Another day, another fail.
Today I pulled everything apart and resealed to ensure no air leaks.
Tomorrow I’ll pull the clean out port and check my burn basket for clogging. The burn basket is made from a brake drum. I blew a bunch of holes through it with a plasma cutter, so maybe I need to enlarge the holes for better flow?
I’m really good at making smoke. Have I mentioned I do this because I enjoy it? 
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Hello Rick and welcome to the DOW
I would be very careful with areas in the gasifier where a large amount of hot gas can accumulate or be stored. Wherever the gas is hot I try to keep those areas to a minimum . If hot gas and air gets mixed in a small area you will get a burp, belch or fart . If you have a large area under the same conditions you have a bomb.
Somewhere here on the DOW a member Wayne Baker writes about his gasifier ending up on the top of his house back years ago by not being aware of the above.
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Now about the FEMA
I have made a couple of fema type gasifiers work but it is very tricky. The fuel depth or surface area has to be controlled . When I was experimenting with the fema I would start with charcoal at the grate then golf ball , base ball and bigger and this wood had been in 55 gallon drums and set fire and when burning good the top was put on and the fire put out leaving partially chared wood
This has to do with the amount of surface area of the fuel the flames and heat is being exposed to and very difficult for me to explain . The best way to try to explain is if the fuel is not put in properly the process is flooded by fuel .
Also the same can be accomplished by adding in the proper amount of pellets as the gasifier is being operated . Look over this thread about the dizziler and you can see what I am trying to explain . If he puts in too much small fuel the gasification will quit . 
Thanks Wayne
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Rick, you got some exelent guidence here. Not much to add, just confirm the above.
I like Steves new name for the FEMA. The HEARTHBREAKER. Describes it perfectly.
Indeed, pellets are the trickyest fuel of them all and defenetly not a best choice for a beginer. Charcoal is best to begin with, on a scale like yours.
If you want a flare for fun with this setup, get yourself a bucket of charcoal, grind it to what we call “engine grade”, thats 1/8-3/4" size, fill the whole thing and light at the top. It will burn like a cigarette. And it will give you a flare in a minute or less.
You can then experiment further and spray some water on the burning cigarette… observe how REAL good gas burns with the added hydrogen.
Also, wery important and often missed leak is the fan its self. Most are designed to also pull a portion of the air trugh the motor to cool it. This can dilute the gas.
As Tone wuld say, woodgas is no joke. Good gas will make things go flying indeed… l too picked up filter peaces in the middle of our capital city when a spark from a fan motor caused a explosion in the sistem…
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That would have been a sight to see Kristijan. Picking up all evidence that you the gasifier King of your area was even there. And then a fast getaway back home to fix things up. So much for stealth, right?
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Bob,
He blew his own cover–puns intended.
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Well the filter was just a 5" pipe a bumpers lenghts long, end it only blew the caps off but with quite some force… l can not imagine what a full size hayfilter wuld do!
The funnyest thing was that this happened with my old Mercedes. Those K-jetronic injected engines were noutorious for refusing to start hot. I picked up the peaces of the filter, quickly asembled (just a friction seal) and went in to start on petrol but ofcorse the bastard wuldnt start. I have been driving on wood all day and the metalic fuel lines get vapour locked. So l start warming up the gasifier and all the woodgas starting procedure when a local resident decided to chime in. He must of had an Mercedes like that in the past and knew about its troubles and wanted to help by giving advices trugh the window on how to do a hot start, but here l am in the middle of the road trying to suck the gasifier to life and no time to explain whats going on, trying not to insult the helping stranger in the meantime by not following his expert tips 
was awkward to say the least
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Hi WayneK.
That was the most detailed description of how you wood fuel tweeked things with your early NO air nozzle/blow holes systems to go out road driving and traveling around. Your road trip up to visit Mike LaRosa he’d like to talk about.
Hmm. Pre-Torrify the wood chunks to reduce the normal raw wood bleeding out and goo’ing; and then get surface charred, each chunk surface reduction gasification occurring. Inner volatiles being heat forced out thru the outer surface char layer. Ha! And that outer char layer self regenerating. The true reduced gasses outgassing forming somewhat the fire-capping effect the open-top charcoal making guys ChuckW tilt-barrel, and bathtub Gorgio now use.
But then using easy flowing wood pellets poured over to slow the sucked down air oxygen between the what should have been too large of wood chunks.
Damn man, are you ever clever.
Once way back in the DOW’s beginning some smart ass said you and I should do a challenge race on woodgas.
And I said ONLY ever if I got to set the conditions!! Get some cheat favoring me.
Cold, wet and snowing slush-sloppy on tight mountain river roads wet-ice slick in the shadows:
Even then . . . I’m not so sure . . .
You’ve got all of that Alabama slick roads muds hours of experiences under your belt . . .
Best Regards
Steve unruh
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Thinking back to my FEMA type gasifier, I used the blower to push the gas through the system instead of having the gas go through the blower. The blower (I think it was a bilge blower) just sat on the top. Initially the blower was reversed and the gasifier was lit with an ignition port but then the blower was flipped over to push the air through the wood pellets and out through the condenser/cooler and filter. I never succeeded in running an engine from that gasifier and it made massive amounts of smoke and tar but it did get a flare.
I mostly use the same idea (forcing air through the gasifier) to get my current charcoal gasifier up to temperature and producing good gas. I’m using a mattress inflater pump now but used compressed air before getting the inflater. I’ve sealed the blower with silicone but never liked the idea of gas going through it all the time. Besides possible leaks, I melted my first blower from the heat and coated it with tar. The gasifier I use now wouldn’t/shouldn’t have those heat and tar problems but I’ve still not had much luck getting a flare by pulling the gas through that blower although I occasionally use it to suck the gas through the hoses and close to my engine and also to light the gasifier.
Charcoal has been way easier and cleaner for my ~200cc engines but even getting a flame from the gasifier you already built would be very encouraging and should be possible. I’m guessing the main problem is leaks or possibly too much flow from the blower. With my current gasifier it is easier to get a sustained flare with less flow. That was part of the reason for the big juice can I used. It helped slow down the force of the “jet” of gas coming out of the pipe as well as letting it mix with air.
In my impatient testing of my current gasifier (before it was fully built), I did blow the top clean off at least a couple times because it wasn’t sealed up and getting air mixed with the gas in the hopper. It wasn’t a big deal but could have been bad if it didn’t have a way for that force to easily escape. I was using a mixture of raw wood and charcoal which was running my generator good but ended up plugging up my filter and eventually caused the intake valve to get stuck open from the tar. I didn’t notice the stuck valve until the next time I tried to run it.
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Good input. I also melted first blower. And yes , simply maintaining a flame would be highly encouraging. I’ve spent a lot of man hours to achieve basically nothing. Before moving on to a different design, I simply want a steady flare.
FEMA…my government has once again let me down…lol
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Interesting start to the day. I uncapped my loosely laying lid a d discovered my pellets have degraded to damp dust. The temperature here caused condensation on the metal burn tube. Coupled with the warm smolder, I created a steam bath.
Time to pull the tube and inspect the guts.
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Yeah.
Welcome to the not-so-wonderful world of pellet-mush.
Using pellets you will learn you have to dig-out and remove all that are not become heat browned sealed each and every time at shutting down.
Some guys resort to heat pre-brown torrifying the pellets.
Matt Ryder says he goes ahead and as a pre-step to char converts then. I think? He’d be the one to explain.
S.U.
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Disassembled the burn unit. My burn basket is pretty clogged even after dumping the pellet mush. I think now that my basket holes are too small and the small pellets turning into dust combine to create a total restriction of air flow.
I’ll clean up the mess, rework my basket,
and try again with wood chunks.
AFTER CLEANING-
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All debris removed from below the basket.
Nothing resembling ash. Its a gooey mess of saw dust and tar.
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Ever since WWII at the end of the war it was time to make monies again no need to use gasifiers no profits in at when you want to sale gasoline and diesel fuels. Plan was to destroy all the traces of gasifiers everywhere and hope everyone forgets about them. No that didn’t work. The Governments, just to let you know. We didn’t but we did improve on them though the years of you trying to give us a inferior gasifiers of your own plans that will not work. The FEMA for one.
And this still didn’t work. So they now made vehicles so computerized they will not run on wood gas. Now they just need to out law or crush all the older vehicles that will. Do the oil companies have any control of the Governments of the earth? Hummm.
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It would be so easy to cook up some charcoal, add a nozzle in that bottom access panel and pull gas out of the top of the hopper. Gary Gilmore simple fire. Could be running an engine in an hour or two with no worries about tar. Anybody can make a flare. You just need the right fuel.
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I gave up on pellets. One day they worked great the next they made the thickest tar you ever saw.
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Id cut the bottom out and get some bar stock and weld a grill type with 3/8 to 1/2 inch spacing. That will not flow wood chunks or chips.
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Hey Rick,
Don’t worry about it man. You are in a learning curve. It’s hard. Don’t let it stop you.
I have learned something from you. I have designed a whole new gasifier, based on your idea of using an upside down water heater. I would cut out a bigger circle for a fire 14" fire tube. Then I would insulate it on the inside with ceramic wool blanket 2" thick. This will leave you with an actual fire tube 10" diameter. The rest of my thinking would be based on Al Frick’s '98 Ranger.
Rindert
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- Do not use pellets. Use woodchips, or even better, proper charcoal.
- Load your hopper full of fuel. There must be a lot of that upon the fire.
- Make sure your fuel is DRY.
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