Reducing size of coke

[Gustav]

Hey

I've been using coke as fuel for quite some time now. The problem is that the sizes range from 40 to 80 mm, which obviously is too large. I might be able to forge, but reducing the size would dramatically help. I've tried knocking them one by one on the anvil with my hammer but that's just inefficient, tedious and dirty. Sorting out the extremely big ones isn't either very effective. Is there an effective way of splitting large amounts coke into smaller pieces? I have a large amount of this coke which I would like to make use of instead of buying new sacks.

[Glenn]

First off separate the coke into the size pieces you like and the larger size pieces you want to be made smaller.

Next figure out how much of the larger pieces you have. If it is a small amount, a small solution to the problem will word. If you have a very large pile you will need a much larger solution to fix the problem.

Put the large pieces somewhere they can be cleaned up easily, smooth floor for instance. Here we have a tamper that is 1/2 inch plate steel about 12 inches square on a wooden handle. Tamp the charcoal to reduce the size. Sweep it up and separate the larger lumps out again. Repeat as needed.

You can also drive across a layer of the charcoal with the car smashing the lumps and reducing the size.

You can look into machines that move two gears or whatever together and crush the lumps. This does not have to be charcoal specific but can be rock crushers, wood chippers, pr hammer mills for instance.  Look at them and use the idea for your purposes.  

[RobS]

Efficiency usually costs money.  If you are a handy type person you can reduce the costs.

1. Buy or rent a small rock crusher.

2. Find a cement mixer and some milling balls and make yourself a ball mill.

3. Find a jack hammer, weld a flat plate on the bottom of the bit.  Put your coke in a drum and smash.

4. Use a hand tamper.

For sizing.  Find a screen with holes the size of what you want to run in your forge.  Take a couple pieces of wood and make a shaker screen to sort the larger from your intended size.

Unless you start buying the size fuel you want to burn, there will be extra work on your part.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

My Dad made a tool to reduce coal down.

8" dia pipe with a grate welded inside and down about 12". The grate had holes torched into it the size of the coal wanted.

Base welded onto the pipe and a window cut at the base on one side to allow the sized coal to be removed with a shovel.

Put the coal in the pipe and use an old car axle with the studs facing downwards to bust it up until it was empty.

Repeat as necessary.

[Frosty]

Uh huh. Ran into this at Art on Fire this weekend. I brought my rivet forge and a couple buckets of locally collected coal. I like coal pretty fine and this ranged from the size of a paver to fine gravel. I spent too much time with a hammer on a piece of steel. So I was thinking and came up with this idea for small scale easy. A piece of channel iron say 5"-6" and a piece of plate cut to fit inside the flanges. Drill matching holes in the channel's flanges, weld a couple couplers or tap welded tags on the plate so there's a gap between the channel and plate at their closest and a spring somewhere to keep it open partway.

Build a stand, legs or maybe bucket mount, drop coal in the open end between channel and plate and smack the hinged plate with a hammer, approximately sized crushed coal falls out the gap. Basically a manual hammer "Jaw Crusher."

A hand tamper on a steel plate with whatever thickness crushed coal "kiss blocks" would work, you'd need to sweep the plate clear though or end up with powder. Same with a plate compactor but you can rent a jaw crusher and good ones are adjustable.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

The problem is that using coal fines is generally easy and common; but using coke fines is not easy as they don't weld together in use but instead want to blow around. (In fact if I had to use coke fines I would mix them with a majority of coal fines.)  Many of the previous suggestions will generate a lot of coke fines. As the original request is for a method of dealing with coke and I would assume industrial coke and not breeze; perhaps we should focus on that. first?

[Frosty]

My ignorance shines through again!  I've never used coke, didn't know that. It seems obvious now though. Mixing coal and coke fine sounds like the trick.

Frosty The Lucky.