Been a few days since the test, the muffler sealant delaminated from the barrel so I’m just going to weld the flutes in place. The expanded sheet metal grate saw some discoloration. The flutes saw very little discoloration and no sign of damage. I’m taking the ceramic wool out and let the bottom layer of charcoal act like its own insulation.
Hey CodyT,
I’m probably too late with this but you could seal your barrel holes with woven fiberglass stove door rope. Working an edge of it tight, with a small screw drive all round the nozzle pipe to the barrel edge. Old-school, “packing-stuffing”.
The loose bulk of it held compressed in-place with a shaft bearing ring that can be gotten from a bearing house, Grainger’s, McMaster-Carr. These have either a square headed fixing screw or and Allen headed screw.
A piece of loose pipe one end angle beveled to the barrel wall slipped on pushing against a oval holed-plate or big washer.
Yeah. A bit to set up.
But then rotatable. Removable without weld grinding.
Regards
Steve Unruh
I do have some stove rope. I’ll see how much a 2-5/8" ring would cost me.
About 20 bucks per.
How many would I need? Just two for each pipe put on the outside of either end?
Yes you’d need four.
Cheaper would be to just do a squeezing plate over the stove rope with four bolts through the barrel wall.
M-a-y-b-e if you do not introduce air leaks at the bolts.
And at least you now shown us that that sealer is just not good enough.
S.U.
It works fine at my welds, but I think it delaminated because I didn’t remove enough paint from the barrel. Not enough bare metal to purchase against. Sealing the flutes was really messy and made me want to pull my hair out so I’m not willing to try that again.
Ive got another idea for a squeezing plate. What if I took some sheet metal, drilled it out to fit over the pipe and used hose clamps to set my tension?
I think I could do the bolt method though. I think if I smear some of the sealant on the threads of the bolts it will smoosh it around for a seal.
I also have some stove caulking but I’m not sure if it will handle those temps. The sides of the barrel dont get that hot but the flute gets really friggin hot.
Hi Cody,
I used the turbinator in my original design so I don’t have non-turbinator performance to compare. I was convinced that it was worthwhile to find a way to eliminate laminar flows which would introduce imperfectly mixed gas and air into my cylinders.
Ah okay. I was just wondering if you had done some sort of comparison while building it but you answered the question.
One of the upsides of having welded the angle iron inside the drum is I can swap out the grate in case it fails on me, and lets the grate rattle a little to break loose char dust.
Since I have a drum can opener I’ll probably make an 8" ID choke plate to go over the expanded metal grate to help promote gas flow to the center and give me an insulating wall of charcoal.
Bob was right about the ceramic wool, not that I doubted him. After just one short run the heat had made the wool extra delicate. I’ve already pulled it out.
I have used normal and high temp silicon on nozzle fixings on my gas tank gasifier as i did not trust my welding and all i can say is that its a bugger to get off 
just try some around your nozzle pipes next run and see is it will hold up , keep your temp gun on it and check the heat on the tube where it comes out of the barrel standard silicone held up for me ok at around 180 degs C so high temp stuff will work up to 360C i think
Good to keep in mind. I didnt check the temp of the flutes but they were hot enough that water would bead up and slide around. The Leidenfrost effect is what google tells me, I knew it had a term I just had to look it up. So apparently it was close to 379 deg F so almost 200°C
Just a quick cheap idea is all , as Steve mentioned squeeze some stove rope in and around and your idea of a washer type plate pressed against it held in place with a hose clamp should also work once you have compressed it hard against the side of the drum .
Dave
I vote for first trying it as it is on the truck, adjust if nessesery, then once you are sure its all good just weald shut.
Testing again today. This time after filling with charcoal I added 2 quarts of water to 30 gallons worth of charcoal above the nozzles. I’m getting a lot of condensation and I’m wondering if it’s due to the lack of a burn tube.
I’m using a 6 foot pipe from the exit port and then another foot long length after the blower. I can feel the moisture in the gas. Guess water added won’t work without a burn tube to concentrate gas flow.
Flutes are glowing orange in the center.
Kristijan said 15 to 20% by weight. Is that how you calculated the amount of water? 2 quarts sounds like a lot without taking the time to think more about it.
I had forgotten about that ratio. The unit got really hot so I’ve shut down for now. Until I’ve at least got a cyclone built for this.
Going to wait a few hours and see if I can safely open up the lid without it spontaneously combusting. All the orifices are stuffed again.
Thermometer maxed out on inside of nozzles even after 5 mins from shutdown. Over 500C
When I first fired my homestead simple fire using charcoal that had been stored for about six months I was getting water droplets coming out of the flare. Enough to actually look like rain drops hitting the floor. That was with no drip. Later I dried the charcoal and added the drip and it worked better as far as the color of the flare went.
My first test with dry charcoal ran great. I was just seeing if I could work with wettened char with no burn tube added inside. I think the burn tube might be necessary. Hopefully the refractory will protect the ceramic wool enough to hold up.
Outside of the nozzle as it protrudes from barrel is reading 190C. Barrel side is 80C parallel to flutes, it’s 110C perpendicular to it. lid got up to 80C as well but I added water to cool it off.
I need to find caps for these flute ends for shutting down. When I turn off the blower it lets out flames from each end.
