Also since Marcus brought up a good point I’ll add some inspection ports. One obvious location could be right at the grate. Not sure where else I could place one.
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Cody, I’ve philosophized here about mixing steam / pyrolysis gases with fresh air,
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Currently welding up the hearth. I had to cut open the bottom to reach the bottom weld seam for the air ring. I have a spare propane tank bottom that I can weld in, may even lengthen it some and add more charbed, if but only a little bit. Letting the welder cool off some because the fan made a funny noise.
Also making the lid gasket like how @Bobmac makes his. Red RTV impregnated fiberglass rope. I laid down 3 layers of plastic wrap on the barrel lip so I don’t glue it together accidentally. I have that clamped down and will wait a day or two for that to cure. I only used one big tube of RTV so hopefully that was enough. I’ll edit in some photos but I need to charge my phone first.
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While I’m testing on the system I’m just going to use the whole 30 gallon drum for my hopper. When I decide it’s running decent I’ll cut it down and add a 55 gallon barrel width monorator extension and use the lid portion like how Wayne does his. I will most likely keep the filling lid as my puffer lid, copying Gary Gilmore’s coil spring loaded lid so I’ll also have a lever for better opening.
Considering how efficient the Mazda ran on charcoal I may only need 30 gallons of hopper space at any given time, I already got 2 miles per pound on charcoal and I don’t see wood being much less efficient than that. Less welds equal less leaks.
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Got the new welder in yesterday. Very nice from first looks. It’s a DC inverter welder and they included a stick welding stinger. Ground clamp is a good one with copper jaws and the braided copper band to connect the jaws. Very strong spring. Going to use up the included 1mm wire and then switch back over to my .035" wire I’m used to.
My only complaint is it can only use 1kg/2lb spools but the welder is very small so at least it’s handy sized. I may drill a hole and put in a spool holder for my regular 10lb spools and fasten it all to a welding cart for my big projects.
The welder is also dual voltage, will accept 110v or 220v AC mains.
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Also forgot to mention I’m going to do a leak down test of the hearth. Tape over all of the nozzles except one, spray some soapy water and blow air into the exposed nozzle. Cross my fingers and hope I don’t have holes.
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I have a Lincoln flux core welder that only takes 2 lb spools Cody. I just cut the center out of an used up 2 lb spools and stick it in the 10 pound spool. Runs with no issues. How about linking the welder you bought.
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It’s a Chinese welder but the space is too small for a 10lb to fit in. Basically a lunch pail. The spool spindle is horizontal. Luckily the friction wheel points directly to the back and the back is just a piece of sheet metal, so I could drill a hole and put in a grommet and just run the 10lb spool outside of the welder.
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I’m going to want to see that if you do it. Do a review on this machine after you have used it for a while please. Also how well it runs rods.
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I have their little bitty baby lunch pail stick machine and it works great once you hook it up to a 20amp 110v plug or any 220v plug. I’m not good with stick but I let my dad borrow it for some repairs and he loves it.
Ok so first impressions it already sounds like it should. Sounds like frying bacon. Beads look super good on my test runs with some thick stuff at full power. My transformer harbor freight 120amp sounded like angry bees in a coffee can when it welder so maybe that’s a AC/DC difference
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Tom here’s a good litmus test. I just did a funsies weld by butting a regular pipe to the side of another pipe, no coping. Seems like with this welder if I can jump a dirt bike across it I can weld it. You can variably adjust the wire speed and the power with two knobs. My HF I just had wire speed and Hi/Low
I’m pretty sure the 140amp rating is true. I set the machine to half on both knobs and instantly burned through 16ga sheet.
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Got the leaks tested and fixed in this hearth. I think next time I’ll go for an air jacket that is around the firetube than inside of it like this car rim.
Adding the air inlet for the jacket. Using 1" pipe I think it will be sufficient since the air isn’t being preheated. I can always expand it a bit more if I have to.
This new welder is awesome. It really makes a difference when it runs in the right current.
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Got the hearth done as far as I’m concerned. Going to leave the old propane tank ring to attach chains for the grate.
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When I attach the hopper to the hearth it will be relatively thin material, so I plan to bolster it with angle iron supports to distribute the weight a little better. I’ll do the same when I weld the hopper to the 55 gallon drum lid.
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Hey @don_mannes how do you set up those quick detach pipe unions? I’ve been thinking of utilizing that for my fresh air intake so I can disassemble it easier for maintenance. Tried looking through your posts but didn’t see any clear pictures showing how it worked.
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Weld the outer ring on the container with the threads facing out. Then insert the one end with the matching mating surface of the outer ring, and then the outer end screws in and tightens everything up. Make sure the hole thru the container is big enough before you weld in the outer ring. Otherwise you need to do a lot of filing. Don’t ask me how I know. 
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Since I’m at a good point to decide my final form factor I’m going to put in the effort to give me more hopper space than I originally planned. I’m going to make the bottom barrel shorter and use a Wilbur Smith style hopper. Should give me maybe 45 gallons of hopper space and all of it will be a cooling surface instead of only a portion like my original plan. Going to use the 30 gallon drum as my filter, I will use the top of my 20 gallon drum to give me a filler lid so I can weld the bottom of that to the 30 gallon to add more filtering space.
I can still utilize venturi ejection while also measuring hopper temps more like the WK guys do. If venturi ejection isn’t good enough I can replace it with tubes or just use the pipe out for a hopper juice tank.
I have a few propane tanks laying around so I’ll just make a drop box out of one of those. Weld in a 3" nipple on the bottom for removing soot and rinsing out.
I have an air compressor tank that @sbowman gave me when I visited him, perfect for my condensate tank.
Looks like I need to buy more stove rope and ultra red RTV.
Mom gave me her last gen GoPro camera for driving videos but I need to get a nice video camera for fabrication videos. I’d like to develop my YouTube channel a little bit more.
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Gas prices have increased rapidly this week. 3.50 in some places. I may remove the 3.5" restriction and put in a 4.5" or 5" one and drop this whole unit in my Sierra. Mazda will require much more TLC to be road-safe.
I have a big steel donut that would make a perfect drop-in restriction. I think it was an installation tool for trucks, not sure.
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Yup Washington State is moving in to the $4.00 plus and will be staying there.
DOW needs to be ready for the next big push of new members that will be wanting to build. The new E-book of instruction that is being implemented right now is just on time.
Bob
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