Thank you alot! That will be helpful
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I ran it again just a moment ago, still on the same old wood as yesterday. Only it had becabe black and almost looked like charcoal 
However, last night it was dark when i tried it, and so when i looked at the flame today i could see that it did not even burn as good as i thought last night. I assume that the flame looked a lot better at night. As soon as the store opens i will go pick up some charcoal. And also i will try to weld all the air leaks when the temperature rises above freezing.
Meanwhile i thought i’d share a video from youtube:
This is the type of design that i have used inside the main reactor. And i re-watched the video today and noticed that he is able to get a sustaining flame and all while burning conventional wood? So what should i change on my version in the future to get it operating close to the one in the video?
Here is an image of my internal grate
And this is the gas/smoke i was able to produce
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Just don’t get charcoal briquettes. You want Lump Charcoal. You’ll save a lot of money making your own.
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Welcome to the DOW Daniel.
When you store buy your initial WOOD charcoal you want real wood lump charcoal. Here it is sold as “Cowboy” charcoal. You will still have to hatchet chop that down to sieved smallish charcoal bits. Others will say what size.
DO NOT GET formed charcoal briquettes. They gasify very gas dirty from added combustibles like fossil coal powder. And will quickly clog your system from added clay binders. Open brazier use both of these and see this.
That video was a special no-weld project by the builder. He is very aware and knows how to build and operated true raw wood down draft systems.
He, as you should, would of had to pre-charge his system with real wood charcoal bits. Get that fired up good and hot Charcoal gas making first. THEN he could have added his raw wood chips. It would have worked some then too. Not long until the real charcoal got used up. Then the wood not hot enough at the edges away from the gas outlet failed to completely convert all of their heat released volatiles, leaving the cells walls char to continue to heat drive the system.
Those developing hybrid mixed system are all using some form of downdraft/downward material flowing systems. Read here KristijanL., Don Mannes, Matt Ryder, Dave of Dave&Brian.
As others are saying just use this cross-draft as a pre-made charcoal gasifer and you will do fine.
You still need to declare an intentioned engine powering use to get more refined advices.
Flaring is flaring. Stunting, entertaining. Proves little, to nothing. A distraction.
It is not system proof working. We are all engine working guys here. Engines powering is the standard proofs.
Regards
Steve unruh
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back at it again I sealed all the leaks i could find, filled it with charcoal and that made all the difference! I only have to flick my lighter once, and the flame lights up and burns nicely all by itself! I’m super pleased. I ran it for about an hour and refilled with my crappy pine wood as a test, and it still continued producing a really good flame. Tomorrow i’m probably going to try to make some charcoal for it. Based on my own poorly executed experiments i am albe to run on about 70% pine wood. As long as i keep some real charcoal at the bottom.
I have a lot of random engines laying around my yard, but i will probably use an old lawnmower for
experimenting tomorrow. I’ll run it for a good while and then remove the head to see if i have a cean enough gas to use on more valuable engines. My goal with this project is mainly just learning and experimenting. But it definitly would not be wrong to be able to run my generator on woodgas.
So, if i understand you all correctly the cross draft gasifier is a bad choise for me, if my ultimate goal is to be able to run my generator on pinewood. I have access to basically an unlimited amount of free pine, so i would really prefer that fuel source if only possible. I would be looking at an updraft or downdraft gasifier then?
Thanks for all the valuable answers guys!
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all right, i will definitly take a look. I suspect i will be building down draft version very soon 
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sice i live in Finland i really don’t know what those different variants are called in finnish, but i suspect you mean i should get the bigger ones?
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Here is a Briquette, usually made from coal, charcoal, and sawdust and other materials.
For your gasifier you’ll find it will run better with smaller pieces. Also I wouldn’t blend more than 10% raw wood in the mix but that’s me personally.
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Ok, that makes sense now
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Yeah, I don’t know how common briquettes are in Europe let alone a country like Finland but in the United States most people mean briquettes when they say charcoal. Most don’t even know about standard lump charcoal.
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You can use a rheostat also called a dimmer switch to control your blower speed.
Rindert
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Daniel , great news you are now producing a good amount of gas , i suggest you play and play with that old mower of yours the time will not be wasted and you will learn so much from that first build of yours , if you see tar leaking or dripping from anywhere then , before stopping the mower engine maybe run some petrol through the engine for 5 mins or so and that should help burn off any tars around the valves also spray the carb butterfly’s with some type of lubricant while its running on the petrol . Dave
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If using pine wood is your goal, then you’ll want a downdraft gasifier. Making charcoal from pine is pointless, in my experience. I’ve only gotten very light, styrofoam like charcoal from softwoods. But that’s just me. Anyone who has made good charcoal from softwoods can feel free to share their secrets for doing so.
But softwoods seem to have a lot more hydrocarbons (including tar) than hardwood. This is great fuel, IF you have a gasifier that can efficiently crack all that tar. The Imbert is a good place to start for a downdraft gasifier.
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Thank you for the information! Going forward i am probably going to make another gasifier, this time a downdraft as suggested. And an imbert gasifier seems to be what most people recommend so i will probably start there.
Im totally hooked on gasifiers by now,
looking forward to experimenting some more with my current charcoal one, and definitly making a version two in the near future.
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Daniel, definitely look through other member’s posts here on the forum and see how their builds went.
What do you want to power first?
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Yes, i definitly have lots of interesting reading in front of me!
My goal as of right now would be to run my generator, which is a Stanley SIG 2000-1. Preferably on raw pine wood, since i have access lots of that stuff. But as of right now i will use an old lawn mower that i have laying around. Just to take my time and test the gasifier thoroughly before i ruin the generator.
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Just had a thought about how you could salvage your cross draft gasifier to run on wood. There was a design in the early 1900s that was essentially a cross draft wood gasifier fed into an updraft charcoal gasifier.
The unit consumed more wood than charcoal. Secondary air was added between the wood gasifier and the charcoal gasifier. The wood gasses were burned, which heated the charcoal to glowing hot. The hot char would crack any remaining tar as well as combine with the CO2 from the wood gas to form CO. The charcoal also functioned as a filter.
There should be a picture here.
It’s the one in the middle on the right.
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I’ve seen other gasifier designs that incorporate this double burn concept in various embodiments, as a way of dealing with tarry gasses. If you’re going to use pine, it’s probably worth looking into.
I’ve seen a few variations that configure the air nozzles with a venturi that draws tarry gasses from near the top of the hopper. This helps make sure more of the tar is directed into the combustion zone. It’s basically burning the tar to heat the char, instead of burning the char to crack the tar.
Due to the venturi, some hot gasses will be drawn up into the hopper, pre drying the wood and extending the pyrolysis zone up higher.
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that’s cool. Something i will have to look into aswell!
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