Life goes on (original thread)

Great pics David. Great times, it looks like too.

Hello Wayne and everyone,
Thanks for the kind words on the storm.Where i live in Ct. we got off easy with a bunch of wind but not much rain.I was fortunate not to lose power. Wayne, It really sickens me that those crews were turned away because they were non union. I bet the people freezing without power wouldn’t care if they were union or not. Hope all is well with you and your family. Mike Briere

Hello Mr. Mike,

Real glad to hear you are safe. You and the Mrs. have been on our mind.

Wood chips for everybody!!! (But The Orientals). A funny thing has happened to me, on the way to my grave. I didn’t get there. And, my limited understanding of case law, tells me, that I’m likely the new owner of Roseburg Forest Products, and Allyn Ford’s thousand square miles of trees (I may have to get down you guy’s way, and cruise my forests in Georgia). Lord only knows what I’m gonna’ find in this pile. If they don’t kill me first. And, I’m on Craigslist, all over Oregon, begging them to finish the job, because they are dead men walking. (Except for the two ladies on The Board) . On The Board of Allyn Ford’s 500 million buck “Non-Profit” Ford Family Foundation. These merry pranksters, took a quarter of a million dollars, left in their grasping hands, by the tax man, on the promise that they would do “Good” with it, and blew it on a failed hit, on a nuisance, who was calling them thieves. And, The Masons, and The Klan Cops, in Coos Bay, Oregon , who they enlisted to kill me, have left their tracks in stone. This ends an assault on me, that has continued for sixtyfive years. It ends with my tormentors heading for cells. Enjoying as much sympathy as The Manson Family. What do you suppose will be left of their billions, when I am through with them? I can only spare so many chips. Because The Sierra Club will be first in line, if they can behave.

November 6, 2012

This morning I took the opportunity to exercise a freedom that millions in the world have never enjoy and most can not even comprehend.

                                         THE FREEDOM FROM OIL

And while we were out driving and enjoying the above freedom we voted. It was the biggest crowd I can remember.

Hey Chris Saenz, - What else is going on? Are you still driving on wood? We don’t hear much about your truck lately.
Don M

Hi Don,

I’ve had to take the woodgas truck out of service temporarily, minor problem similar problem to Wayne’s V10; a crack developed in the firetube housing (I think) and was causing excessive heat and no power. Some white ash in the charcoal. Until I get time to fix it I’m lighting it every week to keep things from rusting. It still runs OK, even on wood, but I don’t want to make the problem worse. Truck itself needs a new timing chain and water pump, and general tune-up.

What else is going on? Doing a timing belt and water pump on a Honda Accord wagon today. Bought the car to replace our faithful Honda Odyssey with 325K miles on it. As with any used car it had some issues - mainly a broken odometer, so we have no idea what the true mileage is. Somewhere past 150K. So doing the timing belt just in case.

Gas hits an all time high in Florida!!!
This is less than 2 hours from my door…

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-gas-station-high-price-20121112,0,4658810.story

Coal gasification is alive and well in the USA, maybe?

http://www.transgasdevelopment.com/

Small non-political footnote: I found this buried in the Gen. Petraeus headline.

Rocket stove heater for my small steel insulated panel shed. got a couple hours into it… hope to have it done by Saturday night so I can trial fire it with my son…

Terry L dropped in… got to drive a wood gas truck… made some chilli on a sawdust rocket stove

Fun! I love chili.

Love the Rocket stove concept but hanen’t made one yet. Is the L tube your fire tube and riser or the firetube and wood feed? Looks good

Arvid Olson made Chili using a Rocket Stove. Here is a photo of a TLUD running on Mesquite bark and slivers making home-made spaghetti sauce while making charcoal at the same time. The burn pot is a large steel coffee can with a stove pipe insert. The outer shell was a party balloon Helium tank. Chimney with restriction is a grapefruit juice can wrapped with ceramic fiber insulation which was then wrapped with ordinary kitchen aluminum foil. (Stove roughly copied from Anderson Champion TLUD.) Works great! We use it every day.

Hi Arvid,
Please keep us informed with your rocket heater progress. That looks interesting. Is that 4 inch square tubing and the top of a propane tank? Do you insulate the riser stack? Chimney down low to outdoors?
Don M

part of a 100 lb propane bottle, 4" square tube and flat plate.

the L tube is the feed and riser and will be a J tube once it’s totally finished.

The L tube is insulated with ceramic wool insulation on all sides.

I will be adding a vertical feed tube that will have a door on the bottom for starting and cleaning… just wanted to fire it up as is and see what it does…

rocket stove sitting outside with a 60" long chimney pipe

I love my rocket stove.

vertical feed port added

burning it again today…i was having trouble making it work because i kept lighting too close to the feed tube. figured it out… gotta get the stove chimney inside really hot before starting to let the fire move forward to the vertical feed tube. we live we learn.

I read somewhere that a crumpled newspaper loosely poked in as far as possible and lit on fire should create the draft needed to start up.
Don M