Coke in forge not lighting

[rockstar.esq]

Opening the ash dump on an idle bottom blast forge serves another safety purpose as well.  I was at the anvil when I heard a thump.  As I turned to see what happened, I noticed my coal fire landing in the fire pot!  Everything seemed OK, so I kept at it.  As I was cleaning up at the end of the day, I noticed a crack in my fire pot.  Then I noticed that all the bolt heads holding my tuyere to the pot were stretched to where they broke.  

Best guess, is that coal gas piled up in the tuyere pipe until it pushed it's way out of the idle hand-crank blower's intake.  From there, an unlucky breeze took the coal gas over the fire whereupon it caught fire, which carried it's way down the pipe, blowing the pot off the tuyere in the process.

[ThomasPowers]

Not nearly as exciting as reading the old stories of the double lunged bellows exploding and embedding their nails in the shop walls!

[rockstar.esq]

That's more frisky than I want to be around!

Got me thinking though.  1/4" mild steel bolts are typically rated for 60,000 PSI tensile strength.  That works out to something over 3,000 lbs of instantaneous load to pull just one bolt to breaking.  Four bolts were pulled apart, but I don't know that they were equally tensioned, so they may have failed sequentially.  Either way, I sure as shooting don't want to be in the way of 3,000 lbs on it's way to freedom!

 

[Frf]

You need to have a constant airstream to keep the coke going. A handcrank blower will not be your friend.

[anvil]

Perhaps all petroleum coke is not equal, but that has never been my experience. From the best coking coal to the barely doable and the petroleum based coke from Wyoming, dumping ash, shimming open the dump gate, and poking a hole down thru the top keeps it going a long time. If needed, add a small handful of sawdust, give your hand blower a crank and you are ready to go. However, anthracite does work as you say, but it doesn't coke.

[Frf]

You have to be very careful with petcoke as it is usually contaminated with sulphur, phosphorus, and heavy metals in high amounts. 

Edited April 13, 2022 by Mod30
Excessive quoting

[Frosty]

More heavy metals than coal? 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Frf]

It is quite high in vanadium and nickel, sulphur is at 6% usually, it depends on the batch and source as to the exact heavy metal composition. It also depends on the batch and type of coal.

[Frosty]

Ever run a Geiger counter past coal tailings or the ash dump from a power plant?

The best way to know what's in pet coke is ask the refinery it came from, they know exactly what's in it.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Frf]

I have not, but I can imagine. This is why we burn metallurgical coke for a fuel. 

[Frosty]

You should rent or borrow a Geiger counter sometime, thinking "metallurgical" coal doesn't carry all sorts of badness is wishful. Many of those dangerously HOT ash piles are at steel mills that ran nothing but metallurgical coke. Hotter than inside 3 Mile Island, unit 2, in fact.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Frf]

This is good advice, thankyou.

[Frosty]

No need to worry, about radioactivity from coal or coke in your forge, you'd have to burn lots 7 days a week and sleep with the ashes to maybe have an effect on you. Wearing a radium dial watch is riskier. 

I only brought that up to point out that bituminous has lots of impurities in it too. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Besides the radionuclides, coal is also a Mercury  carrier.  It's like they dumped anything in the environment in a swamp and let it sit for a couple hundred million years! 

I visit the Trinity Site from time to time; that horrifies some of my European Colleagues until I point out that flying to the USA exposes them to more radiation than visiting the first nuclear bomb test site.