Yes Billy,
Some folks hunt for wood and some hunt for ways to get rid of it .
1 Like
Wayne and Billy,
I seem to be always hunting for wood. Yesterday I gathered a wheelbarrow full of deadwood (maybe I should call it âdriftwoodâ) from the overflow areas of my two farm ponds. Behind the wheelbarrow in the photo are the small branches from a tree my neighbor cut down.
After I make charcoal using Gilmoreâs two barrel method, I get a pile of charcoal like this.
Then, I use a large scoop shovel to load it onto a frame covered with 1/8" hardware cloth where I pick out any nails, stones, brands, or any little pieces that didnât get converted to good charcoal. (The good charcoal larger than 1/8" is stored for future use.) The next photo shows a wheelbarrow of these fines which then get mixed with my compost piles. I turn this compost with a front-end loader until it is âdoneâ, and then it goes into raised beds in my garden, or under freshly planted trees, etc.
I sometimes fill plastic jugs with these fines and give them to relatives who have rotating barrel type compost makers. Getting back to the greenhouse question, a charcoal making process could make engine grade charcoal as well as charcoal fines while heating âŠand this would be a good use of the waste heat. Dumping the heat into water mass storage running under the tables/benches would help maintain greenhouse temperatures.
I keep a written log of the number of times I have made charcoal in the 55 gallon barrels, and the next one will be #179.
4 Likes
I have been throwing around ideas for making charcoal. My 11 year old son Jakob pulled a little California tractor (thatâs what theyâve been calling itâI think it is some kind of Ford made back in the late 40âs or 50âs) out of the woods and put a Kohler engine on it and got it running. Heâd like to build a charcoal gasifier for it. I have made charcoal many different ways. Usually in the Amazon or the Andes mountains, and usually using labor intensive mud ovens which are fired and then left to cool on their own. Do any of you make charcoal and remove it from the oven hot? If so, do you quench it with water or do you have to? Ray I noticed your pictures of char piled on tin, do you let it cool before you dump it out? I realize a lot of you donât like the idea of charcoal because of wasted energy. I would agree if it werenât for the fact that we have so much wood just going to waste around here. We also train a lot of community leaders and development workersâit would be nice to show them the possibilities of using charcoal instead of petro. Also, again with the pressure treated question â Anyone have an opinion on turning treated wood to char first?
1 Like
I started out following Gary Gilmoreâs two barrel method where I did let it cool, after tamping a deep layer of clay around the inlet air holes at the bottom of the barrel, and then putting a piece of steel plate on the top, weighted down with a couple hundred pounds. The holes in my barrel, and my wood needs to run 2 hours or less to get good charcoal, so now I just quench it with about 25 gallons of rainwater after that time period. No more air leak problems. No more breathing fine dust. I have been sorting and screening it while it is damp, which solves the dust mask requirement. It put it in large bags, and label it with a date and type of wood, and it sits for a year or more until I grind it in the charcoal grinder. Usually on a windy day, with full dust protection. My large TLUD outdoor kitchen cooking stove fuel goes in small, and comes out even smaller, and makes my best charcoal, with no wasted heat energy.
Treated wood goes to a landfill because I am using the charcoal fines on my garden. Except for some dead animals and bones, nothing goes in my charcoal barrel except natural wood from dead trees, and sometimes paper balls and cardboard for ignition. No plastic.
2 Likes
Bill I have made my charcoal by piling a 6 ft x 6 ft x 6 ft pile of wood. Get it burning good. As it burns down I keep raking it up into the centerâ then as all the outside is burned down to where there is no flame, just hot coals, then I rake the center out to pull up any wood that is laying under the fire. Keep raking it until I donât get any more flare up. Then I put on a hooded sweat shirt, the hood protects my face, I put one welding gloves. I use a scoop shovel to shovel the red coals into a 55 gal drum and put the lid on tight. Next day the charcoal has cooledTomC
2 Likes
Hi Billy go into the charcoal section and look up my charcoal tractor page. That tractor is a Ferguson tea20. Ford and ferguson were partners so it is mechanically identical to a ford 8n or 9n. Same engine size similar footprint. I can tell you for a fact that Era of tractors will run great. The carb and air intake are large for the engine size so lots of gas flow. I usually use Gary gilmoreâs 2 barrel method and stop it hot with the lid. I punch my holes under the barrel and put it on bricks. When the batch is done I remove the bricks place the lid on it and Iâm done.
Best regards, David Baillie
1 Like
Hi Billy, Iâve done it both ways. Water cooling helps wash out some of the dust but then a drying step needs added. I think Iâll convert my pocket rocket kiln into to a continuous cone kiln.
1 Like
David Iâm not sure that is totally correct. If Iâm not mistaken Ford used his model A flathead style engines while Furguson used the more modern overhead valve engines. Take a look at yours next time you are out there and see if that is correct.
Don M
1 Like
Don, that goes above my skill level I will have to quiz my tractor expert friendâŠ
Funny how you can"know" something for sure and realize one day oops⊠I was wrong. Don it seems you are right fordâs have the flathead mine ohv. Displacement is very similar should work just as wellâŠ
1 Like
I think the Ferguson has a slightly higher compression ratio.
1 Like
Lotâs of good info here. Click on âGrĂ„lleManualâ after youâve entered this link.Wasnât allowed to upload pdf directly.
Just learned my 1947 has the american Continental engine.
1 Like
That is so cool⊠mine is a 1953 so it has the standard engine not the continental⊠I just aquired an actual ferguson 2 furrow plow just like on the cover⊠sorry no more hijacking your topic. My point wasnât that the ferguson was the best tractor ever ( which it was) it was that that Era of gasoline tractors would compliment a greenhouse char producer/heater very well.
Best regards, David Baillie
Hey guys Iâll chime in here a bit to âfact checkâ a common now Internet myth regurgitated up up about gasoline based IC piston engines: that they only are 22-23 % efficient.
Then you will hear that at best they are only 25-28% efficient.
Here is the real skinny on this.
Valve in block engines (flatheads) with their long torturous too heating up air/fuel in; long path coolant overheating exhaust gases out; and their huge offset off the piston crown heat robbing combustion chamber can only be made in the the 20âs %'s energy efficient. True.
Overhead valve engines with the shorter, straighter gasses in and out flow paths; and the wide range of heat conserving then directly over the piston crown combustion chamber shapes then can easily be made from the low 30% to the high 40% in efficiency ranges.
Over head cam actuation of the directly above the piston overhead valves can allow for bigger, even straighter, shorter even less heat transfer, in/out, gasses flows. This will not make for better effency directly. Usually done for more power by a higher rpm range than was possible with push-rod and rocker arm movement/mass change limitations. That last 15% Absolute Power forced, in a given swept displacement, is never fuel use efficient. Bell curve rules, always.
Now. Make those overhead valves individually active adjustable camshaft timing and lift actuated THEN these overhead valve piston IC engines can handily make 40âs % and even hit 50% efficiencyâs. Latest, Priusâs. Mazdaâs, Hondaâs, non- turbod Fords, and others. (Ha! Ha! Eat that Miracle Geek engines jabberer-do-nots!)
Now woodgas and charcoal fuel gas.
More important than the engines efficiency base on gasoline/propane is the real usability of the equipments package they are powering to you while they are being DIY fueled.
Flathead Ford 8N, 9N; enjoy what you will get.
Want/need more power on DYI fuel gasses? Then you really should be going from the get-go like JohanL, RonL., WayneK, DavidB. and now BillS have, with an overhead valve engined tractor.
Better than dinking around trying to improve a flathead tractor engine past the easy, use-as-is. . . I did local see a Ford 9N with a Ford V-8 adapted in. With the cut/ground adapter plate; flywheel adapt; starter adapt could have been done with a Chevy small-block, or Dodge.
We Are All On The Road To Better
Steve Unruh
5 Likes
this tractor doesnât have a stock engine. Jakob put some kind of Kohler engine on it. Not sure how many hp. probable about 17. itâs a small tracto, but Iâm sure it will work.
1 Like
Iâm looking for a time efficient way to make charcoal from bundles of board dgings from a cabinet shop. I can get and haul about 15,000 pounds at a time. bundles are usually about 12 ft long and under waste high. I was thinking about some kind of in-ground pit with a cover that could be moved/opened. AnywayâŠtill thinkingâŠbilly
2 Likes
Might check out the Jack Daniels charcoal making process. They stack the boards in criss-crossed layers and light them off. see photo.
I imagine it would take a large amount of water to prevent the charcoal from burning to ash.
1 Like
That Jack Daniels picture is about what I was describing. Those stickers will work great in a big pile like that. The pile burns down to 1/3 of the volume of the original pile and then as you âworkâ the pile and it gets down to just hot coals, it is a little smaller. That JD pile will work down to where you can put it into a 55 gal drum and slap a lid on it and in a day or so your ready to go. Work the pile with a rake until all the âsticksâ are broken down into chunks of char. If you are out in the clear where you can burn, cut the 12 ft bundles into and use 6x6x6 stacks.( that was the size that zoning allowed me to burn and donât worry about smoke if it is coming from a cabinet shop. It will burn hot and clear after the first few minutes.TomC
4 Likes
Hi guys, really interesting discussion.
With regards to the central topic, I agree that a gasifier is too much technology for greenhouse heat, really just a simple woodstove would be effective and the biggest bang for the buck labour-wise.
If looking to produce heat and charcoal, I think a Tarm type downdraft stove would be the most efficient, and with a shaker grate system and air tight oxygen deprived collector bin could be made to produce high grade charcoal instead of burning it up.
One crude but apparently effective approach to making bulk amounts of charcoal is the âMoxhamâ retort, just a section of pipeline pipe or tank on end, they have a document on the process. For sawmill scrap and other lumber, a rectangular enclosure would be preferable to round, but I think an enclosure promises higher yields than open burning. With vent tubes at the bottom that could be capped off, it could be run as a massive TLUD.
There are patents I would like to draw peopleâs attention to:
May 21 1963, A. R. Keil, #3,090,731
July14, 1964, D. F. Warner 3,140,987
October 16, 1984, Constantine, 4,476,789
Though technically complex, and batch systems, these might be more along the lines of efficient cogenerators of charcoal and heat. It seems that these systems are best run using 2 or 3 retorts to gain efficiency of process heat anyways, making them continuous.
Enjoying one of the warmest winters in history, (though itâs going down to minus 20C tonight),
Regards, Garry Tait, Manitoba
2 Likes