Well one of the problems with the tractor is: I need to process more charcoal!!!
Some pics of the grinder… Early days
Is that plywood used as spacers between the blades?
Hi Bill, yes there are 3 inch cutout pieces between each blade. The large square pieces are 2 of the sides of the box to be.
My mom came to visit and she is a real photographer. Here are a few quick shots; nothing new but the light was great…
4 Likes
Very nice pics!
The bottom looks like calendar material.
TerryL
1 Like
Terry’s right, definitely a great calendar picture. That needs to be submitted somewhere.
1 Like
I was thinking about you last night. Tore more boards off the old barn and had a big fire. I worked the pile down to where I had about 100 gal. of good glowing char that could have been shoveled into a couple barrels. I have 3 barrels already and no use for it YET. So they burned to ash by this am.
Hey David ,
I’m with the guys above . The picture needs to be hanging on the wall !
BBB
1 Like
Nice job on the tractor David. Did you run it enough to get some idea of the power difference between charcoal and gasoline?
Hi Don, I’m still waiting on a yoke adaptor and a hole in my schedule to try full load testing. Based on the road testing I expect some power loss but and acceptable amount not crippling.
Did a test run today with a friend’s bush hog cutting an overgrown pasture. All things considered it was a good test. The power is less then on gas for sure but it can still do the job easily. The cutters were dull, the grass was heavy and very dewey; about as heavy cutting as I’m likely to do. Consumption was about 7.5 gallons of softwood charcoal in a little over an hour for an equivalent of about a gallon of gas. On hardwood charcoal the run time would have been twice that. So far I have about 6 hours on the tractor in the current setup. Doing the gasoline test after this was filmed I managed to shear off my pto shaft end… but that is another story.
A short video here:
3 Likes
Thanks for the video David. Sounds good on charcoal.
I like it !! 
Good job on the fuel consumption numbers DavidB.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hey David, Steves U’s comment made me go back and look at your fuel consumption numbers again. That leads me to a couple of questions. How does 7.5 gallons of softwood charcoal compare weight wise to 7.5 gallons of hardwood charcoal? When we were at Argos in 2012, Gary Gilmore had a chart made up comparing charcoal to wood and gasoline with weights and volume. I remember we had a lively discussion about the energy value of wood vs. charcoal. I think I have a picture of that chart somewhere. On the wood chunk side of things, we say that 16 to 20 pounds of wood is equal to a gallon of gasoline. So what you are saying is that about 8 gallons of softwood charcoal is about equal to a gallon of gasoline and about 4 gallons of hardwood charcoal = a gallon of gasoline? For sure, charcoal has a lot of energy per pound; maybe not so much by volume. I did not go back and re-read all your posts so I don’t remember what method you use to make your charcoal, but are you recapturing some of the heat while making charcoal? Nice job on the tractor!
Hi Don, the whole conversion wood to charcoal gets confusing. On the yahoo group we had figured out approx 10-12 lbs of charcoal per gallon of gasoline. I used a us gallon equivalent of 3.7 litres to make it more fun. The general rule of thumb was that softwood charcoal (spruce pine fir) sized for my unit is 6-8 lbs for a 5 gallon bucket. My maple charcoal is about 12lbs per 5 gallon bucket, my oak about 13-14… Then of course I never have emptied the unit and refilled with perfectly weighted amount so there is some educated guesses going on. I am close though…The unit is simple and runs great; the fuel prep does not scale well unless you are prepared to throw away the heat…
1 Like
As the frost creeps in more and more , plowing gets harder. I managed to kill one of my long suffering rear tires thus ending the idea that charcoal gas lacks power!!! Wrap up for the experiment is 11 hours of heavy run time doing everything a tractor should be able to do running on softwood charcoal consumption anywhere from 5 to 10 gallons per hour depending on load. There has been no ash removal so I expect a nice slag cake in the bottom when I empty it. She’s back home now and I look forward to the next mods. The tank paint is showing some wear but that is as much a review of my bad prep work as the paint. Fun fun fun…
Spring has sprung, I traded a snowblower for a good back blade. Ran the tractor today on charcoal. Graded the new driveway to the garage. Working great, wish I had more time…
3 Likes
Finally got to a real computer for resizing. Not liking this new site issue but beggars and choosers and all that…
4 Likes
