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Making Charcoal

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Mayhem:
Thank for the info VT

awemawson:
Send your surplus timber over here Vtsteam - it may burn fast but my log burner has quite an appetite and at the moment I'm reduced to burning willow which is very light and fast burning!

ironman:
vtsteam

              I would be really interested in seeing a video when you try those furnaces for the first time melting iron. Charcoal burns very fast compared with coke so you will be adding charcoal a lot when melting cast iron.

vtsteam:
Okay Ironman, I will.

I have been thinking a lot this winter about densifying the charcoal into briquets. If I can achieve the same density as coke then I think the consumption rate might be the same, since they are both pretty much pure carbon.

Briquetting might also make softwood charcoal viable as a furnace fuel.

vtsteam:


Above are some experimental charcoal briquettes. The large one was made this winter and is fully dry. The smaller ones (3/4" diam) were made this afternoon from softwood charcoal. They need to be dried before I can get an estimate of density.

The large briquette is probably hardwood, but the grain size is rather large compared to the smaller ones. I think the new softwood briquettes will actually be denser because the charcoal was more thoroughly crushed.

I do have a density for the large briquette. It is 0.58 g/cc.

Charcoal is generally less than half that (0.2-0.3), while furnace coke is 0.6 to 0.7. So I believe I can get in the ballpark.

I can also make it uniform size to suit the cupola. I think 3/4" is going to be appropriate -- at least according to Stewart Marshall.

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