Yes, I saw how white your refractory was in the photo. It might be better stuff (higher temperature) than what I’m using. https://www.amazon.com/Rutland-Castable-Refractory-Cement-25-Pound/dp/B008BQQASQ
I recently made stove lids for some TLUD stoves out of a home-made mix of plaster/perlite/glass and they work well if you leave them in the metal container for use. One of the two I made cracked, and I don’t know if it got dropped or what, but after reading on the web, I decided to try the refractory cement. (Store bought.) I don’t think the plaster/pearlite mix is very durable.
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This seems like the right place for a question on the Simple Fire, so here goes.
Got a 5 gallon metal pail and have the simple fire built, my question is can it be lit without a fan drawing air through the system? If I have to, can I use a small shop vacuum and after the thing is burning good do I still need to run the vacuum to keep it going?
Thanks
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Yes, you will need a SMALL blower of some kind to get it and keep it going. A shop vac is way too big. Blow dryer or an air mattress pump are about the right size. Of course once connected to an engine, the engine vacuum keeps it going.
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Thanks for the quick response Andy.
You know the worst part of holiday…one must plan for the stores to be closed.
I’ll go dig around some, but might resort to putting a splitter on my shop vac to only use “some” of the power it has.
You can’t win if you don’t at least play…
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Allan,
the gasifier as is, will always need some vacuum airdisplacement to generate the gas.
if an engine is to be connected, the engine will provide that vacuum after the initial startup from the gasifier.
if you don’t have a fan at hand, an old foot air matrass blower can do the trick as well if connected with the suction side.
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Thanks Koen,
I checked at the second hand store for one yesterday with no luck and really didn’t expect to have the time to build this this.
I’ll figure out something.
I use a cheap 12 volt car vacuum. It takes just about two minutes to get the gasifier up to temp to start the engine with good char.
You could always build an ejector and use shop air for now.
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Thanks Jim.
Between hunting and Thanksgiving I haven’t had time to play in the shop today.
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Jim, what kind of car vacuum do you use and by chance do you have any pics of how you have it hooked up?
It’s 100 miles to the nearest big city and a week to get something shipped, but I can get a small car vacuum here in town.
You mention building an ejector. Do you mean like a venturi pump or are you saying pushing air into the simple fire?
More simple questions for the masses…
An hvac evacuation vavuum pump won’t have enough draw, will it? I have a couple of them that I use for stabilizing wood with.
Will a heat gun work also if I disconnect the heating element?
How far out of the simple fire do I need to run metal before putting on plastic hose?
Coming out of the air pump, how much metal do I need at the end where I’m going to do a flare? I don’t want to melt anything before I get started.
I think I’m hooked guys…I think I’m also suffering from what some call “The PIG Syndrome”. Personal Instant Gratification
You all have a great day, I’m going to fix fence and maybe shoot a deer in the process.
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Hi Allan , this is one type of small vacuum that i have used for for starting a simple fire and worked well but any small in line blower sucker like a mattress inflater will do . https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/12V-Portable-Car-Vacuum-Cleaner-Vehicle-Auto-Mini-Handheld-Dust-Wet-Dry-AUS-/122558574105
i used the suction hose on to a 1 inch fitting coming out of my filter to draw the air through the simple fire and a short piece of thin wall steel pipe on the air outlet of the vacuum to lite a flare , just remember that with all gasifiers air leaks are your enemy , even the smallest of air leaks will cause you all kinds of headaches and you may not even get a flare to stay lite .
With a 5 gallon container you will not have a very long run time before it will get too hot to work with , but it should run a small lawn mower engine for 30 mins with maybe a few inches of black iron or galv fittings coming off your container and then use plastic hose onto the filter and onto the engine , if you have a sharp bend from your container to your air filter try using old radiator hose that has a bend thats close to what you need and that way it stops the hose collapsing as soon as it gets warm and restricting the gas flow .
All the above will work for experimenting but you cannot beat steel or copper pipe work from the gasifier to the air filter and then rubber / plastic hose onto the engine .
Dave
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Thank you very much Dave & Brian, I should be able to get something near that configuration here in town.
Hey Allan, the car vacuum I use is of very poor quality. Something I found at a thrift store I frequent. In fact I just found a second Identical one a few days ago. I got these for $5 each. I could not imagine trying to vacuum with one but seem to work well for a simple fire.
The last time I tried to run my simple fire I was having trouble getting it to go. Air leaks, it is always air leaks. The hose on the vacume had become brittle and would break as fast as I could tape it up. As Dave said almost anything will work and a piece of radiator hose makes a good thermal break as well as an adapter.
As for the ejector I have no experience with one. Try a search. I think it it was Stephen Abbadessa
Who put up dimensions and such. Maybe on his sight, Northern Self Reliance.
Last time I was in Montana I built a large simple fire for an off grid friend in Wolf Creek.
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Thank you Jim, that should help me out bunches.
Another question…Do I have to run a filter if I’m only going to do a flare for now?
No filter needed if your just going to flare off , just run it till the pipe gets to warm to touch and then shut down to cool and block off the air inlet to stop the charcoal burning away .
Dave
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Well, I tore a pump out of an air mattress that a friend gave me and got it all hooked up, took it out in the driveway and put the torch to it. Everything was going pretty good and it would try to flare a little, but wouldn’t quite get going good. I actually think it was putting out to much air/fuel to ignite. When I turned off the pump, plugged the inlet and shut off the exhaust, I was still getting a little exhaust coming thought the hose and put the torch near it and it sure caught fire then, so it definitely is making very burnable gas.
This thing got pretty warm pretty fast and either the pump was in bad shape to begin with or I damaged it by letting it get hot, I’ll find out this morning. When the thing got going pretty good I was getting a bit leery by the sounds it was making. It was somewhere between a jet and a train, or at least it seemed that way standing two foot from it.
I’ll tinker with it some more this morning somewhere between feeding, hunting and drinking coffee.
Any critique on how I have my set-up is greatly appreciated.
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A filter isn’t need to flare that is true. But…what it will do is provide distance between your blower and the charcoal gasifier. The distance allows the gas to cool down before it ruins your blower. Put the blower on the other side of the gray hose. Maybe you can even make the hose longer if you’re not going to filter
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Thanks Bill.
By the sounds the blower was making last night I may have killed it, but we’ll see.
So far I only have about $20 bucks tied up into making this thing, mainly plumbing parts, minus the ball valve that was borrowed from the ranch.
I do have another blower that is the exhaust blower from an old house heater.
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Okay, horrible video, but you get the idea. I think the blower is hurting.
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Allan, you are getting there. That little vacuum is really howling. I bought a bunch of 12 volt PWM and use them on my blowers. They are really cheap. Here is one for $3.39 delivered. https://www.ebay.com/itm/12V-40V-10A-Pulse-Width-Modulator-PWM-DC-Motor-Speed-Control-Switch-LA/372060384399?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D49476%26meid%3D18fdd85c6f3444fab7abedd45aa6c8c3%26pid%3D100011%26rk%3D6%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D170902843919&_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850
This one is for very low power dc motors with brushes. I have several others that will run larger blowers, but they cost about $12. (They will run the Bilge Blowers.) Be careful with the wiring. They won’t handle the case where you hook them up backwards. The 10 amp fuse on the board is not the size we find around here, so I mounted a fuse holder for a common size 10 amp fuse on a board so I could replace it.
There needs to be a screen in front of your top gas exit on the charcoal container, else the blower will be sucking small pieces of charcoal into the fan. (I like my blowers more toward the flare end of the hose, too.)
Here is a farmer solution to your hose to pipe connections. Wrap the fittings with some sticky duct tape, then find some old elastic from the rag bag and wrap the elastic very tightly over the tape. Anything to prevent air leaks is good. Sometimes with unglued PVC pipe fittings, I use very heavy grease in the joints, and then wrap them tight with the elastic, over plastic wrap. Looks terrible, but works! Easy to take apart for cleaning, too.
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You are getting there Allen. You are making gas. As the others have said fan is way to close to the heat. On the end of flair end of your hose make your self a flair tip. Find a short piece of pipe that fits your exit hose from the blower and drill a couple of 3/8 holes in it so it will suck in some air to mix with the gas, this should help you sustain a flair.
Go ahead and make a filter, gather the fittings for a mixer and plumb it up to an engine. I had run five different engine’s over a period of three years before I ever even tried to get a flair The engine running is a great motivator and your goal anyways. Remember the gas needs oxegen to burn.
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