I Just called my partner in crime Brian and he has one of these jaw crushers that was used for crushing up house bricks , I shall be going over to his yard tomorrow and I shall try and take some pictures of it if we can dig it out , this machine will indeed crush charcoal down to whatever size you adjust the gap at the bottom too .
Dave
The farther you move the hinge point away from the face of the crusher the more up and down motion it will have. You could build the moving jaw more like an L instead of an I.
A drawing would probably help , in possible
“A small sketch is worth a thousand words”
Thierry
Have you tested this idea yet?
I asked because I have to reduce the size of chunks of coal COKE for blacksmithing. Years ago a guy gave me a ton of “4 X 6” coke. That means that it will drop through a 4" by 6" screen, but not through a smaller one.
Anyway, this guy had gotten 18 tons of it at an auction and had planned to run it through a gravel crusher to reduce it to “walnut” size for use in a blacksmiths forge.
It didn’t work out. The coke simply turned to powder and clogged that crusher. That’s why he wanted to get rid of it.
I tried simply hitting it with a hammer to break it up and got about the same results.
I found that I needed to CHOP it up to get it to the size I need. First, I chop the big pieces in half, then the next largest, etc… That way I get only about 2 or 3 percent fines.
I don’t know if charcoal would behave the same way the coke does, but I do know that I have to be somewhat careful with my charcoal, otherwise it gets pretty dusty when handling it.
I made one patterned after Gary G’s grinder that works pretty good. Cylinder is 3 inch pipe with teeth welded on that pass thru slots in a metal plate. A sloped screen underneath drops fines under 1/8 inch into one tub and another tub collects the finished charcoal.
Very nice, Don. You do good work! Mine is also patterned after Gary G’s grinder, but I crank it by hand. Your mesh screen looks like it might be 1/4", though. I’ve been collecting some plastic jars containing char less than 1/4" and greater than 1/8" and giving them to people who have backyard compost tumblers. They go crazy over it.
The “jaw crusher” is interesting. I wonder how it might handle a piece of wood that didn’t get converted to charcoal (a brand), especially with plywood crusher points. (Probably change them to steel real quick.) With the rotary grinder and teeth all made from rr spike pieces, a brand just bounces around until I fish it out. I don’t get many brands or rocks, but every once in a while it does happen. (Rocks get in when I make charcoal from grubbed out tree roots, or driftwood from my stock ponds.)
You are right Ray, it is 1/4 inch screen but it being on an angle it seems to act like an 1/8 inch screen because I don’t end up with hardly anything over 1/8" in the fines bin.
What can I say? Again Don you are impressive. Seeing how you make charcoal makes me realize I screwed up by junking out an old combine. It had a perfect hopper on it for duplicating your process.
As I have mentioned before I collect a couple hundred gallons of charcoal while burning my old barn wood. I have a processor much like yours and Gary G’s but I added a trough where I can run an electro magnet across the char to get out the nails. Then I grind it and screen it. I use an electric drill to power my grinder. ( I like being able to reverse the drill when it hits a stone, nail, or hard piece of char.)
I had been grinding char for a few days when I decided to video it. I asked my wife to come hold the camera. She saw all the dust flying. And dispute taking several showers, she complained for three days that the soot from my hair was getting my pillow case dirty. ( didn’t hear a word until she saw me in action. ) I’ll get out to the dog house sooner or later and get back to grinding without a photographer with me.TomC
That’s a fantastic crusher you made Tom it spins a lot faster than mine and with very little dust it seems , because mine has hammers it made LOTS of dust till I slowed it right down with an 12 volt geared motor .
Dave
Jaw crushers do not like wood…
Often raw wood is spongy enough to never pass through and blocks up the flow of material.
Dry torified wood may do something different, but I do not think it will pass well.
I also cringe when I see fingers so close to the munching end of any sort of processor.
I looked and thought long and hard about it.
Nothing seems to be a better at breaking up char like the Gilmore design.
Hi Don, how about some dimensions on the roll and cutters, rpms. thanks, Al
At first, I thought a jaw crusher would be simpler to prototype. But, now that I have gotten into it, I think it is going to be more complicated. Plus, we have 2 members who have rotary crushers that are real world proven, and appear to work well.
So, I have decided to go with a design more similar to Don and Gary’s.
I picked up a few parts this afternoon.
I couldn’t find a 3" piece of pipe, so I a going to try a 2". Hope that works.
But my daughter is really going to be upset if this doesn’t work, since we just took apart the scooter to get the motor. 
Al, that little motor is a gear motor with a 90 degree worm drive and 170 RPM and 1/20th HP. The rotor is a 3 inch pipe with 3 teeth welded on at one third revolution each.
Don
what size the crusher teeth?
3/8" (9.5mm) teeth go through 9/16"(14mm) slots.
Here is a photo I made over three years ago. It shows the one I welded up, but I’m pretty sure I copied Gary’s teeth spacing, etc.
Yup, that last pic is of Gary’s grinder. His motor is 1/6th HP I believe and 60 RPM which allows more teeth. I think the number of cuts per minute is about the same as mine.
Looks like you have moved on from the jaw crusher idea Kyle , but as promised here are a few pictures of the small jaw crusher we have laying in the yard , if time permits we will get a motor to it and try it out on some charcoal <img src="/uploads/default/original/2X/7/75ca6ae4e7a7cacbfcaec9cedaf44a9351308766.jpg" width=“281”
height=“500”>
