[TheForge] charcoal question

[Jerry Frost]

Actually soft wood charcoal gets hotter but doesn't 
last as long so it's better for welding and melting 
where hardwood charcoal is better for general smithing. 
It also takes longer to make hardwood charcoal. None of 
these differences are deal breakers, you can weld and 
melt just fine with hardwood charcoal and do general 
forging with soft but the differences are real.

Lastly different species of hard and soft woods have 
their own characteristics so you'll need to experiment 
to find out what's right for your application in your 
particular location. If you're doing a lot of one type 
of metal heating it might be worth your time to make 
the right charcoal, then again it might not.

Another thought taking your air quality regs into 
account. Have you considered buying or building a wood 
gassification furnace for heating? (Assuming you need 
to heat of course) A wood gassification furnace is the 
cutting edge eco friendly wood heater and it works by 
converting wood to charcoal. During the process it 
burns the wood's volatiles in an oxidizing atmosphere 
in a separate chamber which pyrolizes the wood and 
heats the air, water, etc. The charcoal is burned of 
course but only in a very limited zone either at the 
bottom or top of the stack of wood. If the draft can be 
shut off completely the fire goes out and once cool you 
collect can the charcoal.

I have a wood gassification / charcoal retort / boiler 
/ hot dog cooker / coffee heater designed to heat my 
shop. (Actually, coffee heater is at the front of the 
line priority wise. <grin>)

Frosty
-------------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.


From: "Jonathan Barnhart" <blakkpawss at yahoo.com>


> Considering the Ice storm that we just went through 
> in
> my neck of the woods, it would probably be easy to
> pick up a bunch of wood fot free and then process it
> into fuel.  Even junk wood will make charcoal.  It
> just doesn't burn as long or quite as hot.  But it 
> you
> have a lot of it, it might not make much differance.
>