Making Peat Charcoal

[Jonnytait]

Hello everyone. 

I'm looking for some advice and information on how to make peat charcoal at home, the best style of forge that would be suited to the use of it, and any other suggestions anyone may have. So far I have done research on how wood charcoal is made which doesn't seem difficult, and that's something I will be doing as well shortly. I can find plenty of info online regarding wood charcoal, but very little about peat charcoal, which is a shame. 

As far as I am aware, peat was used in the blacksmiths forge for hundreds of years in areas of in areas of Scotland, Ireland and possibly other places. The reason I'm interested in using it is because I have access to as much of it as I need, and with the UK ban on the sale of bituminous coal, the fact that coke is now imported from eastern Europe and no longer produced in the UK (I'm currently using this coke - which is good, a little bit more clinker then the Monkton stuff) and the fact that I don't live on the UK mainland it feels Harder and more costly to get coal or coke then ever, and I think that's going to get worse so I am looking to the future I suppose. 

I have used peats as a fuel in my bottom blast forge (not peat charcoal, just freshly cut and dried peats) as a test, and they can be used but it is very difficult to get steel past a red heat, and very inefficient although this is probably has a lot to do with my forge design. 

Anyway, any advice or info would be great!

thanks

 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I always thought the peat was just dried and cut into chunks in a side blast forge, however that is just a guess and I may be all wet.

I did find this.

 

[Jonnytait]

Ah yes, I did come across that thread. Shame the author of the thread never came back.  This is a few paragraphs from a book by Alexander Fenton called - The Northern Isles: Orkney and Shetland. 

'In spite of a suggestion that there was coal in Fetlar and Unst, smiths had to work their iron with peat charcoal in earlier times. This was made from well-dried peat, of medium density, with no intermixture of earth. A pot measuring 6ft in diameter by 14 in. deep was dug in dry ground, and a layer of peats on their ends was placed in the bottom. About six peats were removed from the centre and burning ones put in their place, but if the wind was strong the space for fire was opened about 9 in. nearer the leeside. As the first layer of peats was kindled, more peats were gradually applied, irregularly, within the circle, till they were piled in a cone-shaped heap. The heap was allowed to burn for two to two and a half hours in moderate weather. when the whole mass had been completely ignited and the flame had largely ceased, the pile was covered with turf and earth and allowed to cool. The charred peat was used by smiths, and after coal became available, it was often mixed with it, since the mixture was considered better the coal itself. There is little doubt that a good deal of peat was used up in the making of charcoal in these treeless islands'

And that's about all that I could find on peat charcoal. Would anyone here be interested in seeing me try this, or something similar? With photos etc. I would like to do it with all the information I can get though. 

 

[Frosty]

That's pretty much how colliers did it using wood with some variations of course but the same method. It's called the semi-direct method if pyrolizing organics. It uses the heat generated as it burns to pyrolize the remainder. Direct method is shoveling charcoal out of a fire. 

Indirect is using a retort, a sealed steel container with a vent. It's packed with material and a fire is lit under or around it. When it stops smoking it's allowed to cool. If you direct the chamber's vent under the container the volatiles being pyrolized out of the wood, etc. will burn and can finish the process.

Check into historic charcoaling. Another place to look is Viking smithing and smelting. They not only forged with peat they smelted iron ore from peat and not just bog iron, the peat itself. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Of course we don't have peat in the lower 48 but it would be interesting to see it used.

[Jonnytait]

Thanks for the responses guys, I will carry on researching charcoal and update this thread when I give making peat charcoal a shot.

 

[ThomasPowers]

I would be very interested in seeing how it works for you---more of a historical interest in the craft.  I lent out my copy of "The Mastery and Uses of Fire in Antiquity" that deals with a various bio-fueled furnaces so I can't check it to see if they dealt with peat in it.

I may have to see what I can do with horse manure, (besides compost it for the garden...) as I live next to a horse farm and they are quite eager and generous in giving it away!

[pnut]

I would imagine you could pyrolize it in the same fashion as charcoal. I would find a smallish metal container with airtight lid and poke a few holes in the lid, then after filling it with peat and putting the lid on I'd build a fire around the outside of the container. When white smoke stops coming out of the holes plug them with dirt or whatever is convenient. Keep the fire burning for a bit longer and when it's gone out and the can is cool open it up and see what you have. It will take some experimenting with how long to keep feeding the fire etc but that's why I would start small. Good luck. 

Pnut

[MacLeod]

It just so happens that I’m on one of these treeless islands too.

One of my fathers early memories from the 30’s on the Isle of Harris was from when they were building the roads on the east side of harris. A makeshift forge went along with men doing the road. It was used to repoint and harden the metal bars they were using to break the rocks. It was peat that was being burned. As with peat for domestic use, the best was the blackest peat, (fits with no intermixture of Earth from your book?) the more fibrous grassy peat won’t burn for as long or as hot.
 

Lord Leverhulme, the magnate who owned the island for a while had a hare brained scheme to extract gas from peat by heating peat in kettles and storing the gas given off.  Did this when I was in school as an experiment and remember being impressed by the flame given off when the gas was ignited.  
 

With the epidemic in full swing by April coupled with a burst of good weather, managed to get the peat cut early this year, here’s myself and my son and Tess the sheepdog prospect hard at it.

Coincidentally, I felt like a proper Blacksmith for the first time when last month someone asked me to fix their ‘Tarisgear’ (Scottish Gaelic for Peat Iron) this summer! The flat horn on the french anvil was perfect for reshaping the socket.
 

On 6/18/2020 at 1:16 AM, Jonnytait said:

his is a few paragraphs from a book by Alexander Fenton called - The Northern Isles: Orkney and Shetland. 

Jonnytait, that extract sounds exactly how to do it. As an added bonus, if you line the pot with rocks, when you remove your charcoaled peat, replace it with a sheep’s carcass and cover it over. 24 hours later you have beautifully cooked lamb. Handy if your catering for a Scottish island wedding!

[Jonnytait]

pnut - Thanks for the input, that's the kind of thing Im looking for, different ideas etc.

MacLeod - Thanks for the info and the story about your father, very interesting stuff! And I like the lamb idea, Im sure the charred peats would give it a special flavour too  

Our peat casting experience has been much the same as you this year, great drying weather in April so we decided to get them cut early. Has been much better weather then last year anyway! We had all of ours home and dry by mid June. 

Ah so you call it a Tarisgear. I have read that being used to describe a peat spade but wasn't sure which part of the country it was from. I think the Irish call it a Slane. We call it a Tushkar here. I will include some photos of one I made for a customer a few weeks back and also this years peats. Have you tried using peats in your forge yet? Or have you thought about charring peats yourself? By the way the scenery in your photo looks just like Shetland, if I didn't know otherwise I would have thought it was! Do you have any other photos of your peat bank and surrounding area?

 

[MacLeod]

That is a cracker. Bit like the peat irons I’ve seen on Mull. In the Hebrides we have the handle in two parts, one forming the step for pushing down with your foot. Your cut peat and stack look very neat too, ours are wider and flatter. It’s very interesting to see the differences.
 

I’m strictly propane right now but I have plans... I’ve only seen coal used by our  last remaining Blacksmith, sadly no longer remaining, but they did use peat in the past....

Only have these pics to hand, very similar terrain. I’ll be looking to see how you get on with the peat And hopefully learn from your experience! 

 

[Jonnytait]

Brilliant video, thanks for sharing. Is that blacksmith called Calum MacLeod? Funny you should post a video of him, I was reading an article about him just the other day, seems like he must have been a very knowledgeable and interesting man. 

I agree it is interesting to see how others work their peats, different ways of doing it but the same end result. It really is the only fuel that can be locally sourced in the Northern/Western Islands, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if sourcing coal, and even gas becomes either too expensive or just logistically impossible to get in my life time, with the way the world is at the minute, it doesn't seem too crazy to think it could happen, which is why I'm so interested in using peats as forge fuel. I suppose I am thinking long term here. 

Lovely photos by the way

On 6/18/2020 at 11:25 PM, ThomasPowers said:

I would be very interested in seeing how it works for you---more of a historical interest in the craft. 

If you ever get that book back, id be interested to know if peats are mentioned. I'd also be interesting in knowing how you get on with horse manure as a fuel if you decide to give it a shot 

[MacLeod]

1 hour ago, Jonnytait said:

Brilliant video, thanks for sharing. Is that blacksmith called Calum MacLeod?

That’s him, a legend

 

[BillyBones]

4 hours ago, Jonnytait said:

I think the Irish call it a Slane

Yes, it is a slane in Ireland. My Irish is not fluent and i know about enough to get hit with a slane, but that is one word i do remember. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Loved the video and story it told, thanks for sharing it. Also couldn't help but notice the Oliver at work.

[Frosty]

Thank you for the video, it's the best entertainment I've seen in a while. Loved the part about the old fellow who couldn't remember how many times or to whom he sold his horse. I'd be one of the folks hanging out at his shop to shoot the breeze even if I didn't have a wooden lag to take off to get comfortable. And NO, you can't hang the only blacksmith in town, pick one of the tailors. What is wrong with people? 

Can one of you tell an American English speaker how to pronounce "An Gobha"?

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

My Scottish Gaelic is minimal at best, but I think it's something like "ahn GOH-vah". More than ready to be corrected, though.

[ThomasPowers]

I saw a Blacker powerhammer---with the anvil with the inset on the side but not a foot powered oliver---did I miss something?

"There is something to be said for being a blacksmith after all not so likely to be hung."

Good to be prepared for an uncertain future.  Our main heat source for the house in the winter is thermonuclear and should not need maintenance for several billion more years.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I thought Oliver's were powered (never seen one in person) But you're right a Blacker, don't know where my head was at.

[ThomasPowers]

Nope they were an earlier version of the treadle hammer, foot powered and usually swung what looked like a sledge hammer.  Very handy for doing 3 handed welds on your own.

Funny; currently when I'm using my blacker powerhammer anvil I have the inset away from me. whereas when used in the powerhammer it's toward the smith as it allows you a section of the anvil face where the die aligns exactly with the edge.

[Jonnytait]

On 6/22/2020 at 12:15 PM, Frosty said:

Can one of you tell an American English speaker how to pronounce "An Gobha"?

Cant help you there Frosty, might need to ask MacLeod. No tradition of Gaelic in Shetland 

Shetland dialect (also variously known as Shetlandic, (broad or auld) Shetland or Shaetlan, and referred to as Modern Shetlandic Scots (MSS) by some linguists) is a dialect of Insular Scots spoken in Shetland, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. It is derived from the Scots dialects brought to Shetland from the end of the fifteenth century by Lowland Scots, mainly from Fife and Lothian, with a degree of Norse influence from the Norn language, which is an extinct North Germanic language spoken on the islands until the late 18th century.

[MacLeod]

On 6/22/2020 at 1:10 PM, JHCC said:

My Scottish Gaelic is minimal at best, but I think it's something like "ahn GOH-vah". M

jhcc I reckon you’d be a ‘good man to have on the boat’.  The depth of knowledge of all the curmudgeons and everyone else on this site, the willingness to share it and and the encouraging of others in the art continues to make me smile every time I have a poke about.  I saw a conversation even about septic tanks that had my attention a few weeks ago.

This is one of the times where the bh doesn’t make a v sound, it’s more silent or with a W sound so “an goh ah” would be closer.  Throughout the west coast of Scotland it’s not only peat irons that differ from island to island, Gaelic pronunciation does too, so maybe different in the inner Hebrides, but they don’t eat the Guga either.  Glad you liked the video, this video is a credit to its maker as he did a great job of capturing ‘steallag’s personality and the atmosphere of the forge and the humour of the Hebrides. A lasting memorial to the man and his father.

if any of you ever visit the Outer Hebrides, you can see the door from their old forge (a glimpse of which was in the video) in the museum in Stornoway. It is covered in brand marks of initials and addresses of customers from bygone years.  If you visit me, I’ll pour you a dram. Slainte!
 

 

On 6/23/2020 at 7:41 AM, Jonnytait said:

Cant help you there Frosty, might need to ask MacLeod. No tradition of Gaelic in Shetland 

We posted at the same time! Lunchtime! 
 

Your tushkar and my tarisgear sound very similar.  Many of the villages here have old Norse names, ending in bost, wick, etc. 
 

we speak the same music too! 

[JHCC]

And excellent music it is, too!

(One of the more effective bits of my courtship of my wife was getting Aly Bain to dedicate a song to her at a Boys of the Lough concert.)

[Frosty]

Thanks, I'm still not sure how to pronounce it or heck anything Gaelic and Border Scots dialects are the origin of a famous American dialect. Appalachian hill folk were largely Border Scots exported during the American colonial period by Britain. The southern drawl is a legacy.

One of the reasons I like hanging out here is how far off track discussions can travel. The depth of knowledge, culture and tradition isn't so surprising when you remind yourself Iforge has around 50,000 subscribed members in 150+ countries around the world. It's peaceful and polite largely because of pretty aggressive enforcement of some basic rules of civility. 

I'm a little sad Glenn got this forum rolling too late in my life to take full advantage of all the people I have a talking acquaintance with around the world. There aren't many regions I could visit without IFI members to visit and enjoy some in person time. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Exported by force after the uprising.  I've read in the histories of the New England ironworks of the period how they got  Scots men as workers that way.

England shipped us their troublemakers---and you know; I don't think we ever wrote and thanked them!