If I were to play around with plastics I would stick to HDPE, LDPE, and maybe Polypropylene. HDPE in the US is marked with a 2 inside a triangle, Polypropylene is marked with a 5 inside a triangle.
Soda bottles and milk jugs are usually made out of HDPE, same for soda bottle caps. A very re-usable plastic. Low melting point, can be done in a toaster oven. I’ve seen tons of videos of people remelting caps into billets of plastic.
I believe in the Auburn testing they used rolls of garbage bags which I think is usually LDPE. Could check out that data in the Have Wood Will Travel book or right here:
I wish I would of taken a screen shot of this hopper design, but I didn’t. In the hopper was a long heavy steel pipe hanging from a cross bar on a chain. The hopper lid was open and sum smoke was coming out as they filled it. It was not real clear to look at.
My guess is this heavy pipe would move when you would start moving or coming to a stop. No automatic transmission in those days lots of jerking when taking off from a start. The pipe would help keep the wood loose and falling down into the fire tube, preventing bridging of the wood.
I would like to try this on my present build.
Films and containers plastics are obvious.
These gloss sided courlorful printed packaging glossy’s on a wood-fiber paper base are sneaky.
Up until this year I had the Wife and family directing these to me and would burn them up as just more BTU’s fuel in the wood stove. The contaminated ashes from that then spread out on our previous old driveway.
Now I want the ashes out of the wood stove for Ph balancing in our new raised beds food growing bins. I do not want the toxic and cancers causing residues remaining from these plastics and printing dyes. Totally unregulated or sources labeled.
So I cheerfully fold them up, flattened; and put them into the to-be landfilled garbage.
I tell myself I am derived from petroleum’s and coals carbons millions of earth buried now sequestering them back to thousands of years re-buried.
To seek out others plastics problems would make me feel like a needing Urban refuse dependent cockroach, or silverfish bug.
I’d rather be a productive Bee.
Only using the natural brown corrugated boxed as broken down and hands torn pieces as fire starters accelerant fuels. Only active carbons re-cycling.
Keeps my want to go trigger-locked hands exercised and working.
Plus . . . I can gleefully fire destroy the Amazon labeling my wife keeps dragging into our house.
Steve Unruh
Yes thats the big downside. Me too, anything plastic is strictly forbiden in my stove. It burns chean an l dont worry about the chimney but the ash has to be kept pure.
I’ve been wondering, did people have instrumentation to tell when their hot hopper Imbert gasifier was running low? Would a thermometer work just like we do with a Monorator hopper?
Or did they just do periodic refilling every X amount of kilometers?
(I may have asked this question before but I can’t remember)
Hi Cody, mostly they ran on “time” there was also a well known sign of running low: suddenly high power, then you needed to stop immediately to refill, risk of burn out the hearth, or make tar after refill.
And: there was stuff on the market to help the driver, one was a tube screwed in the hopper, containing a bi-metal thermostat, which would light up a red warning light on the dash.
Another was a wood-block, covered in sheet-metal, hanging on a tiny chain from the filling lid, this block rested on the chunks, and low enough the chain stretched and activated a switch, =light on the dash.
I belive some of this systems are mentioned in the book “Gengas” if i remember correctly.
#1 polyethylene terephthalate which is found in water bottles doesn’t break down the same way or as easily as #2#4-6. Stay away from #3 pvc, and anything above #7. The reason why incineration and opening burning are more or less banned is due in part to burning of plastics like pvc that create dioxins and other really nasty chemicals.
If you have a diesel, you might try plastic to oil.
