Let's talk about a solid-fuel biomass forge

[Archie Zietman]

Hello fine lads'n lasses!
As some of you know, I've been working with a waste-oil forge of my own design and build for about the past year. I absolutely love it. It's allowed me to work without having to pay for fuel, and to be honest I've gone and spoilt myself, since I can get to a yellow heats within minutes without having to constantly check my wallet.

Its only flaw is that it restricts the shape of work I can do, and makes working small pieces rather difficult to keep track of. So, I'm taking advantage of my college's machine shop, to fabricate a solid fuel forge. But, as is probably evident from my making of a waste-oil forge, originally intended for waste veggie oil, fossil fuels (coal and gas) are not my bag.

THE MAIN POINT/QUESTION:
D'you think that the firepot design by Bob Patrick from a few years ago (I have the templates for the pieces, comes to about 3 inches deep) would be deep enough to get steel-anything below 1 inch square hot, and be able to support a coking layer of wood/biomass over the top of the fire? If not, lets talk design.

EDIT: Everything biomass really needs to be charcoaled, so I guess what my question should be is: d'you think a 3 inch deep coal fire pot will work okay for charcoaled biomass (pine cones, wood chunks, and tree nuts charcoaled, mostly)? I'm wanting to do a bottom blast to allow room for the material to coke around the fire pot.

be merry
Archie

link to the firepot design: Fabricated Fire Pot by Bob Patrick

Edited October 13, 2008 by Archie Zietman

[Sam Falzone]

WOW ... I don't even know where to start with that one.
Totally out of my league.
But I can't wait to hear what people come up with.

Thanks Archie, I think this could be a really interesting thread.

Sam

[hill.josh]

hey can you post some pictures of the oil burner? thats a pretty awesome idea.

[Archie Zietman]

There are some on other threads, if you search this forum or the forums at forums.dfoggknives.com it's very simple.

[Johannes]

solid fuel bio mass...
mmn what would you bee using... charcoal is bio mass to right?
annybody ever tryed forging with corn? i'f heard it can be done...
wood in my opinion will not get you to high enough temp, unless you make charcoal out of it first.
just thinking out loud here.. would peat work? maybe the pot needs te be deeper to get a less oxidizing fire.? and a bit bigger perhaps. to be able to pile up more mass to reach a hot enough core temp..

just thinking..

[Ice Czar]

I'm wanting to do a bottom blast to allow room for the material to coke around the fire pot.

unless you make charcoal out of it first.

Wood Charcoal requires a deeper fire than coal due to its density.

Biomass will simply burn rather than char, due to the excess available oxygen. Scavenging the fume gas from the forge to first dry then char the biomass, then feeding it to the firepot makes more sense. Employing the wood gas produced by the pyrolysis stage to boost the heat in the firepot is another refinement. A close coupled gasifier (that also acts as a recuperator) whose flue gas is then mixed with oxygen and reintroduced to the firepot.

the images show flue gas being employed to dry and char a biomass stack
while I cant access the full description based on the title Id guess at some point in that solution they are also introducing steam to a hot charcoal bed to crack it into hydrogen.

Edited October 13, 2008 by Ice Czar

[Ice Czar]

an even more advanced (crazy) biomass forge (and smelter) is what the DOD is trying to develop for energy production. Its chemical looping combustion. The DOD is actually trying to combine the proven design with Fischer-Tropsch process to turn the hydrogen into diesel and jet fuel and scale it all for remote base energy production.

Diversified Energy
Bioenergy pact between Europe and Africa
there are quite a few patents involved but 6110239 (pat2pdf) is the main one

your primary products are hydrogen, carbon monoxide (Syngas), secondary products are molten steel, cement, the capture of sulphur from any dirty carbon fuel stock.

runs on coal, coke, biomass, waste, tires ect.
the Tin in the mix has an affinity for sulfur in the fuel stock, other trace metals are captured by the steel

not to completely sidetrack the thread :p

Edited October 13, 2008 by Ice Czar

[Jan]

Hi,do you have any pics of that instrument?Or even pdf file?Sounds interesting enough...I would try porcelain chips for that forge,to keep heat in similar setting as coal forge,it heats up quite fast,especially when burner is on bottom.I was using them yokes a lot even with my propane powered forges,where burners are blasting from the top and it seved lot of gas.

[BeaverDamForge]

Hello fine lads'n lasses!
As some of you know, I've been working with a waste-oil forge of my own design and build for about the past year. I absolutely love it. It's allowed me to work without having to pay for fuel, and to be honest I've gone and spoilt myself, since I can get to a yellow heats within minutes without having to constantly check my wallet.

Its only flaw is that it restricts the shape of work I can do, and makes working small pieces rather difficult to keep track of. So, I'm taking advantage of my college's machine shop, to fabricate a solid fuel forge. But, as is probably evident from my making of a waste-oil forge, originally intended for waste veggie oil, fossil fuels (coal and gas) are not my bag.

THE MAIN POINT/QUESTION:
D'you think that the firepot design by Bob Patrick from a few years ago (I have the templates for the pieces, comes to about 3 inches deep) would be deep enough to get steel-anything below 1 inch square hot, and be able to support a coking layer of wood/biomass over the top of the fire? If not, lets talk design.

EDIT: Everything biomass really needs to be charcoaled, so I guess what my question should be is: d'you think a 3 inch deep coal fire pot will work okay for charcoaled biomass (pine cones, wood chunks, and tree nuts charcoaled, mostly)? I'm wanting to do a bottom blast to allow room for the material to coke around the fire pot.

be merry
Archie

link to the firepot design: Fabricated Fire Pot by Bob Patrick

Before the gasifier, I was just using wood chips (twice as much!). I found that seperating the charcoaling fire from the forging charcoal let the charcoal get hotter. A chimney with it's own natural draft worked well. I'd like to try using an air chamber around a chimney to preheat the air to the charcoal if I build another forge like that. Not utilizing that heat is throwing away half of the fuel.

Good Luck!

[Archie Zietman]

My only qualm about burning the wood and biomass directly is the efficiency issue. I may stack firebricks around the firepot to catch some of the heat from the burning gasses. My main need for a solid fuel forge, however, is in the fact that the fire can hold up smaller pieces, and is open enough to specifically heat certain points on awkward shaped pieces, mainly large animal heads and forks when they are still T. I also see so much useable old wood that it seems almost criminal not to use it when I could.

I think I'll make the firepot out of 3/8th plate. I just checked the welder I have on hand, and the thickest it can do is 3/8ths.

be merry,
Archie

P.S. Isn't it funny how you always end up building more and more forges, telling yourself this will be the last one? At least I'm no longer replacing forge after forge, but building a second one to do what I know my first can't, and making it with a tried and tested pattern to be permanent rather than throwing together muck forges which fall apart.

Edited October 15, 2008 by Archie Zietman

[BeaverDamForge]

My only qualm about burning the wood and biomass directly is the efficiency issue. I may stack firebricks around the firepot to catch some of the heat from the burning gasses. My main need for a solid fuel forge, however, is in the fact that the fire can hold up smaller pieces, and is open enough to specifically heat certain points on awkward shaped pieces, mainly large animal heads and forks when they are still T. I also see so much useable old wood that it seems almost criminal not to use it when I could.

I think I'll make the firepot out of 3/8th plate. I just checked the welder I have on hand, and the thickest it can do is 3/8ths.

be merry,
Archie

Problem is, the burning gasses happen above the biomass, the heat is not much use up there. I did use that effect to help preheat the chips by keeping the chimney less full. Keeping chip size fairly constant is important, it can vary but it's better not to mix large and small chunks.

Here's a link to an early version of my chimney setup;
http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/f7/i-made-my-first-charcoal-3320/index2.html#post25971
The chimney got a bit bigger (but not enough as I was limited to stacking a few bricks) after reading Frosty's reply, which is worth checking out.

Good Luck!