thanks for the great info, the videos you and other people have made have allowed me to go from not really knowing anything about blacksmithing to being able to make small projects in only a few weeks. 25 years ago to get the same info you would have had to know a very friendly blacksmith who was willing to teach you, your invaluable information is greatly appreaciated please keep making videos and passing on your knowledge
Just wanna say that your videos are very useful, the step by step is next to none. I am a small time forger/smith, my grandfather was a master smith. But anyway thank you again Purgatory. I'll be watching
I'm looking to start my own forge and get into some Blacksmithing . Great Post and video!!!! Your directions are very easy to follow and i never realized how easy it is. Thanks again and keep up the great work.
Awesome videos, I have a lot of lumber that I get from a local wine box maker. I use it for the burn barrel and throw it away. Now that I watched your videos I can use that chard coal in my new forge. I will be building a small one today. Great tips and well made videos. Just subbed.
As always i really appreciate your videos. Since I am running low on coal and it is getting harder and more expensive to buy I will start making charcoal this week. i will experiment with several different designs. yours being one of them. I run my forge several times a week and need a good fuel source. Living on a farm gives me access to plenty of wood. Thanks for the video.
A fair and reasonable answer, forgive my abruptness. As we have discussed quite a bit around my website, the "indirect" method which you describe was found to burn up -more- fuel than the direct method because of the way a barrel has to be heated. For tiny batches, it works but as you get in the 55 gal plus range, the input fuel gets ridiculous and the combustion is very incomplete.
Ah, the age old competition between efficiency in usage of materials vs. efficiency in usage of time. In that light, it definitely makes the open barrel burn much more attractive to someone with a steady supply of wood waste.
Its possible to use Kingsford but its also *possible* to row across the pacific. However, they do sell usable charcoal at lowe's and other places and its known as "lump" charcoal. Anyplace that sells the "Big Green Egg" cooker will have some. Its getting to be quite popular.
Well here is the trick. yes, the retort method is efficient but there is a catch. The barrle is sealed and that means you cannot add to the barrel. So after one burn you may have 1/4 barrel of charcoal. With the direct method and an open barrel you get a FULL barrel of charcoal in the same amount of time
FYI I worked in a lumber yard and while we didn't have cut off pieces we would collect pallets of stickers every week. The sticker are attached to the bottom of the lumber units so a fork lift could pick it up. Just watch out because the pressure treated lumber uses pressure treated stickers.
a good practice with charcoal is to airlock it for a day to snuff out any embers, always works for me, also, always airlock the barrel again when retrieving more for the forge.
If its still smoking then your problem is that the container is not sealed and its still getting air from somewhere. It has to be air tight, use mud to seal all the little holes and it should cool down. Trent
Visually you can see that it has turned into coals, and thats when you snuff it. As far as why you use one or the other, thats a matter of supply and the very reason we switched over. Coal is expensive to get here but wood is abundant and free.
@JimboJitsu yep, but usually eight hours is more than enough to snuff any hot coals. easy way to check is just to touch the barrel. If its still warm, leave it be!
Your videos are very well made. Simpler is generally better. I am a believer in the Keep It Simple Stupid rule. (the KISS rule). LOL. I see a lot of people are giving you flack. Well if they don't like your vid's and want to cridicize you tell them to make their own vids. I enjoy your vid's so keep on making them.
Okay, part 2, please disregard my comment on part 1 asking about showing us the actual making. You did show us, I just had not found oart two yet. Thanks for part two. I pretty much thought this was where it was going, but knowing for sure is always better than assuming.
@MrLeonard55 I do appreciate and there is a fine balance between doing what you want and something everyone else wants. I think the our crew has done a good job of that. Thanks!
Coke is the by-product produced by heating coal in an anaerobic vessel usually in the production of coal (town ) gas, with the forced air flow ie in a forge coke burns at a much greater temp. than coal. Likewise charcoal is produced through air exclusion near the end of a open burn or in an anaerbolic vessel which removes the woodgas, tar and a few other things charcoal will hold together and burn hotter than wood if used with forced air
@Caveman0713 What your are referring to is not the process of incomplete combustion, its the two variations of the method, called direct and indirect. Direct is open container, indirect is closed. Read over the comments on this one as it has been covered ad nauseum.
Coke is to coal as charcoal is to wood. Its a burned down and purified form. Coke is actually what your shooting for in the coal fire. These vids are the old stuff, if you really want a -hell- of a head start, come over to our website!
@purgatoryironworks You're basically killing the fire by starving it of oxygen. Once you've got things burned down to this point, you don't want it to burn any more until you're ready to use it. My question is how did you transfer it? Did you dump it into the other barrel, or basically shovel it out of the old barrel, Trent?
Sorry if I am a bit slow but wanted to make sure I had it down correctly. Burn wood until it is coals then set in air tight compartment for a day or more? I have been wanting to learn this, I have a lot of trees that provide scrap wood every year... Heck if I can make a simple process of it I could even sell extra.
a more efficient method deals with burning and stopping it before you did. you burn the contents until the smoke slows down and you stop getting white smoke, but start getting grey smoke. white smoke means moisture and impurities and once they burn off, the charcoal itself starts burning and you get either grey or non existent smoke. your method is great for a beginner, but if you want to get the most out it, search for "charcoal burn" on youtube and you'll find a couple good videos for it.
@seimears28 This is the issue with arm chair folks, you go look at wiki without -any- experience in the subject. The process your talking about simply does NOT have the output of an open barrel and that's the reason I use this method.
@tallfuzzyone Nope I meant volume. 10 gallons of charcoal is equal to about a gallon of coal burning wise. I am very aware of the difference of density and volume as I was able to get my pants on this morning.
Well, the only comparison is really between coke and charcoal. Think of coal is to coke as wood is to charcoal. They are what the other is made from. But coke and charcoal do have some serious differences and it comes down to availability.
@purgatoryironworks cool thanks! Have you seen the guy who does the gasification videos? He takes the gas and runs a generator... If one could combine that into the charcoal making process...
@kimsey0000 What you want to do is sift out the fines, they will clog the fire. Secondly break the big chunks into golf ball size pieces. Thirdly, try a softer wood next time, like pine. Give these a shot! Plus, what kind of forge set up are you using?
@callistek You must kill the heat and without the oxygen it cannot burn. THe big drum I use takes about eight hours to cool down. If there is ONE hot spot in the entire barrel, it will reignite and burn everything up
i made a forge with the same demetions as the brake drum forge but we cant find a brake drum for my flange so i used a old coffe can and poke vent holes in the botem and i made my first knife out of an old file
And Id like to make one other point, you are using "incomplete combustion" to make wood into charcoal. Thats giving it just enough oxygen to continue combustion but not enough for it to completely combust. I am unsure of what you speak of when you say that the carbon must "oxidize". Could you explain?
Hey! i got a question, isnt it better to get your fire going in your barrel and than put ur wood (you want to be charcoal) in a can and trow it in and totally let it burn out? or does that just count for pyrotechnician grade charcoal? btw nice tut mate :)
@mythril4 Going to have to take you to task on this one. True, the charcoal has much less ash inside the barrel but for the fuel that must be burned in order to get it is not cost effective. A lot of folks like to talk about the indirect but its simply -not- worth it in production.
Nice video, I prefer a twin chamber retort although it is not as straight forward to make there is less smoke produced to upset my neighbours. When I first started forge work we used coke, not the sugary fizzy drink but the waste produce from the old coal gas industry. The less efficient retorts used most of their coke for the fires in the retort, but the better ones used to have surplus piles of the stuff which they sold back to the coal merchants, if we bought it by the lorry load we got it dirt cheap I'm not sure what BTU coke fires produce in comparison but I'm sure that it is a lot cleaner than coal
I'm curious, what are your opinions on the retort method, wherein the volatile gasses released by the wood from the indirect method are fed back around to sort of burner assembly under the burning chamber? I've been told it's a little more controllable and obviously it's at least a bit more efficient than the straight fire-fed indirect method, but is it efficient enough compared to the direct method to make it worthwhile?
I make my own charcoal in a similar way right now, but I am always looking for a cheap source of coal. Where do you get yours from? Assuming you use a lot of coal...
about how long does it take to burn it down to charcoal. about the same amount of wood that you used? also could you make a video about how to forge a sword if you havent already?
As always, i welcome other opinions but its rather obvious you have not followed our discussions and the reason why I use open top method. I would strongly assume that you have never made charcoal yourself or your statements here would be a little different. And I would inquire, whats makes one charcoal more "useable" than another?
Hey? What The Hell? @2:56 the sound went off during a close-up of the fire! I love the sound of a crackling fire with birds chirping in the background!!
How long should you store them in the airtight part? And What is the purpose of the air-tight part, is it to completely kill the flame without making it moist?
I wish you hadn't edited out how you transferred the super hot charcoal from its barrel into the other? In November 2000 Boeing profs (SPEEA) were on strike and we had burn barrels (with a chimney) and I'd get it cherry red towards the bottom. In fact during a heavy rain we had a four foot zone of dry sidewalk around the barrel.
I have done it both ways. It seems to me that you have to burn up and waste an awful lot of fuel (potential charcoal) to get the process started using the retort method.
