Hi Herb, Looks like we have a couple of warm days ahead. Enjoy them. Maybe I’ll get something done here ?? Mike
Thanks guys, been very helpful. Got them ordered. Yeah Mike the warm up will really be nice!!! latter,herb
Well my “hotbox” isn’t working so hot. I’ve been burning Caddy fuel in my shop stove for heat because I’ve got a lot of it and it beats chain sawing and splitting the regular fire wood. But lately it’s been hard to get lite and burning hot. Today I decided to check moister content and it is 25 to 30%. It’s been in there since I made that splitter video 3 or 4 weeks ago so it’s not working very well in winter.
Of course I have to have my Saturday morning ride so I brought some in to shop and put it on that platform and put heat gun under it, if I don’t burn my shop down overnight I will be able to go for My Saturday morning ride. I need to figure out a better way to dry fuel!!!
You have to look close, that’s a heat gun under there shoting up under wood. Hope it drys good enough overnight!!
Can I call you “Hard Core Herb”? They might dry out faster if you can talk the wife into putting them in the oven overnight . 
Garry
Gary I think I would have been better off drying wood in the oven. The heat gun didn’t work very good, it did run all night and it didn’t burn the shop down. The wood looked like it was dryer this morning but I think it just dried a little on the outside. It did light better in the stove and got fire going ok. I did a couple of things to the Caddy I needed to do. Couple hours went by and it was time to fire up. I pushed it out to where the gasifier was open to sky, opened lid, shoveled contends of red hot stove (and I mean red hot) in and put all the rest of that wood in. It started real good and ran fine for a while but about as soon as it got down to the fresh wood it started to loose power, had to keep switching injectors on for help and just didn’t run very good. I need to come up with a way to either dry the wood I have or find dry. Kinda takes the fun out of it when it doesn’t run good, I did end up driving it about 40 miles but most of the time the injectors were on. latter, herb
Herb, one thing I am going to try and just haven’t yet is to fill a 55 gallon drum with holes in the bottom and play like I’m making charcoal. After the steam boils off I’ll seal the barrel to put it out and I should have dry wood. I am cutting and splitting some wet wood now.
Garry
Hi Herb, Sometimes it is like a bad pack of firecrackers … I got my black truck ready to go again today. I got the wiring and start blower going and added aluminum tape where needed. Next test will be if I can get in the back of it and load a sack of wood to light it off. Star Trek at 8PM … Gunsmoke was OK today … Also, Clint and Steve were OK as well … Mike
Yeah Gary that’s worth a try. Did I read where you are going to have your saw cutting cow patties tomorrow? I want to see that!
Wow Mike you got to see them all!!! Sounds like your making progress on your truck, may as well drive it over!!! It’s only about 350 miles to my place!!! herb
Hey Herb, My dead friend’s son just stopped me this morning on the highway (in the snow storm) to let me know he had saved me a tank which I picked up this afternoon at his shop … I’m back in the building business … I LOVE building these things and then running them !!! … I hope he lets me know what kind of beer he likes . Now I have to buy a bunch of bolts, nuts. nipples, caps, etc etc to get it done, fun fun fun … I just plan to duplicate the basic stuff that is on my trailer and put it right on a truck or car … KISS … M
Hello everyone, well this is what I’ve been up to, I had to come up with a wood/fuel dryer, here it is.
The expanded metal floor is 14" above the ground, the heat blaster shoots in under floor and comes up though that raised floor. Think it will work?
Looks good Herb, can’t see why that won’t work…
Yep will work HerbH.
Now you got it.
Let the moisture out.
Heated moisture laden air WANTS to rise up and chimney out.
Watch your dried down wood temperatures rising on you right above the heated kerosene plume. 451F wood will be smoking and go up in flames on you.
Be wise to put a sheet metal hanging down shield between the wood and this heat plume. Help distribute out the heat to the sides better too.
Summer time paint this dryer flat black and open up some lower edge perimeter holes for natual air flow in it and it’ll do the job too without the kerosene assistance.
Best Regards
Steve Unruh
That does sound like a smart thing to do Steve, that would really suck if it caught on fire, talk about something that would go up super quick, wow, I think I will do that, thanks. It does get hot in there, I’ve only ran it one time and didn’t have very much wood in it. so lots of heat coming up though. I need to split those cow patties and shovel that in there and then run it some more, those cow patties I’ve got there in pic are really wet so it will be a good test for the outhouse wood/fuel dryer!
I wonder if you cut your patties green and tossed them in drier whole if they’d “check” and split themselves apart for you?
Herb,
You might also consider heat lamps depending on which is cheaper to run. It will take some time to dry the wood. You could also put the torpedo on a cycling timer.
Don’t set your wood on fire … Look at the heater outlet at night some time. Of course you will have to add that liquid fuel to the total picture. I’m working on another gasifier (slowly). Need to buy nipples and couplings and caps and bolts etc etc etc … Have to check saw blade inventory etc etc etc … Will be too cold after today to do anything more on it this week probably … ML
Hi Mike, I didn’t catch your post before last till this morning, I had a hard time getting that post up with pics, I lost it all 3 times before it finally took, I know it’s my junk computer. Finally found that greasezert on the back of it and it works a lot better now!! Glad you are started on another unit, it’s always interesting to see what you will come up with next! Enjoy today buddy! I think I’m going to fire up the spliter here in a little bit and see if I can burn my new drier down.
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, insites and good ideas, I will try them.
At the risk of boring everyone to death I’m going to try to re-post pics because it’s next to impossible for me to go back and look. Thanks, herb
Well I think the “outhouse wood drier” is working, I’ve been running it about 30 min in morning and 30 min in the afternoon for the last few days. After it’s been running for a while if I stick my head in the top of it my glasses fog up right away so it is driving moister up and out. You were right as usual Steve U, thanks. So far it’s taken it from about 30% to about 20 %.
“Redo” number 999 going on here. I didn’t have a clue what happens inside the hopper until I read the paper posted on Patrick’s thread by Gary W. Thanks for that, very informative. After reading that I knew what I had wasn’t going to work! I didn’t leave any place for the gas/air/steam to go at bottom of inner skin inside hopper! I know the external pipes are the best way to go and will do on the next hopper. For now in order to accommadate the gas/air/steam a way to go back in hopper at the bottom I ended up doing this, we will see if it works???
pic 1 Every 4th upper fin bent to form a holder that holds inner skin up 1" and out 1" leaving gap for gas/air/steam
pic 2 Closer shoot
pic 3 New skin installed
pic 4 shoot from top
What do you think??? Please critic, it’s the only way we learn! herb
Hi Herb
Just confirm you are using a double skin hopper system , with the inner skin sitting on the bent over fins ?
What about using a mesh as Carl has sugested as an inner skin. My system is using a double skin and I have a dozen 3/4 in holes around the bottom of the inner skin for the air to pass through to get reheated and steamed to rise to the top and cooled condense in between inner and outer skins . This works I get a 5 gal bucket full on a 10 hour run but I think there is room for improvement if that article is any thing to go by.
Thanks
Patrick
Hi Herb
Just to add from that article they mention :
The tests show, that older standard gasifiers can easily be altered so that they become suitable also for damp fuel, if only the original, pre-heated fuel container is removed and replaced with a monorator container. Since the furnace generally lasts longer than the fuel container, which is subject to the corroding acids from the wood, most existing gasifiers have gotten their fuel containers corroded already, and the switch to monorator container thus will not imply extra costs, the lesser considering the fact that these have single walls and therefore saves metal. In Finland, the Ministry of Public Provision has taken this into consideration and indeed prohibited manufacturing of double-walled gasifier fuel containers.
Thanks Patrick