Very nice build sir.
I really admire your patience with welding that thin stuff also
I left some picture out.
Here is the brake drum that makes up the lower firetube housing and no it does not come out the other side.
This is the top plate with the housing you can see are I had to cut it out so the pipe will fit this pipe will be supplying steam drip if I need the extra hydrogen for fuel or need to cool the reaction down when driving.
Looking down into the lower part with out the top plate and firetube installed.
Showing the tight fit of the top plate. Will not take much to get it sealed up.
Bob
Unless I haven’t been paying close enough attention, I think that’s the first time I’ve seen a water drip option on a WK, Bob. How will you control it? Really nice job.
Yes Tom, this might be the first time that it has been done. The water drip is being added on it because it will be able to run on straight lump charcoal for fuel or a mix of wood, and just raw wood. I am putting in more heat shielding protection with ceramic insulation similar to what is in the 92 dodge dakota truck WK Gasifier. It will be added to the heat shields and around the restriction zone.
How I will control the water drip by a electric solenoid valve on/off control and a needle valve to pre set the drip timing of drops down into the steam pipe. The water container will be on the outside of the hopper. Copper tubing fitting. Lots of work to do still just taking my time and thinking everything out as I go now.
Good exercising of the mind by building as you go, needing to think away ahead of thinks.
Bob
I put the upper and lower gasifier barrel together. It kept slipping out of alinement so I leveled it and taped it together I put 4 pop revits in with some 3M furnace fire block sealent. I have had this tube not open for years. I used the other tubes on my outer firetube housing back when I rebuilt the firetube on the 92 Dakota (from the book) after welding the housing back on that I took off the old firetube and placed it on the new one. I water tested it. And that old water tank that was used was weeping through in a lot of places. Weld up some of on them. I finally gave up. I coated this 3M sealant on and wraped it with the welding blanket and sealed it again. I thought, I hope it holds up. Well years later I can say it did very well. A hot leak there would not be good.
Started to carefully weld the 2 barrels together just a little at a time moving around on the barrel.
It is to cold to weld any more need to heat the barrels up again. Get the garage door closed.
Getting the skills back on welding this thin stuff. My welder setting was on 1 and wire speed was just a little over 2. Welding wire size .025. I will finish it up tomorrow.
Bobunfortunately
I finished up the welding on the lower barrel of putting the two pieces together.
I will show this first, just at the last when welding the the barrel up I thought wow I haven’t burned through yet. Oops and double oops. Well better then burning through 10 times. I welded the burn holes on both sides and ground them down a bit. This cold weather makes it hard in some ways to weld, heat the metal up and then welded a little and repeated over and over again. It is a lot easier welding in the winter time no sweat poring off the face and getting into the eyes. But in the summer time it is more easy to burn through the metals you are welding on because of the extra heated metals not cooling off.
Here some pictures of some nice welds. If I saw anything that looked it might be a pin hole I went over it. If a weld was to skiny of a bead I weld it again. Boy I am being picky.
I checked the inside metal for welding heat marks they looked good to me.
Well back to work on building a grate. The more I try to fix Jakob’s old grate the more it chacked, it is a no go on this grate rebuild. I might have to go the recycle metals yard and look around thicker stainless steel.
Bob
Bob when I am too old to weld, I will for sure send it your way! Nice job.
When I’m to old to weld or build this stuff just pull the sheet up over my head.
Back to the never throw anything away code.
The ammo box lids where no good the black seals would not hold water. So I bought new ammo boxes and change the lids out on my 92 Dakota when rebuilding it a few years back. Put the old lids on the new boxes and stored them away.
I need a ash/char clean out hatch on this build. I cleaned up the lid on the best one, put some red high temp silicone on top of the old black burn seal. A piece of food plastic sheet polyvinl film wrap over it and closed the hatch and lock it with the latch. A day later, carefully open the ammo box and took off the wrap. The wrap will not stick to the silicone. Let that smelly seal cure for a couple more days with the lid open. Ready to go air tight seal for the ash/char clean out hatch.
Bob
I’m surprised that old neoprene can withstand any sort of heat.
Might be a good idea to pull a good one out to copy or pre-treat with a coating all over.
The old ammo box seal was cooked from the heat. You alway want to have a pipe spacer in the box to keep the box from flexing when under a hard -30 vaccum pull. On the new lids I added a ceramic insulation wraped in a welding drop cloth and place on top of the pipe spacer and atteched it. No heat can make it down to the lid seals now.
Marcus uses a wood block spacer for this it works good too. Wayne talks about it when he shows a char/ash dumping video, and on his building videos of the WK Gasifiers. It only takes a small leak at the hatch door seal to cook the seal out with these ammo boxes.
Bob
Sounds good Bob, I have done it several times like that, but be careful with silicone down there. you have to protect it from the hot coals, or it will burn through. I didn’t a couple times. it cost me 3 engines before I figured out that was the problem.
Though I’m going with a side mounted cleanout I’m definitely going to make a big ceramic wool pillow to stuff the ammo box with. I don’t want a chance for anything to cook that silicone.
Yes I agree Jakob. Cooking and burning silicone and running it’s smoke into the engine is not good.
This is why I make sure it is heat shielded. I will probably cut the extra stuff off in the lid area. It is only needed in the seal joint.
Bob
Some years ago, when i worked on trucks, the manager of a trucking company, specialized on meat transportation asked me: There are some idiot’s that keeps stealing the diesel fuel from the cooling units on our parked trailers on our property, now we are going to set up a trap for them, we should park one of the trailer’s that is going to the junkyard, on the parking lot. What do you think is best put in the cooling unit’ tank? Water?
No, i replied, put two caulking gun cartridges of clear silicone in the tank.
I got a phone call one week later, it worked, the boss son’s cousin(!) had a diesel volvo, the engine seized so totally, only 10 miles from the trucking company.
When silicone reaches combustion chambers it becomes like cement.
Edit: i learned this trick from a suspicios wall-painter, i don’t know if it was his way to get revenge on customers refusing to pay?
I have never really done much work on the gasifiers under snow on the ground conditions. I have been working at Mission Ridge Resort. Now that I have retired from that kind of work this winter gasifier building is filling in on my down time that I have how. More snow coming in tonight and my scrap metal pile is already covered in snow. I think I know where the angle metal bed frames are lying out there. I did reorginized it last fall before the snow came covered it up. Will check it out and see if I put it where I think I put it. I might have to do some snow removal. Just need to get the leaf blower out and a broom and start digging. I will need to put my coat, hat and gloves on for this I think.
Bob
Well I found my parts right where I put them last fall. I cut out the bed rail parts at 5 3/4" for a 15" to point to point or 14" to flat to flat octagon.
The cross bracing channels will go across he octagon with the V facing up when done.
4 points for the chains to hold it under the bottom of the fire tube charcoal reserve. Because it is a 8" exit from the bottom I will hang it about 1 1/2" trying to not slip to much char but I want the ash to fall through easy. We will see how the Max Gasman grate works and holds up.
One thing about the bedrails I have noticed, with a metal chop saw it hard to cut and grind very hard steel.
The plasma cutter does alright by just going slower when cutting.
Bob
Here is how it turned out so far. Still need to put some rebar inforcing under the V channels.
The spacing is 5/16. This grate will be designed to rise or lower by the chains if needed. And will be able to remove it for modifcation if needed.
The spare parts I cut off the rails will be used as brackets to bolt the hopper, firetube spacer, and lower gasifier barrel together to seal it up.
Save your cut off pieces, you may need them.
Here is something that may help some of you that are building gasifiers.
I know it helped me, I went back and reviewed Wayne’s and other members builds quite often. They will find stuff out of their junk pile and modify it to make it work. I call it build as you go and make the junk part fit. Now for a first time builder. If you are good at modifing and fabrication with metals you can do it. But if you are starting out for the first time it is better to just follow some proven plans that work and learn the basics. And KISS Keep It Super Simple. You will have a 100% success if you do it this way. Do not be afraid of making mistakes you can fix them, I have done this many times over and over again. You might say I have a habbit of doing it. I Made a few building this grate can you tell? … It is not a prefect octagon in measurements. It is off by a 1/2" . Who cares it will work fine. Lol.
Bob
I hope these pictures will help others that will want to build this kind of grate. The heat will be at 1070 °f to 1630 °f there abouts when operating. I choose 3/8" rebar I had only one piece and I used it all up except
1 3/4" of it. I will have to save it for some thing else. Hopefully this grate will not warp or what we call potato chip. Tried to build it stout.
Top side and bottom side.
Bob
Looking good, I like it