Making charcoal.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

If I run out of coal I just use wood chunks, as it turns to charcoal fast enough. I just keep stoking it as needed. Making charcoal seems like more work than necessary.  Every once in awhile the high school will have a bonfire. I should cruise by the next day and pick up the remnants. I would think those in places like CA could find a lot of charcoal after the fires.

[Ohio]

11 hours ago, Frosty said:

Were I charcoaling it I'd cut it to length and run over it with the pickup. Let the bark keep it in flat pages to make loading the barrel easier. I've heard good things about bamboo charcoal. 

Interesting. Very interesting. So now I get to add "crushing things" to "setting fires," "melting things," and "hitting things" to my list of Why I Enjoy The Blacksmithing.

[Frosty]

I THOUGHT you might like the idea of adding crushing to your skills sets.  It'll go better if you break the partition, thingies, can't think of the proper term, it'll crush in a more controlled way. I used to just poke through them a couple few times with a steel rod. 

Ooooh, Stabbing! How's that, you get to go all stabby in the process too? 

Frosty The Lucky.

[pnut]

I think they're called nodes.

Pnut

[Frosty]

Yeah, I searched and Bamboo Anatomy sort of lays it out. It's a node but the diaphragm is the the membrane actually separating sections. I THINK.

So this refinement in terminology leads us to either Node or Diaphragm stabbing. Heck both should be added to the lexicon of the intrepid bamboo collier! What a GREAT ice breaker at a high society cocktail party. "Nice to meet you, what do you do for a living?" "Pleasure to meet you, I'm a professional nodal diaphragm stabber. You?"  

Frosty The Lucky.

[Glenn]

When bamboo is burned and the sectional diaphragms between nodes remains intact, steam builds up in the closed space, and things get interesting.

[pnut]

40 minutes ago, Frosty said:

"Pleasure to meet you, I'm a professional nodal diaphragm stabber. You?"  

Good work If you can get it. ;-)

Yep diaphragm. I can't put together the correct string of terms that sent me to the phrase   intra-nodal diaphragm but I think that is the complete name.

Pnut

[ThomasPowers]

Reading up on it; it can be much more interesting watching the bamboo grow than other grasses...

[pnut]

It's one of the few grasses you CAN watch grow as some varieties grow a foot or more a day. 

Pnut

[Frosty]

15 hours ago, pnut said:

intra-nodal diaphragm but I think that is the complete name.

I believe so. Let the records show the term to be amended as, "Intra-nodal diaphragm stabber." Applications to join the Joyous Society of Intra-Nodal Diaphragm Stabbers will be considered at the next international gathering and confabulation of Intra-Nodal Diaphragm Stabbers.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Ohio]

I think I'd rather be an Intra-Nodal Diaphragm Fluids Tester as a sushi place I know of serves excellent saki in bamboo.

To avoid the Glenn's Steam Explosion Extravaganza scenario, I can see prepping the bamboo in two ways---1) bundling 3' lengths crushed a la Frosty's run-it-over-with-the-truck-method and 2) chopping it in very short lengths with one or fewer nodes in each. I did send a bunch of bamboo into Chippy as a test but it came out either very small or in long wiry lengths. I ended up having to clear out the bamboo strips that wrapped around the axle holding the bit with the chipping blades on it. This is not the first time I've had to do such a maneuver---the Himalayan/Everett blackberry canes that have invaded out here will destroy a chipper if they're not cleared out regularly. But you don't want to chip these canes when green because the chipped bits ill start to root if they fall in the dirt.

Plus, these blackberry canes have massive prickers and, I am positive, are sentient. I am pretty sure they mutter to one another as they plan my demise. Ask anyone who has had to clear them and they will confirm---once you are identified as an enemy, these blackberry canes mark you for death. They're strong enough, and wily enough, to plan and execute a murder.

Yes, macabre, but not off-topic as these types of blackberry are related to bamboo (as are roses). I will probably try charcoalizing blackberry canes as they are common, a pain xxxxxxxxxxx, and grow so fast. I watched a video using a very simple method of making charcoal using local grasses as a way to slow down deforestation, and some using plants like this to make charcoal bricquets by crushing it all together and then sending it through a pyrolization process.

In sum, there are lots of ways to make charcoal.

Edited June 5, 2019 by Glenn

[pnut]

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

Let the records show the term to be amended as, "Intra-nodal diaphragm stabber." Applications to join the Joyous Society of Intra-Nodal Diaphragm Stabbers will be considered at the next international gathering and confabulation of Intra-Nodal Diaphragm Stabbers.

Dues to be paid in full on a bi-monthly basis. All arrearages will incur penalties.

[ThomasPowers]

Bastinado perhaps?

[pnut]

Ouch! 

[Frosty]

26 minutes ago, Ohio said:

I think I'd rather be an Intra-Nodal Diaphragm Fluids Tester as a sushi place I know of serves excellent saki in bamboo.

Oh but of course! A professional Inter-Nodal Diaphragm Stabber doesn't ply the trade by indiscriminately stabbing every diaphragm encountered! Oh my goodness NO,  that would be unprofessional!

Unrestricted Intra-Nodal Diaphragm intactus bamboo section Sake sipping is just one of the many percs rightly and properly enjoyed by guild members. 

Yes, as Glenn points out avoiding EEB (Evaporative, Exploding Bamboo) should be avoided outside controlled conditions. Surprise parties for the retiring dirtbag boss for example. Small affairs of course, usually held privately in their office. 

Save chippy for suitable foes, bamboo is a notorious cheat.

No thanks, I've been berry picking in Wa. when I was a kid. They're sentient evil, the yummy YUMMY berries are just bait for the unwary. Even BEARS harvest around the thicket, they don't venture in. But BUT wild berry pie . . . <s i g h>

Berry thickets are the best reason I can think of for letting brush fires burn. I wonder how a mower baler would work? Follow it with a vacuum truck then plow in salt 6' deep or so? 

45 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Bastinado perhaps?

Is that some kind of Inuendo Thomas? 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

 

[pnut]

18 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Bastinado perhaps?

Thomas, cane you truly find it in your heart to attempt such a feet?.

Pnut

[Glenn]

EEB (Evaporative, Exploding Bamboo) is sometimes loud enough to hurt the ears and get them to ringing. Each closed section goes off on its own schedule, and usually about the time you think they have all gone off, there are a couple still waiting in cue. 

[pnut]

On 6/4/2019 at 5:09 PM, Frosty said:

Berry thickets are the best reason I can think of for letting brush fires burn. I wonder how a mower baler would work? Follow it with a vacuum truck then plow in salt 6' deep or so? 

You'd probably just end up with salty berries with an axe to grind next season.

Pnut

[Frosty]

16 hours ago, pnut said:

You'd probably just end up with salty berries

Leave my berries out of it! 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Nobody Special]

There's a trick to getting to the middle of the blackberry patch.  Thick boots and pants, and trample your way in caaaaaarefully.  Make a path, then maintain it.  Don't whack anything with a machete, you'll yank it to your hands every time.  If you have to cut some at head level or higher, long pruners or pole pruners work a treat, or even those whatayacallums, chainsaw on a stick things.  Long bill hooks work okayish, but your arms get tired.  Straight in, and if it's a big one, make additional paths off the first one.

I pick a lot of blackberries every year and make a sack wine from it.   Strong, sweet, and I sometimes add a little sugar right at the end when I bottle to make it carbonated.

And now that I think about it, blackberry vinegars are insanely good, and so are berries pickled in brine and let to sour, like pickling vegetables...if you like your berries salty.

[arkie]

Best way to pick blackberries is with long rubber gloves, the heavy duty kind.  Cut off just enough of the finger tips to make picking the berries easy.  The thorns just slide along the rubber as you pick and don't grab and stick you.

[ThomasPowers]

Way back I had a set of new blue jeans that seemed to be extra special stiff and thick that I reserved for berry picking  as they would turn the thorns.  All these modern "soft" jeans don't seem to have the protectiveness.  Hmm maybe I'll try that shoeing apron I picked up at the fleamarket.

Cobblers were my main use; I had a deal with my Grandmother that I would pick if she would cook and we both would eat!

[Laynne]

I know you all are talking about wild blackberry and I grew with them in Missouri. I tried growing them in Kansas and the deer literally ate them into the ground. I tried everything short of a ten foot chain link fence. Now gooseberries are a different story.

How did we get off of making charcoal?

[arkie]

The normal evolution of a thread on IFI...LOL.

[ThomasPowers]

Sort of a "Punctuated Equilibrium" betwixt the steady state and the catastrophism of smithing!