I replaced the drum seal with high temp silicone gasket permatex. When doing it , i painted an index mark on the lid and drum. It seems to seal best if replaced that same orientation.
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Hi Andy, do you put grease on the top of the barrel lip and put the silcone gasket permatex in the lid grove and put the lid on to from a seal?
Bob
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Yes, thats what i did.
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Good morning Mr. Tom .
I use the original seal and usually put a coating of grease on it. It may leak a little smoke at first but will soon seal itself.
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Hey guys! Good news!!! I just got an E-mail from Max Gasman!!! Maybe he has written some of you if you have tried to contact him. HE IS WELL!!! Had someone hack his computer system and screwed everything up so he is just now getting some stuff straightened out an was able to post. I for one am so relieved. TomC
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Hi Tom,
Thanks so much for the update on Max Gasman. I share your relief, as I’m sure
all of us do. Loved his input. Hope to hear a word or two from him on occasion.
Pepe
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Hi Tom! What a great news! Thank you.
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Awesome news. I really enjoy hearing Max’s input, always very sound information. And now I will be glad to hear more. 
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This is great news to hear about Max, prayers answered thank you Lord.
Bob
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Someone was talking about adding a couple more belge blowers so he would have “push’ and “pull” ( think it was Andy) Posting 433 here under Tom Collins” Gasifier has my set up so that I get “push” and “pull” off from one blower. TomC
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Hi Tom, now that I am down to just three blowers , two that are boat bilge blowers and the other a converted vaccum cleaner for suction blower all will need to be replaced soon, or later. I was thinking of your design with the kirby vaccum. Do you have pictures and a diagram of your set up? If they are in this thread I will go back and look at them. Thanks.
Bob
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Go to post #433. TomC
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Thanks Tom I booked mark it, I had forgotten that it was you that had the three way valve setup configuration. Simple.
Bob
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Max you recommend the plank system to scavenge heat for the wood. My concern with the Plank system is the amount of space lost in the hopper.
My personal favorite for heat saving/scavenging is what Kristijan once recommended to me. Put insulation around the hopper and us WK cooling tubes to condense the water. Right now I have a JO type of hopper. A hopper with a cylinder just inside the hopper, open at the top to catch condensate from the lid area and also allow gasses to enter at the top and as cooled follow down between the to cylinders to the gutter at the bottom. TomC
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I like the idea of the plank going around the hopper like the Imbert design . But it still has to have the WK hopper cooling external fin tubes to cool and move extra tars and water to go to a condensation tank. I have been doing a lot of thinking on all this for a couple of years now. MAX IS RIGHT! The extra heat is right under our noses. And I’m going to find a way to use it for making more good quality woodgas. Gleaning ideas from all the members builds and building it on paper is a lot easier then building for real. But it might keep me from making some design mistakes in the end. Kristijan oriface nozzle design to extract hopper vapors could be heated in the plank area and then follow on down to the fire tube. This is possible.
Bob
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Hi, Tom!
19.6.2019
The plank should be 3/4" to 1" thick, just enough to be skratshed from above through an end-lid, long as the plank broadwise.
It will then have a surface of ~2/3 of what the silo cylinder has.
That is an effective heating surface compared with the Imbert mantelling, as that one looses 60 ~ 70% of the heat to the crows in the cold streaming wind.
In the lower end the plank divides into two legs allowing easy flow of wood into the “mouth” of the firetube.
So these legs end into the cone connecting silo bottom-end and the mouth of the firetube.
Outside the firetube we can have an (traditional) air preheating cylinder…
A bit at a time…
Max
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Hi tom i like the plank hopper as stated good heat going too waist if anything i may make my hopper 1" bigger around too make up for the plank. Though i dont see the pic of how Max cleans out the plank from the bottom. ?
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Hi Kevin!
19.6.2019
“The plank should be 3/4” to 1" thick, just enough to be skratshed from above through an end-lid, long as the plank broadwise."
Why are you turning things upside down?
Remove the plank end-lid (at the top) for skratching from above all the way to the 2 feed-throughs in the cone-plate!
Max
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Thanks max on the clear discription, Long as it dont cause bridgeing with wood sizeing it wood help warm things up faster.
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Hi Max; About Midsummer and the 1st day of summer. I asked someone why the weather man picks the day he does for the 1st day of summer. I was told that it is the longest day of the year and all days after start getting shorter. ( a sad day as I like long days ) How does that relate to the “northern hemisphere has the highest solar angle”? Wouldn’t that make for the longest day of the year. I believe a couple of miles south of me is a “marker” pointing out that that is the furthest north the sun comes during the year. Is the “solar angle” measure from the vertical at the equator? I know nothing about this stuff and just made the comment because the day you posted about “midsummer” happened to be the weather man on the news said, " today is the first day of summer". What ever, I sure glad summer is here even though it means a lot of chores to do. TomC
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