and wind up with a true WK gasifier, they need the hearth design.
If there’s enough interest, we could open things up completely. We just have to figure out how to pay for the site, perhaps donations, etc. The system as-is, does pay the light bill.
========================
The VAT tax implemented in 2015 is here:
Basically we cannot have a customer in the EU without crippling requirements for filing taxes in those countries. Our market there has (until recently) been pretty small, so I just excluded it.
What I usually tell EU folks… get someone stateside to pay for it, we’ll mail your book direct to you if you like - but it has to be a gift. You cannot be our customer.
It’s been a few years, and we do have some folks there now. I should revisit the situation and see if there’s a better solution.
@d100f this only affects EU, we’re glad to sell anywhere else including Australia. Order here.
Chris,
Оh yes, piracy is bad … The bad thing is that it does not take into account mental work and pursues the goal of profit on the author’s work. In my country, this is very common, and I really do not like it. I am familiar with the problem of piracy! I recently posted a drawing of my gasifier (it has no dimensions) and today there is already a pirated version of the internal design …
though it has errors …
Thank you Chris for your administrator comments and actions, and unseen hard work you do for us all.
Thank you Wayne for your vision of DOW and all of hard work you have done and making it happen, and all the members who caught on to the DOW vision and have produce actual working gasification creations with their own hands from this wonderful DOW site. We are a team group, helping one another in gasification and other topics. We have become a family that has reached out into all corners of the world and languages through the web and the DOW site. Congratulations to us all in keeping this vision going.
Bob
Thanks Mr. Bob for the kind words and for all that you do.
Because of folks like you from the west coast and all across the US and east coast , Canada , Mexico , South America , Australia ,The Netherlands, EU, Ukraine, USSR, Thailand, India , South Africa and many others we can say the sun is always shining on the DOW community 
I think it is really cool to have “family” all over the world, and to be able to share ideas so easily.
Regarding the premium vs public, I feel like some of my innovations im willing to share with our little family, but dont neccesarily want to give away to just anybody. I like having the choice of where to post it.
WOW! Wayne, “The Sun Never Sets On DOW”
Has this site gone beyond even your DREAMS?
Bob
The sun is shining here Downunder right now for sure