I Hate Coal Dust

[billp]

Finely came to the end of a rough batch of coal that was loaded with coal dust. Every time I kicked up the air flow I get showered with a rain of tiny white hot sparks. And after a few dozen times they start to hurt. Especially when it's the same spots over and over.

But have found some new styff that is really great high BTU, small nugets, low sulfer, and most important it's claeaner made for blacksmithing. Just got to find a used 55 gal open top drum to carry it in, as that is how this group works, and I'm in business.
Best of all NO COAL DUST.
billp

[Astro_Al]

You can make a giant sieve for your coal from an old oil drum and a bit of steel mesh or punched sheet in the top - load a bag in, jiggle it about and voila - dust-free coal.

Al.

[billp]

Not like you did but I did work on filtering out the dust once using several different methods. This was with another load of coal I got from a man who used it to heat his shop for a dump truck company. I drove 3 hours to fill up about 12 - 5 gal buckets of big chuncks of power plant type coal. In had to bust them up with a sledge hammer and ended up with about 8 gals of dust and still had more as I worked through the coal.

So no, I appreciate your advice but also been there, done that, and "blip" the t-shirt. Which is why I am so tickled to have made the deal I did to get this really good coal. Going back in a couple of weeks for more in 5 gal buckets and I hope to drop off a 55 gal drum to fill on their next trip to their supplier. So as long as I can keep rotating that drum I want have to deal with the dust or at least like I have before.
Thanks again for your advice
billp

[Marksnagel]

I think we all wind up with dust. I take lemons and make lemonade. The dust that I wind up with gets saved. When I want to make an oven to forge weld or just get some really concentrated heat, I either pour a layer of dust on top of the fire pile and then wet it down to create a hard dome or I have some damp dust that I put on top. It makes a nice oven and as it cokes up the ceiling falls into the fire creating more fuel. I add more dust as I go to keep the oven built.
Everything has a purpose.

Mark <><

[BM454]

I must love coal dust. I work in coal burning power plants. Not much there but, coal dust and flyash.

[bigfootnampa]

Used wet it cokes up in big hunks that I have to break apart as they are added to the fire. I use it all the time and never have a problem.

[ThomasPowers]

We get our smithing coal out here as fines. I store it in a 5 gallon bucket of water and add it sopping wet to a going fire along the sides and let it coke up into chunks.

Is your blast a bit on the high side?

[billp]

Sometime the blast is a bit on the high side if I want it to heat up fast. But most of the time I just try to crack it open a bit extra to get things going a bit faster and still get a shower. So I have to remember to and keep to the side when I open up the gate.

Will now I have learned something I never thought of, Thanks guys.

I will try your tips next time and will keep my bucket for the dust I do collect from now on.
May have to change my mind now
billp

[Glenn]

Collect the dust and put it in 2 buckets, one a 1 gallon metal bucket for use as a lubricant when punching holes, slitting, etc. Just dip the hot punch into the dust and punch.

The second should be a 5 gallon bucket. Add water till you have water over the dust. It may take a while for the dust to soak up enough water to sink. Now just scoop up a hand full of *mud* and put it on the fire.

If you have fire erupting from your forge when you add air, your fire is not deep enough. Increase the depth of your fuel. I suggest a fire ball about the size of a melon with the sweet spot about 2/3 of the way up. There is still a couple of inches of fuel on top of that. This is for a smallish forge fire, and larger stock will require a larger fire. I suspect you are trying to work with a too small fire.

[Frank Turley]

For punching deep holes, a student taught me to dip the relatively cold punch in water and it will pick up the needed fines. Having scale free punches and drifts also helps to release them from the work.

[billp]

Now I am really glad I posted this as you have tought me something else I did not know. But I have only been doing this a little over 3 or 4 years and still have a lot to learn. In the old school days I would have just started getting past the beginner stages under the apprenticeship of a master smith.

But no, you are right Glenn my fire it to small in that my pot is only about 4 inches deep. Which is why I am now looking for the metal to build a new much deeper fire pot as I can't afford a "store bought" one. Plus to me making it yourself adds more pride to your equipment that much I have learned.

Will again thank you all for the great tips I will for sure try the dust next time I punch a hole. And when I fill that 5 gal bucket again will for sure try soaking it to help my fire.
Thanks
billp

[Glenn]

You can see in the attached photo that you need a fire of sufficient depth to create a zone of heat that burns up the oxygen before the heat gets to your metal.  The extra fuel acts as insulation to keep the heat in, and the amount of heat in the fire is controlled by the amount of air you pump into the fire, not the fuel.

[SmoothBore]

This thread re-emphasizes the points made in another recent thread, ... i.e. the learning curve, in regard to Fire Management.

 

 

I'm not competent to comment on "correct" techniques of Fire Management, ... but am slowly acquiring just enough experience to recognize it's importance.

[Maddmatt]

I shove most of my coal up from the side of the road were the DOT man has made a truck dump a couple of pounds or a wreck has happened. The coal is sometimes a little dirty, but by the time I haul it home most of the dust has blown off.

[onetreeforge]

What kind of coal do you use in the USA? do the blacksmiths use cokeing coal? I have allways wondered, I burn it in my forge, even if its dusty when it burns it stickes togeather into coke, it dosn't form ash only clinker

[ThomasPowers]

We use everything from pretty much lignite through bituminous to anthracite depending on what we can get a hold of! True high grade blacksmithing coal is a bituminous coal with good coking properties and low amounts of ash and clinker produced, easily available 1500 miles away where I used to live and not so easily available out here so we use what we can get from only a couple of hundred miles away.

[onetreeforge]

We use everything from pretty much lignite through bituminous to anthracite depending on what we can get a hold of! True high grade blacksmithing coal is a bituminous coal with good coking properties and low amounts of ash and clinker produced, easily available 1500 miles away where I used to live and not so easily available out here so we use what we can get from only a couple of hundred miles away.

 

 

Most of the people on youtube look like there using the coal you would burn in a fireplace, looks like hard work, the best blacksmithing coal comes from Wales I am told

[ThomasPowers]

Wales produced a range of coals at one time, (I was in a coal mine there this last spring!) However few mines are still active there. North Sea fuel production was rather a body blow to the industry.

In the USA, the sewell seam in the middle of the eastern states, (appx), is generally considered a very fine smithing coal indeed! (I try to bring back at least one 50# bag of it whenever I attend Quad-State---even when I flew in, most amusing checking in two army duffle bags, one with the coal and the other full of dirty clothes and tools, smithing supplies, etc...Had a nice chat with the folks x-raying them but no problems getting them passed once they looked through them.)

[Frank Turley]

When I worked briefly in Costa Rica, we used charcoal purchased from a professional collier (carbonero). The fire gave off lots of flying fleas and fleeing flies, so we wore long sleeved shirts.

 

I saw a guy once that had tiny scars all over his arms. I said, "What happened to you?" He said, "Flying ash holes."

[Francis Trez Cole]

A friend of mine puts his coal in a plastic tote and covers it with water dust and all as he gets to the bottom there is a pile of dust mud he uses that to coat his mound when forge welding like a coal cement. It works good. I hate the mess. The coal I get is in 100 lb peanut bags. so I just roll it a round a little and the dust just goes on the ground

[Judson Yaggy]

Good for a laugh Frank!  Careful thou, you might get banned.   ;)   Pour the dust on, wet it a little with a splash from the slack tub, and forge ahead.