how to make this usable fuel.

[draco 1]

what is the best method of turning wood into charcoal i tried last night and it took forever to burn it all down but finale got the barrel full of cols and sealed up now that i am at that point how long should i weight before i open it up to use. are there any better methods.

[bigfootnampa]

Charcoal making has traditionally been done in mounded earth ovens. I have read lots of historical accounts. It's a rather tricky business though and lots of experience is REAL helpful. Best I can advise is to read/study and then try in smallish batches building toward larger batches as you gain experience and confidence. I have NO experience... just the reading part. Not that hard I think as it is a very dirty and somewhat dangerous job... few elite thinkers are involved... but not that easy either for beginners. BTW it does take patience as the old time charcoal works took several days for a mound to be converted and cooled enough to harvest.

[ciladog]

This may help.

[781]

When I make charcoal I use a 55 gal barrel with removable lid but you can cover a barrel with a sheet of steel and weights.
My barrels have four 3" holes 90 degrees to one and other in the side of the barrel about an inch from the bottom. I have plugs that fit these holes.
fill the barrel with the wood with some piles over the top.
Light the wood at the bottom of the barrel through one of the holes. Let burn for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until all the wood breaks when grabbed with tongs.
Plug the 4 holes add dirt if neccessary so it gets no air.
Cover the top again so it gets no air.
I pour water on the sides of the barrel to cool but it is not neccessary
the Next day I empty the charcoal and start over. I do 3 or 4 barrels at a time.
You should get 50 to 60 % charcoal by volume of wood.

[MattBower]

I have a similar setup, but I actually light the fuel load from the top. It works well; as the flame front burns downward, the hot CO and other gases come up through the freshly charred material, which excludes oxygen and keeps it from burning.. I think you might find that you'd get a slightly better yield this way, though it takes some judgment to know when it's time to seal the retort, and then when to seal the air holes.

[edge9001]

I've seen rigs that instead of burning the wood in a barrel and then covering it, they put fill the barrel full of wood close it then light a fire under the outside of the closed but NOT sealed barrel kind of like making a large oven and baking the wood into charcoal. if you use this route, make sure to provide somewhere for the gases to go, most I've seen will install a pipe for a vent and vent those gasses into the fire inder the barrel and using the gas as additional fuel for the fire. it takes about 3-4 hours for a 55 gallon drum

[jet45papa]

I dont know if this is the place for this question, still here it goes,
wich its the diference between simply using wood directly to the forge instead of using charcoal/coal?
i mean, because its going to turn into charcoal in the process of burning,
I hope anyone can answer my question


ps: sorry for my bad english

[Jreed]

Raw wood has a lot of moisture and impurity's in it that make it burn at lower temperatures. Charcoal has all of these cooked out of it so that all you are left with is pure fuel that can burn at usable temperatures for forging.

[easilyconfused]

You can use wood for you're heat source. As stated, you have to burn out the impurities and get a bed of embers to heat in though. It takes up more room than charcoal and puts out lots more radiant heat while you build and maintain your embers. I've done it to help take the chill out of the shop in winter though.

[ThomasPowers]

When I need to use wood for a forge fire I generally build a fire near by and then transfer only the hot coals to the forge as the smoke and heat thrown off by the burning wood makes it harder to be around the forge.

Using pre-made charcoal makes for a much nicer forging experience---but I'm cheap and so usually have a scrap wood fire to "help out" the store bought lump charcoal.

[easilyconfused]

When it's -40 celcius outside, you enjoy the extra heat :D

[ThomasPowers]

When it's -40 celcius outside, I've been kidnapped and taken far from home!

[Morleyuwm]

This method is a bit more involved, but it does a good job of producing charcoal. Good Luck

[edge9001]

This is what I was refering to. Making the drums into an oven of sorts, instead of burning the wood in them and then closing the lid.

[ricejm01]

This is what I was refering to. Making the drums into an oven of sorts, instead of burning the wood in them and then closing the lid.

The process is called out gassing. you are raising the contents of the container to a tempatures that would normally combust, but does not due to the container being sealed (note there must be a way for the gases produced inside the container to escape other wise you have a bomb) I use this process for making charred cloth for catching a spark for flint an steel. you can see this process on a small scale. you simply need to get a 1 quart paint can. (I prefer to go to box store an buy an empty unused one.) you will need a nail. All you have to do is pound the nail directly through the center of the lid of the paint can, and set the nail a side. then pack the can with 100% cotton cut into squares and close the container. heat the container on a open fire, eventually you will see smoke coming from hole you punched turn the can on its side to catch the jet of gas escaping on fire, turn back upright. continue to heat until the flame goes out. remove from the fire, put the nail you set a side back in the hole to stop oxygen from getting back into the container so the contents don't continue to burn. let cool. open an viola, perfect black squares for catching a spark. Note you can also do chucks of wood to make charcoal. however in a 1 quart container it is not practical for large scale production.

so you take two 55 gallon barrels and cut one in half and weld it to the bottom of the other, you then cut a hole in the half you welded so you have door to build a fire in. now you have fire chamber under a barrel that can be sealed. in the whole barrel you run a piping from the top down to fire chamber to burn off the gases escaping. you can if you want put a valve that can be closed off when the gases stop burning (note if you put this valve in you have to put out the fire in the fire chamber). just start a fire in the fire chamber and tend the fire until the gases start to burn, then let burn until the gases not longer burn let cool completely before opening. it is the same process as the small 1 quart container but on a larger scale.

Please be careful with this, you are heating a sealed container, there is a always a high risk of explosion.

[ricejm01]

here are some photos of a small out gas can. it is an old minwax can I cleaned out. these photos go along with my last post. the last photo is of some charred cloth made in this can from an old white 100% cotton tee-shirt. hope this gives you some ideas on how to scale this up. you could do this with a metal 5 gal bucket too for making charcoal on a small scale.

[jet45papa]

When it's -40 celcius outside, I've been kidnapped and taken far from home!

I've been in New Mexico, and i can tell thats true!!!

By the way, beautiful place and nice friendly people.

[twcoffey]

If you have a slow wood burning stove(called a slow burner) for heat you can use it when the heating needs of the house and whatever are low during mild winter days to make charcoal. Burn hardwood in the stove until the wood is nice and red then cut off the air. Next morning remove the charcoal. No EPA regulation on this approach.

Ted

[Wesley Chambers]

if one were to use the double drum design and leaving the top tapped down but not locked in, would it be enough to serve as a fail safe? enough to keep air out but not so tight that it cant pop loose?

[Wesley Chambers]

I was thinking about ricejm01's design and thought that if I did the barrels on their side it would heat faster and more efficient. Not only do you get more surface area to heat but you can more easily load and unload the logs/charcoal and not have to dump the entire setup... sooo whats everyone think?

Sorry I'm a bit obsessive with the 3d images but they are always much easier to understand than my sketches lol~

[Mainely,Bob]

Looks like a really sweet design,very straight forward and doable.
I like it so much that if I can talk one of the guys down at the marine lab out of 2 steel(or stainless maybe,I can dream can`t I?)drums I will probably try it.
I think with all the pipe I have around I may even run 2 burners down the length of the top drum.One down each side.
Maybe a rack that I can pull out so I don`t have to stick my head inside and breath all that dust there at the last of the unloading.

Does anybody else go to the trouble of cutting the wood up into small pieces,or do you just toss it in after cutting it to a length to fit in the barrel?

[edge9001]

that is the exact design I was trying to describe. the top drum is an oven, the bottom drum is a fire pit. Like i said it bakes the wood into charcoal, while the fumes from the wood are used as fuel to help the process along.

as for cutting the wood, just cut it down its length, think making logs into pencils or dowels, and then toss it in. the thinner it is going in the faster it will convert to charcoal. as for breaking it up into charcoal "beans" for lack of a better term that seems to be easier after the conversion.

[Ramsberg]

You might want to try and get a hold of "A Charcoal Kiln: Made of Cinder-Concrete Blocks" by A. Richard Olson and Henry W. Hicock reprinted by Lindsay Publications. ISBN # 1-55918-106-X

I have it sitting beside me, it describes making a 1 cord or a 2 cord kiln in which to convert wood into charcoal. Most of the firing work appears to take 6 hours, after that it just sits around simmering a bit and then later cooling off.

I havn't made and used one of the kilns that it describes, but they appear to be very easy to scale up or down.

From seasoned mixed hardwoods they got 46 bushels and 920 lbs of charcoal per cord, the worst they got was from unseasoned Scotch pine with a moisture content of over 150% and hat was 19 bushels at a total of 380 lbs from one cord.

I don't know if Lindsay is printing this book anymore but they usually have some laying around if you ask.

Wesley. . . uh what happened to that guys eye? LOL sorry couldn't help it. Neat design by the way.

Caleb Ramsby

[Wesley Chambers]

heheh thats not my guy! lol that is actually a member of the team that created sketchup tossed into most designs for scale.

I might check out his book, but this whole idea is just a maybe thing for me. My father has a few disposable 55gal drums every few months so I figured I should give it a shot. I going back to a coal forge at my new home and if I can use charcoal to keep the smoke down all the better! Now I just need the in-laws land to burn the wood on and Im good to go~

[Ramsberg]

Wesley,

I have done a little charcoal making with drums and thought about nocking out a bunch of their ends and welding a bunch of them together end to end to make a long cylinder laying on its side on supports with the outlet end higher then the inlet end.

The idea I had was to be able to chuck the thing full of wood, then with a blower supplying air to the bottem closed end light the upper outlet end(preferably with one of the ends that was punched out used as a dampner on the outlet end).

I have done it both with just using the wood inside the barrel to supply the heat to char the wood and using the barrel as a retort with the heat supplied from other fuel and some of the gas escaping.

Of the two I prefer the method of just charing the fuel inside the barrels with the heat from said wood burning. If it burns from the top down then it consumes its own smoke as it burns and you can see the fire by the glowing sides of the barrel as it burns down.

Caleb Ramsby