June 18, 20224 yr More a documentary than a how-to, but some of our members might find this of both historical and practical interest. Spanish with English subtitles.
June 19, 20224 yr That was pretty cool John! Thanks for sharing that! Not as traditional as your video but there used to be some commercial charcoal kilns not far from where I live but the company shut down a long time ago and the kilns where tore down when I was a kid, I’ll ask around an see if any of the old timers have any pictures of them still standing,
June 19, 20224 yr I’m waiting on some pictures from some local guys I know, it might take a few days but I’ll post them when I get them, in the mean time I looked through the Adair county history books I have and I found there were two more charcoal operations then I thought, one in watts about 15 minutes north, one in Ballard which is close to watts, and then the one I remembered that was in Baron just a couple minutes north of me here in peavine, none of them are still standing or I’d get y’all some in person pictures, the one just up the road apparently had seven kilns!
June 20, 20224 yr I have collected all three. On the Spanish subtitles, I found that reducing the play speed to 75%, permitted me to follow along with the narration. A real pleasure to watch. Thanks, John. RobertTaylor
June 21, 20224 yr Hey Scott, forge is loaded for the next burn. Lots of wood feed stock in the queue, just need a bit more stamina before I light it off... Robert
June 21, 20224 yr Excellent! The first vid especially was good. The first thing I noticed was,,, Everything good with wood,,,, starts with a Stihl! I wonder how they did it before Stihl saws happened. The second was the similarity between managing their burn and fire maintenance using blacksmith coal. Mainly dealing with a hollow fire and tending to places where the fire burns thru on the sides causing loss of heat and control of the size of the fire, in our case. The final observation for me was their using basically what we call in the west/southwest, scrub oak for their charcoal source. But letting it dry for two years is a killer.
June 22, 20224 yr Author 21 hours ago, anvil said: Everything good with wood,,,, starts with a Stihl! I wonder how they did it before Stihl saws happened. Axes and handsaws, I suppose. However, that does bring up the interesting question of how Stihl saws happened, which is addressed here:
June 22, 20224 yr Author Eclectic is my middle name! (Actually it's "Henry Chapman". That's where the "HC" in my handle comes from -- not, as sometimes suggested, from "High Carbon"!)
June 23, 20224 yr Not heuristically complicated? I have an auction catalog (Christies? Sotheby's?) for a medical item auction that includes a hand crank bone cutting chainsaw and that was NOT the squickiest item! (I have it for the early glasses included in the sale...)
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.