16" gas heated water tank, using the top now as the bottom to give a tapered funnel for fuel.
Cut the bottom and now using it as the air jacket.
I’m only using angle irons to keep charcoal from spilling into the air jacket. Won’t get heat sinks or other baffling.
That looks great Cody 
nice to follow this 
Now to weld in these cracks that I could jump a dirt bike across 
looks like you cut your air dam flange with a grinder cut off wheel. i do a lot of cutting with the 14" cut off wheels in my slower chraftman gringer buffer so its close to the 4000 rpms most the cut off wheels are rated for-- though a had a few cut off wheels rated higher rpms-THough i dont like using my big fast grinder for cut off wheel cutting- I gernaded one into my shin- the other day- glad i had it low too the ground when it let go- that wheel i got at an auction was quite thin. I use my LOTOS -70 amp plasma cutter most of the time–Its been a good cutter bought it about -6 -years ago-i hardley use it over 50 amps-its been lasting good so far-think i paid 700.00$ for it back then,SURE nice to have when cutting circles.
Nope I cut it with a plasma cutter, I’m just bad at it. Even with a chalk line I can’t freehand it.
Got the extra hole covered up in the air jacket, welded in a merchant half coupling, got the hearth welded to the hopper and the bottom and most annoying weld done. Just leak tested and no bubbles.
All these are upside down obviously. Air enters at the very base of the hearth, goes up, then back down into the angle irons.
Next I need to weld the much better joint connecting the air jacket to the hopper, make the flange for the hopper and gas jacket, flange for the restriction+reduction, make a grate after seeing all that, trim down the hopper to fit in the 18" water tank/gas jacket.
If I had an 18" tank as tall as this unit the hot section would hold 33 gallons of wood alone. But I need to shorten this and the 18" tank to fit inside a 55 gallon drum, which might be extended, so realistically I’m probably looking at about 15 gallons of hot hopper volume just spitballing. It really is just meant to be an intermediate zone.
Are you building part of hopper heated like in BP plans-, and part hopper cooler.
Not like how Ben does it, but same theory behind it. Intermediate zone to make sure dry wood is making it’s way to the hearth. Only Ben P stuff I’m using is his hearth dimensions.
This is more like a WW2 system with a condensing top to remove water.
Do you mean like a monerator hopper; or is there some sort of monerator top plate steam remover. I must have missed it. Sorry.
Yeah a monorator to remove water
Im sure them monerators help- my last heated hopper gasifier-had no monerator,just a big heated hopper, or exoust jacket around the hopper,seem to work ok-I have it in my shed- Think i will add a monerator water extractor before i use on a home generator though- It did seem like it was a little steam avalanch with just a heated hopper and no monerator steam reducer.Then there is tar being removed as well with the steam- in the drains.
Using the success of Ben’s system as an example I think it’s worth a shot. That hot hopper will drive the steam up to the cold monorator and it’ll condense out. My hot hopper zone won’t be super big but I think it’ll be enough to give me flexibility with dampness in wood.
Gasifier is getting a heat exchanging air jacket wrapped all the way around the gas jacket as well, using a 55 gallon drum. I might blower run the gasifier without that to benchmark how hot the gas jacket gets and how hot my exit temps might be, and compare notes when I add the exchanging jacket. I’ll team up all my blowers to get a good pull on the system.
Think of Bob’s barrel in a barrel in a barrel gasifier or Kurt Johannsen’s triple walled gasifier.
I think with the hopper core being almost done I might actually have a need to use my chain hoist!
SOUNDS GREAT-are you leaving a way too rod out excess ass in those heat exchangers / hopper heating-areas.The only problem with BP monerator is its not as cool as THE WK- since it has a heating hopper right under it- I think a exturnal or a hopper smoke cooling rail a little distance frome the hopper, insulated from the hopper heat might condence out much more steam- if it dont tar up too much.?? SHOULD probley insulate the outside of the hopper heaters- to reduce the heat getting too the monerator - or the cooling tubes could just be 3 or 4" farther away from hopper heater, so there is air space after wraping hopper heater areas with temp rated insulate ,? IS WHAT I AM THINKING-Next one though.!
Yeah, the gas jacket will be attached to a drum lid so I can lift the whole gasifier out of the heat exchanger. It won’t get gas in it. Air is going around outside the bottom barrel.
I’ll draw something up so you can picture it.
Here’s how I have it thought up right now. The gap between the gas jacket and the outer jacket is probably going to be around 2 or 2.5" all around, so that should be a good snug passageway for air to surround the gas jacket. Air will enter at the top, so it is following from coolest to hottest gradually.
Going to put in a pipe running to the gas jacket so I’m making sure to draw heat from as much real estate as possible. The fresh air entering will be coming in at a tangent to induce some spin so it will go around the whole jacket.
Here’s an alternative idea utilizing a baffle to increase dwell time, but I personally think that’s in the realm of diminishing returns.
I’m going to use an ammo can for my ash clean out on the side, which will give me hopefully enough room to get my hand in there and clean the gas jacket with a wire or inspect with my borescope. I don’t know if the temps would be friendly to a flanged joint where the hopper meets the gas jacket, but I can always reverse engineer that later if I feel the need.
The grate will only be as wide as the air jacket, 16" at the biggest. I may go for a 12" diameter grate though.
I see it now- that should preheat the burn tube incoming air and it comes out for cleaning, Looking like good working unit. AS long as it dont loose the good hot coals, a smaller grate might work ok, You dont want all the good coals passing the grate too easy… Nice Job.
Kyle has said before, those old Imberts kinda had a Dropbox built into the gasifiers jacketing. The heavier stuff just doesn’t make it that high up unless you’re over pulling it.
I’m hoping the fresh air coming into the top will make sure my condensate gutter won’t boil back off from the heat. It’s also where the exiting gas will be the least hot. Kind of a gradual heating up of the air.
Allegedly one of Imberts last design was triple jacketed and he claimed it could tolerate 30% wood moisture. By what standard he meant 30% I have no clue. Probably still didn’t run great with wood that wet, but I bet it made the 12% wood run like a rocket. I know with the old WW2 Imberts with the hot hopper they typically had fuel drying stations like we have gas stations now so you didn’t have to worry about wet wood so much.
I’m real curious as to how cool the exiting gas will be with this setup. I will have to think it over but I might try to make the gas exit on a tangent, and start my fresh air wrapped around the gas exit pipe too. At that rate I might as well weld it all together instead of use up a drum with a lid.
Not that I have the experience but I was thinking earlier on the first version of my build to put a layer of insulation towards the hopper flange to keep it cooler, it just needs something to hold it up well and doesn’t need to be gastight
That seems like it might help seperate the heated hopper from the built in heat exchanger jackets, just have too raise his gutter up 2" and lay the insulate up in the funnel area. BUT then that might slow down the heating hopper effect from the burn tube built in heat exchanger channels. Thats why i am testing a hopper smoke cooling rack seperate from the hopper ,off too the side a couple feet away from heat from a heated hopper effect. i just have too see what type pump too use to draw the smoke through the hopper smoke cooling rack- seperate from the main cooling rack. ALL this hopper cooling- or monerator hopper is for burning a little bit damper wood- so id the wood is dryer like 15 to 20 % moisture, might get by with just a heated hopper, or like have-wood-will-travel-design—just a regular heat exchanger and a monerator hopper, seems to work just fine.
If you were to add a WK heat exchanger off to the side- you might not even need the monerator hopper’ i might try your ww3 preheater design and use the wk heat exchanger off to the side allso- would make more efficient too.
