[TheForge] Metallurgical coke

[wmullett at bright.net]

This is what we always called stoker coal.  Used an automatic screw feed to put it in our furnace.  I believe it is what they stiil pump through the coal lines here to the power plants along Lake Erie.  Most people never heard of pumping coal.

This coal will work just fine if it is not too hard.  

I would always prefer working with coal rather than coke.  But then I use manual blowers.

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2012 14:40:21 -0300
>From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net (on behalf of mspencer at tallships.ca (Mike Spencer))
>Subject: [TheForge]  Re: Metallurgical coke  
>To: theforge at mailman.qth.net
>
>
>> Anyone know where I can get met coke in the New England area? I'm in CT.
>>
>> The bigger companies seem to be carrying 1/8" - 3/8" not the chunks
>> that I've seen for forging.
>
>Isn't that approximately what the Brits call "breeze"?  IIRC from
>seeing it 30 years ago, they use ca. 1/2" chunks and like it very
>much, can't understand why anyone would want to use smelly, messy
>green coal.  I'm guessing that the reason the Brits use it is because
>it's a byproduct from screening coke for industrial metalurgical
>products and so cheaper than nut size.
>
>Although 1/8" does seem a little small and likely to get lost.  A
>solution to losing too many fines, along with the ashes, through the
>tuyere might be to use a side draft forge. [1]
>
>(I'm presenly building a portable 4-tuyere forge for long heats.  But
>my next experiment with forge design will be a side-draft.  The late
>Arch McKnight of Milton, NS used one -- a rarity in NS -- and it
>worked very well for him and for his father-in-law from whom he
>acquired the shop circa 1935.)
>
>
>- Mike
>
>[1] http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/tuyere.html
>
>-- 
>Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
>                                                           /V\ 
>mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
>http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
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