OK thanks steve-unruh- what you think about small car 4 cyl water cooled-useing the radiator for heating a small cabin space for winter time a month or two of the winter times. Would that burn a little less fuel at lower rpms ; It would be more useful for heat while running–but would the book design builder bible make clean enough gas- and what size chucks work best with that design- THANKS for the clues- I know solor is a better for all time when sun shines though.
2 Likes
I think that is an interesting idea - I don’t know about the specifics though. But capturing waste heat and utilizing it is always good.
I knew an engineer back in the '80s whose master’s thesis was based on a diesel engine driving a heat pump to warm a house. His design utilized the waste heat and he got some really good efficiencies.
Then later, I think in the '90s there was a small company that built a diesel generator with waste heat capture to heat a house while also producing the electricity to run it. Great idea, however they installed these in a basement just like a furnace or boiler. One of their diesels suffered a mechanical failure that pumped diesel smoke throughout the house and caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage.
I have thought along the same lines of utilizing the waste heat of a gasifier/generator. It has to be close to the house to prevent heat loses in the water lines, but then somehow shielded to prevent the noise of the engine from entering the house. I suppose a heavily muffled exhaust and a very well insulated enclosure might do the trick, but there might be issues with ambient temperature around the engine. It would be a very interesting project though.
5 Likes
Kevin you have just asked me 5-6 questions that each would need a whole page itself to give you my opinions.
Fortunately these answers are already up in multiple places across the years here on the DOW. Or in Ben Petersons 341 pages; with 657 line-illustrations and pictures book.
O.K. Yes an automotive water cooled four cylinder engine could be used to pump water heating into a small cabin space in the winter.
However I can, have; and others have; heated a cabin in a good metal wood stove and chimney with a whole lot less wood use, and wood fussing, than engine grade gassing that same wood having to then small size down that wood for a gasifier.
To me the best use of the gasifiers rejected out heats; and the IC engine rejected out heats; is taking down winter picked up wet and green woods down to Ideal gasifier dried. And a less cylinders air cooled set-up will do this just fine with the simplest over-all system. It blows its own heated air for circulating wood drying. No water pump. No antifreeze. No internal cooling jackets corrosions.
Save your always limited quantity of summer (HA!) solar/air dried down wood for the best inside woodstoving experiences.
Yes the BenBook design can make clean enough woodgas. It is an evolved system to give just like the W.K. book design; once you faithfully build it; the best, easiest learn-to-use platform.
Just do be very bought into the concept that ANY woodgasifier can make tar if the operator/user cannot learn to operate it best practices. Each; and every time.
Any breads toaster can burn the bread.
Any frying pan can goober up the eggs.
Any coffee maker machine, or system can make undrinkable sludge.
Wood chunks sizing? It is in his book. Will vary a lot depending on whether a softwood, a hardwood; fresh cut live green wood; kiln dried shipping pallet wood . . .
AND the system engine demand loading.
On the “New gasifier project giving me troubles” topic is a new picture of the down insides made charcoal bed. Too big of evolved down charcoal chunk. Too much gapping. Allowing internally made gasses bypassing and incomplete converting from hot internal made CO2; to the desired CO fuel gas out.
The fellow either needs to pre-chunk size smaller; or, increase his draw heat making gasifier loading.
Look back up at the short DeanL. video.
One flow-thru bilge blower was not enough draw to get good gas. He then added another stronger pulling centripetal blower too.
Only after he had good spark ignitable gas did he engine run with it.
Joni on his four cylinder vehicles will not put the gas to the engine until he get his experiences learned gas-speed ignition “snap” he now knows that he needs.
A fellow can weld until kingdom come but without true learned operating experiences just keep adding more shit, expecting magic to happen if they serve the metals-gods well.
Or fellow can be like PeteS. who by learning just what it needed to make engine grade gasses was able to make an un-internally modified Chinese’s all-biomass gas making cooking system run his electrical generator.
Operator. Operator. Operator. Can make, or break any system.
S.U.
5 Likes
OK THANKS STEVE U–i got a lot of practice yet too get at too be learning wood types and sizing/ how dryness hands on- THATS the only way i can remember what i learned these days more than i want to admit. Well you know hopper coolers help rid moisture-and heat exchangers help rid extra heat from reaching the main cooling rails; while bringing heat back to the fire–helps be able to run slitely damper wood- or cleaner burn fighting less moisture burning less wood. Probbly dont gain much over 10 to 15 percent more ephicent with a muffler and the big main heat exchanger-maybe-?.
2 Likes
Here Kevin are my smallest wood stoves to show that small-makes-for-having-to-make-small wood:
Stove on the right has never been used by us - just stored. That is a 14" stick of wood on top. You could only feed 2x4, or 2x2 chunks through that upper slot door.
The stove on the left feeds down through the top so long as the splits are no longer than the 16-17 inches shown; and no thicker than ~4 inches. It can feed through the two front hinged doors quite large wood splits.
Niether would be stoves I would buy to use for a cabin space.
That’d be a a cast iron, deep rectangular box stove feeding wood through a smaller end door. Burning those 18-20 inch long split sticks from one end to the other.
Woodgasifier the same thing. Far easier to take a bigger, able to use bigger wood chunks and force fire it up hot; then run smaller engine on it.
Like many of the W.K. vehicle guys do.
Oh! Moving; I am finding tools I knew I had got lost spread out and stashed away in the many old small buildings at the old place. Then over-stacked, lost:
I am very left handed. My magnesium 7 1/4" left-handed Porter Cable skillsaw. Rare; and expensive.
My better-than-by-hand 1/2" drive Chinese electric impact wench.
Ha! And my UPS shipping busted ESAB TIG welder set out as break-in first-seen sucker bait. Heavy. Huff and puff steal that just to find it will never ever be able to be repaired.
S.U.
7 Likes
I got an old chraftsman electric impact, i hardly use either-since i picked up a milwalki 18 volt battery inpact-it does serprizingly well. Neat looking old classic wood stoves-better keep for back up heating-- i see some older units at the auction quit often-though not as classic as that old stove heater.
6 Likes
What a shame that what ever Chinese consortium bought up Porter Cable pretty much killed the brand. Those Circular saws were my favorites and also I got way better service out of my PC recip saws than I did the Milwaukee’s I have owned. My father was a carpenter and always used Porter Cable tools. Remember when all power tools had metal cases?
9 Likes
And grease cups to keep the bearings lubed!
11 Likes
Aah, Porter Cable did some attempts with chainsaws in -50-60s, left handed, was that a speciality of theirs?
Finding one of these chainsaws in Sweden would be like the holy grail for a chainsaw collector… 
11 Likes
Hi GorenK.
Left handed 7 1/4" blade big heavy worm drive framers skill saws are common to find. Two handed saws.
Then there are small blade 4 1/2"?? 5 1/2"?? left hand interior trim saws. They cannot cut framing woods thicknesses. Do not have the duty cycles to length rip sheeting panels.
Left hand bars installed chain saws?? I never seen, or heard of one. I make-do left eye looking over the top. Use a face shield screen. Try to stay aways aware I am danger positioned. The bigger problem I’ve had is weak-right arm tiring I will easy shift hands. That put the lower bar across both upper legs. After too many pants snagged and close calls, I had taken to wearing cutter chaps. They take the oopsies.
Reminds me; time for a new replacement pair. Just another cost of DOing, to get things done.
S.U.
6 Likes
Hi SteveU, yes there was some chainsaws with the bar on the “wrong” side, most of them appeared in the US, the first ones probably because no one decided which side was best? Many put the bar in the middle also.
Looking closer one can see the Porter Cable text, proving this is no mirror image.
Porter Cable was one of the last companies building left hand bar chainsaws i believe, thats why im asking if they build special tools for lefties? Nothing like this in Europe, only scissors are to be found for left-handed people.
As being left-handed myself i’ve adapted to most tools using right hand, only when it comes to hand-sawing, or shooting it’s impossible for me to use the right hand.
People actually had asked me: poor you, it must be hard driving a car, shifting and stuff?, oh, ofcourse, you could use auto transmission?
Idiot’s! I use to ask them if Great Britain is populated by only left-handed people?
11 Likes
Ah-ha! And we do not tell them the many secret advantages of Lefties in this modern world.
One is that I’ve found to use to my advantage is always having to think-through my right hand actions I seldom quick-reactive reach-in and fu*k things up. Takes longer to have to re-do an impulsive mistake than to more slowly not make the mistake in the first place.
And it is so fun handing a smart-assed right-hander your LH bolt action Sako/Remington rifle and say “easy switch-siding, eh”. You are slow on follow up shots aren’t you?
Here there once was fellow operated a selling site he named, “Left Handers Heaven”. He’d gleem the world for us.
At times Stihl and Corona have made left-handed bypass blade hand pruner tools.
Fun to leave mine laying there for the wife to pick up, and struggle with not getting clean cuts.
Challenged, by the 93% majority set up world: roll with it, and have a bit of fun. Laughter is good medicine.
S.U.
9 Likes
Here is the odd thing. I am just about non-functional with my left hand but have no problem using it for the complicated fingering of a guitar neck. I turned my strings upside down to see if I could play right hand fretting and left hand picking and it was useless. I think Matt R said he is practicing ambidextrous.
7 Likes
There is no point to this post. 
I have been watching droughtmonitor.unl.edu for almost 2 decades because of the drought conditions in california. And while they are really clear of drought this year, washington and oregon are getting hit.
And I was trying to figure out how much rainfall was average so I picked los angelos, and the USC downtown campus data popped up… and they measure from july-june for the yearly, and last year they had the 8th highest total on record dating back to 1877-78 with 28.4". Six of the top 10 driest years have been since 2000.
Their avg over the last 10 year period (calculated in 2021) is 14.25", the total avg is 14.75 their median is 12.66". If you look at the 30 year avgs.
years ago/inches
1-30 13.75
31-60 15.76
61-90 14.36
91-120 14.33
Over the last 30 years they are getting less rain, but over the last 60 years they are getting more rain, then the previous 60 years on average.
3 Likes
I am not left-handed, or I just adopted to being right handed early. But I am left eye dominant. I always just close my left eye when shooting. I shot archery as a kid and was -terrible- at it, and put down the bow. I picked up the bow about 2 years ago at this place with the kids, that let you try it. I missed down and to the left the first three shots. I asked if I could switch to the left-handed bow, as they actually had one. I hit the bullseye the next 3 shots. I am like dang this is -easy-. I am debating on whether I should get a left-handed gun.
7 Likes
Lots of rain here now. Flash flooding if it continues. But the good thing is the land soaks most of it up. We really have more sand, gravels and less clay to deal with in our soil. We are Living on many layers of volcanic basalts flows in the Columbia basin.
4 Likes
The problem around here is the soil needs to have some moisture in it to soak it up or else it rolls off and doesn’t soak in. I didn’t mow the lawn because we were supposed to get 3 days of rain, and I wanted it to soak in. plus I didn’t want all the nitrogen from the clipping washing into the pond causing an algae bloom.
5 Likes
Depending on the gun, you can switch the magazine release to the other side. I know the newer Glock pistols are capable of that.
A rifle, that’s a whole other can of worms and aftermarket gadgetry.
6 Likes
Hahaha ah yes right in my child hood! 
Dad is a lefty only one of 9 kids. He has to sit at the head of the table so no elbow fights ensue
He taught us all to shoot a bow young, left handed. Low left for me every time, 3 years in he discovered he had taught us all 3 boys to shoot left handed with his recurve. Oldest brother John couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from the inside. Me the youngest low left. Chris the middle brother became ambidextrous and could shoot lefty. Once Jon and I switched hands we both became good
Dad grew up with a right hand guitar strung upside down like Jimi Hendrix. His 50th birthday us boys bought him a left handed fender acoustic, he can’t play it! Trained himself away from it from a young age
Grandpa was right handed, only owned bolt action rifles and break action shotguns. Dad grew up shooting them with his left eye and gravitated to the scatter gun a better shot with it then a right handed rifle looking over the stock
He bought his own rifle at 16, a savage model 99 chamber in 300 savage. Lever action! Ambi friendly he still hunts with it today some 50 years later. All 3 of his sons took our first deer with it a family tradition
Still a die hard scatter gun guy, he hunts feathers with his Winchester model 37 16ga break barrel he bought at coast to coast hardware store at 15 years old. Never seen him miss. Limit of geese (5) in one flock single loading, me beside him trigger happy mossberg 500 12ga pump got 3 shots off hit 1 goose.
Side note the hard butt plate on that 16 of his earned the nickname from us 3 boys “the mule” kicks just like one
At 14 I had a out of state hunt for mule deer borrowed rifle from a friend 7mm lefty. Never even shot as I couldn’t get a sight picture. I understood my dad’s frustration
Now on the big boat dad has a lefty levelwind downrigger rod on his side of the boat, a righty on the other side for boat hands. I bring my own and man the 2 right handed poles, if I try to set up his my left hand is to stupid and pull the line out of the down rigger clip, no sense of ease with my left it’s full bore stupid all the time. I have often said you could cut my left hand off and beat me with it for how useful it is to me. Dad always pipes back “I’ll take another lefty, you can have my right!”
Ha! Now I get his struggle. My oldest boy is left handed like grandpa. Dummy me bought him a right handed 22 bolt action first. And a right handed bow.
12 Likes
A lot of crossbows are ambi. But I don’t know if washington allows them muchless during say bow season.
2 Likes