One of the best moments in life to me is when spending time in the woods. In a sunny cool morning, shutting down the chainsaw, working the hatchet while listening to the birds singing. The smell of freshly cut wood and knowing you do something useful and enjoying yourself in the same time.
The other part of the equation, burning the wood, is inherited and maybe easier to explain.
For thousands of years our forfathers have found comfort in looking into the fire. Most of us can still feel the magic it does to our brains.
As simple as that…
…all the economical, enviromental, physical or what ever advantages are there without thinking about them.
Years ago my brother and I kayaked into the far north. The night time activity was sitting around the fire of 100 year old black spruce, more dense than oak. Apart from the northern lights dancing above, the fire was the magic, dancing blue and orange flames. We have been watching fires like that for perhaps 2 million years. Its in our DNA. Now tv takes the place of fire for most, why we will sit and watch the flickering screen, when really what we want is a fire.
This is part of a poem of an urugyan poet who´s name was Eduardo Galeano, I´ll try to translate it. It bases on the colombian Negua indians mitology:
“Un Mar de Fueguitos”
Un hombre del pueblo de Negua, en la costa de Colombia, pudo subir al alto cielo. A la vuelta, contó. Dijo que había contemplado, desde allá arriba, la vida humana. Y dijo que somos un mar de fueguitos. -El mundo es eso – reveló-. Un montón de gente, un mar de fueguitos. Cada persona brilla con luz propia entre todas las demás. No hay dos fuegos iguales. Hay fuegos grandes y fuegos chicos y fuegos de todos los colores. Hay gente de fuego sereno, que ni se entera del viento, y gente de fuego loco, que llena el aire de chispas. Algunos fuegos, fuegos bobos, no alumbran ni queman; pero otros arden la vida con tantas ganas que no se puede mirarlos sin parpadear, y quien se acerca, se enciende.
"A sea of Fueguitos”(little fires)
a man from the village of Négua, on the coast of Colombia, could climb to high heaven. On the way back, he told. He said that had referred to, from there up, human life. And he said that we are a sea of fueguitos. -The world is that - revealed-. A lot of people, a sea of fueguitos. Everyone shines with its own light among all the others. There are not two equal fires. There are large fires and small fires and fires of all colors. There are people of serene fire, which neither learns of the wind, and people of crazy fire, which fills the air of sparks. Some fires, silly fires, they do not illuminate or burned; but others burn life wanting so many that you cannot watch them without blinking, and who approaches, is turned on fire.
Natives saw it that way, it´s in the DNA, like Garry said.
I came across this video the other day and seeings as we are still in the high 20 C here in Melbourne its still to warm to be trying it out and wondered if you guys that are covered in the white stuff might like to also give this a go and post your results on here .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxVzT8nmCpw
It was a younger woman with lot of experience who showed me to build the starting up mini chimney center tunnel. 2007. I was 55 with 40 years wood stoving experience. She was 23? with three years experience on only her very cranky cold chimney system. Never too old to change and learn better.
The video operator is smart, observant, and inquisitive. At 4 hours in he realized he had overfueled loaded and created a near uncontrollable burn cycle.
Soon he will figure out that the hot energy releasing charbed he had established then by his too much fuel at 4 1/2 could now be maintained sustainable clean burning by hourly adding just one of his hardwood dimensional pieces hourly.
Once past a get-going burning fast turbulence; then it is cleanly burning out the fuel pieces volatilizes; to get down to the real energy charcoal glow. THAT gets too hot - add a cooling piece of wood on top. (next time do not make such an initial fuel wood loading)
Same wood used for the same time duration piece by peice loading onto a hot charbed. With better heat out transfer due to the slower internal velocity flow rate. And better, safer controllable.
Regards - still got some two weeks ago made snowmen hanging on, here.
tree-farmer Steve unruh
That is one of my favorite examples of adding secondary air. I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t linked to somewhete else on this site. Great video. I have to do something like that to my old soap stone stove as the entire top section which holds the cat inside the stove is burned out. I should have fixed it last fall but I defiantly need to do something before next winter I have limped it along this winter but it isn’t very efficient right now. Thanks for reminding me of that video
I’m impressed. Have to wonder if it can be used in a indoor room or would it be producing any CO. Also what is the retort made of. Can’t think of any metal that would last long at those temps. I’d really like to see an exploded view of it.
Extra W added wooops sorry ,
Tom i will go have a look at one as soon as he works out the price , he is not too far from me , and i am sure he will let me explore the item before even thinking about buying one and i will let you know as soon as i find out .
I buy LIFEPO4 batts and super caps from Ian and he is a clever chap when it comes to big boy toys like this .
Dave
That is pretty neat. I initially thought it looked like a Solo stove with side door and a blower fan… but I don’t think that is quite the design of it after he described the airflow.
From how it was described it is more like a sideloaded sheet kiln, that Bruce Southerland had/has. However, I hadn’t thought of it in a long time, and batteries have come way down in price.
That looks right to me Tone though with the internal vessel insulated. Otherwise he couldn’t come near that external sheet metal. The question is what is that vessel made of. In the video I am looking at certain points a charcoal that by color is pretty close to forging temperatures. I’d like to lay a blade in there and see what colors it could reach.
I think that is pretty close. He did mention something about air being pushed down into the chamber from the top, and not just across the top.
I am kind of wondering what emissions are from this, because it is a borderline incinerator, and those don’t necessarily burn cleanly. In fact that is why we removed them in the US in the late 70s. The figured out especially the chlorinated plastics caused issues.
When Ian gets back from his mini break i will see if i can go over and take a look at his one just out of interest and see how its constructed .
In the mean time he has posted a video of the smaller stove he has as well , this one is more like the one i have a Biolite but mine has a TEG built into it the powers the fan and charges a phone/tablet .
