Dried Walnuts as fuel

[worsethanrust]

I was wondering if anyone had tried using dried black walnut hulls for the forge.  I tried.  It takes a bit of time to get them started since they are so dense.  They heat better than charcoal but I haven't put a temp test on them to see what the top end heat is.  They might work in a pinch or if someone is just starting out.  I grab what the squirrels miss after winter is over.

Thanks for your time, 

[swedefiddle]

Good Morning,

Why won't they work, a campfire works. It is all about controlling the base of a fire, regardless what the fuel is. I have a wood fired Forge that works well, the wood burns and makes Charcoal, MAGIC!!

Neil

[Frosty]

Yes, it's been mentioned before. If you shred a LITTLE bit of wax on a couple lower pieces they'll light up more quickly. Starting them with a small wood fire works a treat as well. 

The only issue you might run into is not breaking them small enough to consume all the oxygen before it reaches the stock. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[lary]

One busy pine squirrel a couple of weeks ago. It kept perching on the corner of this bin to remove the mushy hulls from the walnuts still on the ground. The tree is about 10 feet away.

[Frosty]

We have a red squirrel that entertains us at the back deck bird feeder. Loves those sunflower seeds she does. I feed her apple slices though she can pick up a hardball size apple in one go. 

I miss walnut trees they don't grow here. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

[Anachronist58]

 

Similar to what Swedefiddle mentioned above, here is what my forge looks like before working steel:

Takes about 15 minutes or so before I start forging. I can then add raw wood to the sides.  Gets hot enough to burn steel.

I always end up having to push charcoal off to the back, and I usually get 3-½ gallons of charcoal out the next day (forge is almost air tight when I shut it down. 

I like crushed pine cones, they ought to be similar to your walnut hulls, once you have added a bit of Jerry's wax to them...

Robert Taylor

 

[Jason L]

When I worked at the feed store, the manager at the time bought us a wood burning stove and cut the gas so that was all we had to heat with. Since we were also cracking pecans at the time he had the bright idea to throw 30 lbs of pecan hulls into the stove all at once. DO NOT DO THIS! In a few minutes it was sucking air through any available gap, it sounded like a jet engine. Within ten minutes or so the entire body of the stove was glowing bright red and the pipe was glowing up to about 6 ft high. The metal tags attached to the door and the back end of the stove melted off leaving only the empty rivet holes. The damper had to be replaced a couple months later as well. I was sure the building would catch fire and tried to stop him but oh well. We got very lucky and the inferno subsided after awhile. I don't know about walnut hulls but pecan hulls get scary hot scary fast!

[George N. M.]

Were they pecan hulls or whole pecans?  If the latter, I am not surprised about what happen because the meat of the nut is oily and would burn fast and hot.

GNM

[Jason L]

They were just the hulls straight after cracking the pecans. They were just the parts that came loose after running them through the cracker.

[Frosty]

Even the hulls are oily compared to wood not a lot maybe but still. Then there's the size, small, thin pieces of dry hardwood WILL burn hot and fast. They'd work a treat in a wood stove maybe a coffee mug at a time or in addition to larger wood. 

Years ago when I was still looking at my shop as a combination fabrication and blacksmith shop I seriously considered renting a wood chipper to turn logs into chips, blow them into a ventilated silo and feed a stoker stove. One rental place had a chipper that'd take 10" dia. logs and reduce them to thumb sized chips. 

Turned out a birch tree had it's own opinion and I gave it and my plans for the shop up. <sigh>

You just need to understand a fuel or start in small steps until you do.

Frosty The Lucky.