Charcoal & Lye

[Ice Czar]

under the heading of waste not pollute not
and if your great grandmother can do it so can you

Charcoal > Forge > Potash > Pearlash > Soap, Glass and Ceramics


Potash
How to Make Lye - wikiHow

History

Up until the 20th century, potash was one of the most important industrial chemicals in Europe. It was refined from the ashes of broadleaved trees and produced primarily in the forested areas of Europe, Russia, and North America. The first U.S. patent was issued in 1790 to Samuel Hopkins for an improvement "in the making Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process."

Potash production provided late-18th and early-19th century settlers in North America a way to obtain badly needed cash and credit as they cleared their wooded land for crops. To make full use of their land, excess wood, including stumps, needed to be disposed. The easiest way to accomplish this was to burn any wood not needed for fuel or construction. Ashes from hardwood trees could then be used to make lye, which could either be used to make soap or boiled down to produce valuable potash. Hardwood could generate ashes at the rate of 60 to 100 bushels per acre (500 to 900 m³/km²). In 1790, ashes could be sold for $3.25 to $6.25 per acre ($800 to $1500/km²) in rural New York State – nearly the same rate as hiring a laborer to clear the same area.

To create potash, take an open-bottomed barrel, and place it on a stone base with a groove cut into it, which will direct the resulting liquid into another container. Then place a layer of straw at the bottom, covered by a layer of sticks. This filter layer will prevent the ashes from contaminating the solution. Then fill the barrel with wood-ashes and pour water over it. The water will leach out the potash into the receptacle. This product will be of variable quality. Historically, it was measured by seeing how high an egg would float in the solution. The liquid may be boiled away to give a black, impure potash.

If desired, the potash could be further refined by baking in a kiln to produce a less impure form of potassium carbonate, known as pearlash for its pearly white color. This step was commonly performed at a nearby ashery. The refined potash was in increasing demand in Europe for use in the production of glass and ceramic goods. American hardwoods, besides being more abundant, are said to have provided a higher yield of quality potash than European wood. In some parts, potash receipts became a common form of currency. Some settlers found potash production to be quite lucrative, resulting in faster deforestation than farming alone would have caused.

the common thread here is energy efficiency, forge\furnace\kiln
why use the energy just once? Are you or do you know anyone interested in Ceramics or Glass? Furnaces forges and kilns share far more in common than differences and extracting the biggest bang for your fuel dollar is becoming more and more important.

From an environmental side, Biomass fuel out of all the possible fuels open to a modern blacksmith is the only one not actively contributing to higher worldwide CO2 levels, employing carbon already in the current cycle After 250 years of fossil fuels, Biomass energy for blacksmithing, ceramics and glass seems a prudent choice (video)

(part two, playing with fire)