[TheForge] forging questions

[terry l. ridder]

hello peter;

i have roughly 15 tons of hardwood logs sitting on the west end of my
property. I will send you some pictures.

The local tree trimmer, who just died recently, and I had an agreement.
He could dump the logs here instead of paying the waste management fees
at the local land fill. I would cut and spilt the wood and keep several
years worth drying at anyone time. I would contact Salvation Army and
tell them that if they would vet the people those people could come and
get free firewood. I had some "enterprising" liars taking full cords of
hard wood saying that they were using it is provide the main source of
heating and cooking for their familys. marking the cords of wood with UV
marks I was able to prove that they were selling it for hundreds of USD
per full cord. What upset me was they were selling it to the very same
people I was trying to help with free firewood. They were telling the
people that I had stop the "free firewood". my lawyers and the state
attorney had "words" with these scumbags. they went down for fraud. 6
months in the country jail and hundreds of hours community service at
the Salvation Army thrift store.

There is one piece that I want to make a very large wood bathtub out of
it. 4ft in diameter and 7 ft long. I cannot pick it up with the Bobcat
CT335 tractor with forks on it. I have to just push it around and hope
it rolls some.

I was shaken when i was told that he had died. He was a good friend.

The alternative fuel is just to keep the remaining brain cells active
and not just sit on the couch watching mind numbing hours of TV programs
with absolutely no socially redeeming value to them.

Nearly 100% of my TV viewing is BBC or ITV programming. Since the switch
to digital TV signal in the USA, we do not pickup any local channels.

I will not rant about the complete and utter trash of cable/satellite TV.

Just in case anyone is wondering, I have looked into the PTO driven
firewood processors from Finland. They are awesome equipment. they can
process firewood. The down side is most of the wood they process in
Finland is beech or birch. Young growth. nothing more than 10 inches in
diameter.
many logs I have are over 18 inches in diameter and either oak, maple,
walnut, boxelder, sycamore, etc.

one older cedar tree we gave to the local woodworker club for turning
and making cedar eggs for drawers and closets.

well it is late. I need to crawl off to bed. my little Shih Tzu girls
are all ready in bed.


On Sat, 16 May 2015, Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer wrote:

> Hi Terry;
> The first question is, do you do enough heavy forging to make alternate
> fuels economically practical?
> Is there enough BTU value in the grounds to get forging heat?
> Why mess with the blown fines instead of compressing the damp grounds
> into chunks and drying them. Then using the chunks like any solid fuel?
> Any hardwood scraps make decent forging charcoal..broken up salvage
> pallets are popular. Be your own collier. Hardwood chunk charcoal is
> available at big restaurant supply places too.
> Locally, live oak bark ( dried) works.
>
> On May 16, 2015, at 9:04 AM, terry l. ridder <terrylr at blauedonau.com> wrote:
>
> hello
>
> benn chatting with various hobby blacksmiths and the subjest came upon
> alternate fuels for the forge.
>
> coal or charcoal are the preferred choice for fuel.
> propane has become on the expensive side in the last year or two.
>
> several have been using and testing out corn. corn is used in corn
> stoves for heating so why not use it in a forge.
>
> one has taken an older torpedo heater and modified it to use spent oil
> from small internal combustion engines and vehicle engines. The probelm
> is with the noise.
>
> another is using spent cooking oil and is used to make bio-diesel.
> he is trying both ways. just as the spent oil and as bio-diesel.
>
> I was looking for a common item that is readily available for free or
> minimal cost and that would provide a controlable combustion.
>
> i have been experiementing with coffee grounds.
> with all the coffee shops around there are a lot of coffee grounds.
> several shops give away the grounds for use in the garden and flower
> beds. I have done this for several years.
>
> there are several coal fired power plants still in Illinois and
> Wisconsin. There is one in Wisconsin that I am familar with that crushes
> the coal into "fines", basically to me it looks like coal dust.
>
> they use blowers to inject the coal "fines" into the boilers to generate
> the steam for the turbines.
>
> why not do the same with coffee ground to fire a forge?
>
> the difficult part is keeping the firebox hrout enough to ignite the
> injected coffee grounds without having to use an external ignition
> source.
>
> the coffee grounds air dry on baking sheets in the oven. the oven has a
> pilot light which provides just enough heat to dry the coffee grounds in
> a day.
>
> I have been toying with the idea of using waste heat from the forge to
> dry the coffee grounds while in the hopper. this is not working the way
> i envisioned it. air drying is perhaps the best way to go.
>
>
>

-- 
terry l. ridder ><>