Hi JacobN.
I think you need to post up some pictures of your available stone-rocks.
It will make differences on what is possible. And just how to do it.
Here is my one side house’s foundation made in 1987/88:
These rock chip-slabs were from a 3 mile away rock quarry making road bed ballast base fill and quality crushed topping gravel.
Appears to have been dry loose stacked with a concrete poured back filling. Then a true re-bar slab poured on top.
My own ground if you dig any hole produces these old glaciated rounded rocks. And smaller. ~20-30% rocks need picked out by volume.
These are from two tree roots pot holes my crazy Wife had me dig for her two very out-of-climate pomegranate trees. Ha! She just yelled at me they they are specific cultured for PNW westside. Hmm. We’ll see.
I’ve seen this size and shaped rock used. Ground dug they have to be scrubbed washed clean. Easier to gather them from river beds, already cleaned.
Regards
Steve Unruh
so I still haven’t made it over to the rock pile. but I have some gasifier stuff to talk about.
We are working on this charcoal boat project again.
I have been kinda set on the down draft style gasifier l. I am now reconsidering that. the problems I’m having with downdrafts are weight and complexity of construction. I am considering building an updraft with a flute nozzle.
What would you guys recommend? what are the pros and cons of each; downdraft and updraft?
so to back up a little bit. I am trying to power a 7-8 HP one lung side shaft engine. these engines are on a boat with a drive system very similar to the one I had at Argos.
I am thinking at this point to put the gasifier in the front of the boat and put a cooling pipe in the water running down the side of the boat.
The other piece I am dealing with is filtration.
Has anyone ever had any success with water bubblers for filtering chargas? is an 8 HP one lung engine going to have enough vacuum to make it work?
If not a water bubbler is not realistic. what filter would you guys recommend? I am dealing with a third world setting so fancy air filters and stuff aren’t really an option.
I think some of the issues of an updraft will be rigorous need to have totally converted charcoal. A downdraft is less sensitive to it.
I think with either a simple bag filter should work, or maybe animal wool/hair.
A cross draft would be a medium between the two, less complex and less sensitive than an updraft. Only issue would be keeping the nozzle cool or making it a consumable. Water cooling the gas would work with all 3 designs. Easy enough to do on a river.
If you want dead simple construction and make sure they understand the need for fuel to be good, I’d go updraft.
The down draft Double Flute design works well if the flutes are bult heavy duty to help distribute the heat away. Not sure of how much place you need. A 55 gallon barrel for the total unit would be required.
Hi Jacob,
I ran a 7hp Briggs genset on charcoal. It was based on Koen’s stuff. I found that I needed 24 inches from the nozzle up to the surface of the char. When the char got down to 24 inches it would shut off like a light switch.
I didn’t like the water filter. I ended up reversing the flow and putting four socks over the discharge.
Links to my experience Socks , First project
More complex, yes. But not much, specialy with your skill set. Hevyer, not nessesery. As a matter of fact, l wuld dare to say a downdraft can be made lighter and smaller per ampunt of run time thain a updraft. Keep in mind you always need a good amount of char above the glow zone on a updraft, but a downdraft you can preety much empty to the nozzles.
The engine on my BCS is a solid 470ccm, l think 12hp? The hopper is a old 2.5gal milk can and the hearth part extends maybee a nother 6" down. This gives me over a hour of run time, full power, and weighs probably less thain 10 pounds empty.
Im not braging, let me make that wery clear. Just want to point out what can be done with ease. The gasifier Tone made for my tractor is even more incredible, close in weight and size to myne but it powers a ~ 1000ccm diesel!
In a 3. country scenario, even more so. Fuel can varry, moisture, size… while my BCS gasifier is a bit picky on fuel, it will still devour fuel that a updraft wuldnt even fart on. Tones gasifier doesent even need the dust sifted out, althugh filter does clog fast in this case. But it gives good gas!
I won’t impose my theories, well, here is a sketch for a charcoal gasifier (you can also add some wood for better gas), it’s actually a cross draft, from the middle out. The air enters through the middle nozzle, to which a disk for shaking the ash is attached…
Tone, this design lacks the side nozzles, like the one on my tractor. I do think they still play a important role of creating a oxidative lair around the otherwise “cold” wall for steam and potential tar to be reacted.
Hello to all. Billy here. I have been out of the loop for quite a while. Very busy with new responsibilities and dealing with health issues.
I think we finally nailed things down a little more on the health stuff. Turns out to be something from my army days back in 2006. apparently there was a several month window when the guys coming in to the army were given some kind of experimental vaccine. They are calling it a “vaccine injury”. (not the Covid vaccine). So I have been dealing with that for a long time. Some kind of auto-immune thing that inflames the joints and skin and gut, and eyes, etc…
Kristijan…or others…
I have a question for the chemists…I need to clean several plastic drums that contained something called “Benzalhyde”. And I have a huge abundance of 77% ethanol hand sanitizer. Am I correct in believing the ethanol will dissolve this substance?
And if so, how much do I need …take a guess. thanks, Billy
It doesn’t look too dangerous, and should evaporate completely. I don’t know if there are contaminates that would show up in a dry barrel, or how dangerous they might be.
Looks like ethanol will work to clean it:
Benzaldehyde is a colourless liquid with an odour of almond oil. It has a melting point of −26 °C (−14.8 °F) and a boiling point of 179 °C (354.2 °F). It is only slightly soluble in water and is completely soluble in ethanol and diethyl ether Benzaldehyde | Aroma, Flavoring, Preservative | Britannica.
Billy, lm glad to hear from you! Hope you guys are allright, l hear Jakob is real buissy with his new house, and Jesse must be quite a man now also. Hope your girls are good too!
Sorry to hear about the healt issues. Also here, the military used to pump a lot of poison in the boys. Tone will confirm, as he probably served in the army aswell…
As for your chemical problem, first l must say organic chemistry and l are not to good friends. But the general answer is it depends on what you will be using the barrels for. Im not sure about this specific chemical but the majority of aromates are carcinogenes, toxic, iritant, or have a nother unpleasant trait. Alcohol shuld clean them well, so wuld pretrolprobably. But l wuldnt exactly put drinking water in.
A lot of aromates closely resemble human hormones too. A super tiny dose can mess up a population over decades, one of the reason human sperm count fell 50% over the last 50 years and that we see all those blue hair rainbow clothes beard wearing girls nowdays…
I looked it up. it is a common industrial chemical and also used as a flavoring for cherry flavored drinks among other things. It oxidizes to benezoic acid easy in air which is the white crystals. The yellow is probably where it hasn’t oxidized yet.
Benzoic acid is solubility goes up in hot water. I would just wash them out with hot water. But it will recrystalize when the water cools kind of like making rock candy. It is more soluable in ethanol and it goes up with temperature as well.
as a side note: it apparently benzoic acid is used as a treatment for athletes foot and a few other fungal type of diseases in whitfords ointment, so if you or anyone you know has athletes foot, do it barefoot. LOL
Glad to hear from you Billy and all what the others said.
Wife has a thyroid hormone production issue that requires daily medication - an auto-immune thing. She was told if you have one auto-immune disease, vaccines can easily trigger more of them. That’s one of the reasons we’ve stayed away from vaccines for decades.
Say hello to everyone for me and stay safe.
