hardwood as fuel

[Hephaestus]

lately ive been using fist sized hunks of maple as fuel. does anyone know of a better strategy? i dont have access to coal where i'm at and ive also heard that alder is a very hot burning wood. any info would be great.

[AtomicForge]

Well a better use of your wood would be to convert it into charcoal but i am not sure on the laws and regulations in your area concerning open fires. I think the denser the wood the hotter it will burn. So basically cut the same size chunk of the 2 woods you have and which ever one weighs more well thats the more dense wood.

Edited August 16, 2008 by AtomicForge

[Bentiron1946]

Me thinks there has been a discussion about this recently. If your burning wood in a forge you are making charcoal in the process but Frosty went into a detailed explanation of charcoal making. Didn't seem all that hard to do. You might do a search on charcoal and see what you can find.

[JohnW]

Charcoal is superior to wood, no doubt. Making charcoal isn't rocket science -- it's just a good bit of work and time, and even requires a little bit of equipment. Very few good things just fall out of the sky and hit you on the head.

[Bentiron1946]

I down loaded an article on charcoal and when I find out what file I put it in I will post the link. I hate computers.:mad: Well I guess that you can Google it too. Good luck.;)

Edited August 18, 2008 by Bentiron1946