Hello, My name is Craig, This is my first gasifier build. Enjoy !
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Looks great!! congrats!! What are you doing to do with it? 
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Thanks ! next step will be a generator…or if I can find an old truck ! .
part 2 night time flare
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Congrats you are ahead of me on this one I have been too focused on other projects to start a build yet. So I don’t have alot of advice to offer.
In your videos you asked several times if it is burning clean. I think if you describe the filtering you are using and how they look after the run probably photos people love photos. I am sure there are people here who can give you some advice before you risk getting tar in a motor. There are some great guys here with tons of experience and the willingness to share it.
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Hi Craig!
I’m sure an engine will run just fine from that gas but I think the flame is more easily judged if no turbulent air is added into your burn chamber. Try flaring straight from a pipe. If tar is present it will show as a partially red flame. Blue, white, peach and even some orange are all ok.
What do you use for a filter apart from the bubbler? Are you running ships or chunks?
This was my first night time flare and that same gasifier has fed my Rabbit pickup for 4,000 miles now.
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I’m using wood chips also. One mistake I don’t show in the video is : I had my air inlet sealed when I started up the blower and was distracted with the camera… it burnt up my shop vac. Luckily had a second one laying around. ill try flaring strait out next time . Thanks !
Hi Craig, welcome to the site.
Your flare is pretty and blue. But like JO says, a pre-mixed air/fuel flare will generally burn blue no matter what, and can lie to you about the gas quality. You want a straight pipe coming off the end. Turn the blower down until the flame stays attached to the pipe. Most of us get a purple-orange color that’s hard to describe, but you know it when you see it. Eventually you won’t need to flare-stare at all… experience and good gasifier design will keep your engine tar-free.
Yes it’s easy to cook the vacuum cleaners. I would be extremely careful flaring from one, because if the flame backs up the pipe it will try to become a jet engine and go BOOM. Make sure the vacuum is sealed internally, any air mixing with the gas will dilute the flare and lead to the above boom.
That looks like a FEMA gasifier, correct? In general we don’t recommend them for running engines you care about, because it’s very easy to make tar. Great for playing with though, and you can certainly run an engine… just use a cheap mower or something to start off. You will probably mess it up.
Another long term observation… From your accent I’m guessing Canadian? Meaning cold winters. A wet filter/bubbler will only work during warm seasons. You’ll have to look at some different filters for cold weather running.
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I built the gasifier an inbert. Inside is 10 air nozzles., but have 5 plug’d off to run smaller engines. According to Ben’s gasifier bibble I should be able to run up to a 6 Litre engine. Will try flaring strait out thanks.
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Oh, good then. Imbert is better than FEMA.
What’s your restriction size, that will also vary for the engine you want to run.
Get your hopper lid to seal and you can just push air in through the gasifier intake. Will keep the vacuum clean and prevent explosions.
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That’s exactly what i was thinking a good sealing hopper with a condensate catch, then i can blow the air in… . im running with a 3" restriction plate for now, with a 6" pipe at 7" long for a char zone. till i test small generator.
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Looking good! Here is a photo of a bunch of wood gas trucks that attended Argos 2015 meeting. They are all flaring at once.
You may have to scroll to the right to see all of the trucks and flares. (There is a similar photo taken in 2016, too.)
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What a sight. Wish I could be there one day.
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Looks good Craig,keep up the good work and I hope you find a good generator and make some power.Woodgas is addicting.
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Impressive Craig!
It’s a good feeling making wood gas flare. It’s a great feeling getting an engine to run on wood only. An old riding lawnmower is also a good candidate,
I can’t wait for the next video.
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Hi Craig,
Looking good.
Besides the advices/observations given above already, 2 simple tests to conduct to test your gas quality
1: take a white cotton cloth, scan it on the computer, then hold it on the outlet of your flaring pipe for 60 seconds, scan again and see if you can trace any change in the color. ( yellow for tar’s, grey black for soot )
2: fill a large garbage bag with the gas and leave it over night (closed of course ) and smell/taste it next morning
Don’t store it near your gasifier, the first sniff from the day should be the bag, don’t snif the gas, let it escape free in the wind and then smell the bag…
after a 15 minutes run, does the gas still “smokes” or the gas is clean, no vissible fumes ? ( no flame ofcourse )
Anyhow, nice build, thumbs up
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Good advise. Inspecting the shop vac after it was clean even the dry filter. The bucket containing the wood chips had small trace amounts of tar near the inlet, other than that the systems clean… no smoke , no yellow,
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Here’s a look inside the Gasifier
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Hello Craig and welcome to the DOW.
Thanks very much for the video , I enjoyed watching 
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Special thank you to everyone watching the build and those who help educate me in how do so . Making some major upgrades and picked up a generator.
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