Parts for the grinder arrived in the mail. I still have to find a suitable bushing to fit the flywheel, and a motor pulley. The bushings pictured will be used to secure the rotary grinder bit to the keyshaft.
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My gasification dreams were shelved last winter due to an announced layoff and some other speedbumps life put in my path. My situation has since normalized and I’m getting to my backlog of personal projects. Last time I gave this any great amount of thought I was gathering parts to make an imitation of Gary’s charcoal grinder, but was having trouble hunting down a motor with low enough RPMs. I did try my hand at preparing charcoal by hand for a few weeks, but the tedium of that (in addition to the mess and the wear and tear on my respirator) contributed to my putting things on hold. Luckily, the chief engineer at my new plant thinks this is a neat project and told me to grab parts off the shelf as I need them, and said he’d hunt down a spare motor from another facility for me.
I was also having some issues with my retort last time I tried doing a burn, so I have to figure out what I’m doing wrong there. I suspect it was a case of not doing my due diligence getting the fire started well enough topside before putting on the cover and flue. The fact that I only seem to make time for charcoal in the cold weather months probably isn’t doing me any favors, either.
In any case, I hope to have some further progress to share with you all soon and hope you lot have been well.
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Are you using a TLUD design?
For my TLUD uses I dont use a lid but instead I use an open ended barrel as my afterburner.
You can also make decent charcoal using the Flame Cap method.
Have a barrel with no holes and can take a lid and start a small fire in the bottom. Progressively feed the fire. The flames keep oxygen from turning the coals to ash. Once you get it full just cap it and lay some rocks or bricks to weigh it down. Doesn’t need to be totally airtight since it has to offgas and cool off then you can transfer to an airtight barrel and ensure all coals are snuffed.
Tilting the barrel at a 45 degree angle can help keep smoke down and let longer pieces slowly feed the flames.
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I’m using the retort show in this video. I’ve managed to get two successful burns out of it, but every other time it puts itself out about 2/3 of the way through.
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You could get some more efficiency out of it by wrapping the outside barrel in insulation and then wrap some tin or whatever sheet metal around that. Rockwool or ceramic wool would work. Could make a donut sheet of it for the top as well with a hole for the flue. Just leaving gaps for the burn barrels air holes.
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I’ve considered that, but the ceramic insulation is more expense than I want to eat on this retort. Being as they aren’t stainless, both retort barrels are more or less consumable items in the short-term, so going through the trouble of insulating everything properly and making it pretty doesn’t make sense to me. I think my colliery technique is just poor from lack of experience, as I definitely got two productive burns in the dead of a Great Lakes’ winter last year; these guys around here just make it look too easy.
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For me too, as soon as there is a barrel in barrel, succes is not guaranteed. I really like the idea of lighting and walk away. I dont know what is going on in my case, to much moisture, lack of air or lack of insulation or the feedstock varies to much.
TLUD is more consistent in my limited experience.
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I think it’s a matter of too much moisture. Or rather, of me not managing the first phase of the burn well enough. Both of my successful burns were the product of failed batches I decided to run again. So if I had to guess I didn’t do a good enough job purging steam before walking away. It might help if I trim down my feedstock and do a better job of sustaining high temps early in the cycle.
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I bought a moisture meter last week to be sure (gave the last one away with sold pelleting machinery and thought I didnt need it anymore).
And I tried a blower on the TLUD, awesome result!
Keep on working on your checklist and it will be ok.
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Very nice video presentation MarchallM.
The presenter speaks well, and very relevant.
But back to that real estate mantra, “Location. Location. Location.”
Here in Washington State ALL outside burning in barrels has been made illegal.
So anyone seeing; objecting; has a toll-free phone number they can call and get a response from.
Now oddly outside of the declared Fire Season; and not on a declared Clean Air Action day; with a registered permit, we can open air burn,
“site sourced open burn naturally vegetated materials”.
So not-in-a-barrel, I need to turn one of the old farm fuel tanks into a Kristijan Kurst system.
ant then get something for my efforts.
I am puzzling over your need for a special slow speed engine ???
Why is that?
S.U.
S.U.
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Oh, wow, that sounds frustrating. For all of the issues with wildfires out west I can understand the concern what with embers during the dry season, but isn’t the PNW a temperate rainforest the other half of the year? Does it count as an open barrel burn if you’re using a screened cap at the top of your draft system?
For all of the ridiculous laws we have in NYS, they’re fairly lenient with regard to open burns outside of the cities. Occasionally they’ll issue a temporary ban during particularly dry summers, but we’ve never been hassled by our local fire chief over disposing yard waste so long as we keep it a manageable size. Admittedly, I get a bit nervous when firing up the retort as it makes a lot of smoke before you add the flue, but again no-one has said anything. It helps to be in a small town where everyone knows one-another, and disdain for Albany being a whole aspect of Upstate culture. Haha.
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Hmm lm begining to question this thing called “freedom” that you guys like to be so proud of 
Joke aside, its the same everywhere. They hold us by the the balls everywhere. You guys got it (somewhat) better with guns, we at burning things in barrels, you at building permits, we at education… Under the line there is not much difference
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Now my turn to haha.
I think the confusion viewing the USofA from the outside is out own confusion between Freedom, and Independence.
Functionally the Urban folks want freedom from a neighbor stinking, smoking them out. Running noisy backyard engines. Hearing barking dogs. Certainly freedom from bullets being slung around.
But rules, laws can become a slippery slope down into quicksand . . . .
Then the neighbors will want to regulate your activities from anything they perceive will hurt their property resale values. Urbans here are the-move-around-a-lot, folks.
Now true the Rural living, value most, the independence to decide for themselves and their families; their range of activates. Mostly this is good, and tolerable.
True Rural’s stay in the same place for decades. Actually hate having their property values getting jumped up. Then their resulting taxes burdens increased for social 
needs: versus the basics of local roads, schools, minimal police protection. “Less Is More” 
Marchall what is your perceived need for a slow speed engine, again, please?
Regards
Steve Unruh
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That’s well-said, Steve. The rural/urban divide is a very real thing, both in the US and elsewhere. Here in NY we have Albany constructing laws to serve downstate interests which impact the entire state, and many lifelong residents of large urban centers are ignorant to the practical realities of everyday rural life. Then you have people moving out to the country to build their “dream homes” who start pushing for new regulations so their new environs are similar to the ones they left. Luckily my town dug in their heels over that sort of thing years ago, enacted right-to-farm legislation, and that kind of set the tone going forward.
The low RPM motor was for powering the charcoal grinder. All I was able to scrounge up last winter were fan motors running way too fast for the application.
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As far as motors go you could underdrive with a smaller pulley on the motor going to a much larger pulley on the grinder, maybe even go so far as to make a Double Gear Reduction(small to large on a jackshaft spinning another small to the final large) and use a PWM on the motor itself to slow it down depending on the type of motor.
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Ahhh. Electric work motor.
Old cast off treadmills are a source Marchall.
Just got another one somewhere is this clutter of left-behinds (my request) that my darling wife bought for me in this old shop-barn.
Only things of mine so far in there is the ladder, the wheelbarrow, and my guidance coffee cup.
“One small load out at a time. And someday this space will be mine” I keep telling myself.
S.U.
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That was my original intent; run the motor to as small a pully I could fit on a 5/8" shaft, and step that up to a 10" flywheel. I brought all of the bits and bobs into work with me today so I could ask the boss-man to scour the catalogues for a bushing that’d bolt into the flywheel neatly, which is when he offered me a motor from our stock.
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The same people run your country that run ours. Politicians are just puppets dangling from strings. The programming has been so intense for so long that they tell we are free and we believe them even while we are being herded into corrals.
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Who are “They” meaning those who do not like freedom and have been taking a little bit at a time from us for the passed hundred years, and now bigger pieces of our freedom now that they have the control of people in our governments. Yes it is happening all over the earth now.
Stand against it and pray that they are not successful in their plans. And that their plans will fall upon them and crush them. That is my daily prayers to Almighty God YEHOVAH and by His Word Yeshua for His Name sake.
Bob
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My contribution.
An American girl’s impression. I’m pretty rural and she’s obviously urban, but anyways…skip to 14:17
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