[TheForge] Re: Stoker coal

[Mike]

> Could someone please explain what is "stoker coal" and what makes it
> differant than "blacksmith coal"??

I think technically -- i.e.according to the US DOE -- stoker coal
refers to a size or size range.  The quality might or might not be
good for blacksmithing.  

See:     http://www.sizes.com/materls/coal_bituminous.htm

In colloquial usage, stoker coal seems to mean, rather loosely, one of:

    Whatever you find in a big pile outside any generating plant or
    other industrial coal-burning plant.

    An unsorted mix of everything from 2" or so to dusty fines.

    Low carbon, stony, high-ash coal that doesn't coke worth a damn.

I've shoveled up coal (years ago) from a university heating plant that
worked fine in the forge.  The guys in Cape Breton say that the coal
still being mined there and sold as "stoker coal" for industrial usage
is stony and practically unusable in the forge.

FWIW,
- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer@tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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