making charcoal

[meancoyote]

what is the best way to make charcoal for the forge? right now i make it in my bbq. anybody got a better way?

[unclesam]

I know one way they used to do it, they would make large domed stacks of wood,cover it with dirt leaving a smoke hole at the top and a draft/lighting hole at the base.They had to watch it constantly and adjust the amount of air entering the draft hole or the wood would burn up completely.A better way for us modern folks would probably be to take a 55 gal. drum fill it with hunks of wood ,seal the top with the metal lid that has about a half inch hole in the middle.Then build a fire around it and the heat will burn off the water and drive the flammable gases out of the wood through the small whole in the lid w/o burning up the wood inside, leaving you a drum full of charcoal.

[Mark_and_Nicole]

why would you want charcoal for the forge?
i have a forge myself,and if you are planning to use the charcoal to work metal that's a mistake.
sure ,when i was getting started forgeing i used charcoal but quickly found that charcoal does not give me the temperature or the work time i needed to acheive the results i wanted.
trust me, coal is the way to go my friend if you are going to be working metal or if you are going to do any forge welding(as in damascus)
hope i helped


Mark

[meancoyote]

i have been using a forge for years, i have used charcoal, coal and propane, i like charcoal. i have no problem reaching the temps i need with charcoal, and welding is no problem.

[disleksic]

unclesam that sounds like a pretty cool way of making it -----hey meancoyote is there any way you could put any pics on here to show your forging or stuff you have made sounds very interesting

[SoucetoSea]

I've done it with a fifty-five gallon drum and snugfitting cover before with mixed results. Get a good fire going with hardwood, then through the cover on. I think it helps to have a very small bit of oxygen reaching the flame, and my cover was a little bent to begin with anyway. No gasket in the cover lip either.

[Smoky]

If you are going to make the charcoal in a barrel with the fire UNDERNEATH the barrel, you can capture the smoke and condense it, making creosote. Two products with one "stone" so to speak.
Good for treating fence posts of lesser wood to lengthen their life. Don't get it on you, and don't let horses crib it.

[ASG]

You can collect and clean the wood gas that comes from the steel drum if you set it up correctly to do so. Make the gas pass through some warm water and it'll take a lot of impurities out of it. Basicly, you're doing exactly what William Murdoch did, only he did it with coal, you heat wood (or coal or whatever) in an airtight container, and it breaks down (destructive distillation) into gas and, with wood, you can arrange it to get charcoal and the gas. Storing the gas safely and maintaining correct pressure is the hard part to make it useful for anything. Takes a little creativity to do it right.

[AlchemyAcres]

The best way to make charcoal and take advantage of the gas produced is with a Retort.

http://64.176.180.203/charcoalretort.htm

~Martin :)

[JohnW]

Hey meancyote,
I make a lot of charcoal for forging using the direct burn method in a 50 gallon barrel. I don't say this is the best method, but it works.

First split a barrel of wood. Lengths of 12" or 18" work well, split it to about 1" or 1.5" square. Larger pieces of wood works, but this is about the best size for the method. Also, any sticks that you can pick up will work fine. About any wood will work, oak, hickory, maple, poplar. There's not much difference by the time you reduce it to charcoal. I've heard that pine works fine, I just haven't used it yet, but I will.

Make a fire on the ground, I actually have a sheet of steel on the ground (a barrel side). Add some of your split wood, build a big fire. Shovel the wood, the fire, and the coals into the barrel when the wood is well on its way to charcoal. Add the rest of your wood to the barrel little by little as the fire in the barrel can handle it. You can also restart your fire on the ground. Put the lid on the barrel tight when you've used all of your wood, or when the barrels full. You'll probably have to put a big chunk of wood on top to get the lid tight so the fire will go out. If there's any holes in the barrel, it will just keep on smoldering.

You want the wood to burn all the way through, so that there's no wood left. If you would break a piece, it's all charcoal, no wood. Here's where having larger pieces is a disadvantage, they take too long to burn while the smaller piece are already done.

Don't take the lid off the barrel until it's cool. Then you need a piece of wire mesh to sift out the ashes and the charcoal pieces that are too small. I have a piece of mesh that works just great. It's about 3' by 10' with 1/4" diamond shaped holes. I don't know what it was for, stocco or plaster walls I suppose. I have it shaped into a tube with a couple pieces of twin to hold it, but there's still enough gap in the top to pour charcoal in. Then I pick the tube up by the twine, which makes good handles, and shake it and pour it out one end of the tube into anouther smaller barrel.

So this is a pretty long process. It takes me about 5 or 10 hours to make a barrel of charcoal, but my wife says that other men are smarter. Maybe you can find a quicker way.

[meancoyote]

5-10 hours ant too bad, a barrel would last me awhile

[JAK]

For a small amount of charcoal you could use an upside down coffee cans inside the woodstove. That wouldn't produce enough for a small forge, but it would be enough for experimental purposes. You could use the charcoal to help start the next fire.

[idris]

Hey meancyote,
I make a lot of charcoal for forging using the direct burn method in a 50 gallon barrel. *I don't say this is the best method, but it works.

First split a barrel of wood. *Lengths of 12" or 18" work well, split it to about 1" or 1.5" square. *Larger pieces of wood works, but this is about the best size for the method. *Also, any sticks that you can pick up will work fine. *About any wood will work, oak, hickory, maple, poplar. *There's not much difference by the time you reduce it to charcoal. *I've heard that pine works fine, I just haven't used it yet, but I will.

Make a fire on the ground, I actually have a sheet of steel on the ground (a barrel side). *Add some of your split wood, build a big fire. *Shovel the wood, the fire, and the coals into the barrel when the wood is well on its way to charcoal. *Add the rest of your wood to the barrel little by little as the fire in the barrel can handle it. *You can also restart your fire on the ground. *Put the lid on the barrel tight when you've used all of your wood, or when the barrels full. *You'll probably have to put a big chunk of wood on top to get the lid tight so the fire will go out. *If there's any holes in the barrel, it will just keep on smoldering.

You want the wood to burn all the way through, so that there's no wood left. *If you would break a piece, it's all charcoal, no wood. *Here's where having larger pieces is a disadvantage, they take too long to burn while the smaller piece are already done.

Don't take the lid off the barrel until it's cool. *Then you need a piece of wire mesh to sift out the ashes and the charcoal pieces that are too small. *I have a piece of mesh that works just great. *It's about 3' by 10' with 1/4" diamond shaped holes. *I don't know what it was for, stocco or plaster walls I suppose. *I have it shaped into a tube with a couple pieces of twin to hold it, but there's still enough gap in the top to pour charcoal in. *Then I pick the tube up by the twine, which makes good handles, and shake it and pour it out one end of the tube into anouther smaller barrel.

So this is a pretty long process. *It takes me about 5 or 10 hours to make a barrel of charcoal, but my wife says that other men are smarter. *Maybe you can find a quicker way.
This about the same way that I it being done in Kashmir, back in '89. Except that it was all buried.

[JohnW]

Hey Idris,
Can you give us a couple more details? How do they bury it, do they put dirt directly on the burning charcaol, or do they put a piece of sheet metal over the trench and heap dirt on top. What size wood do they start with? Do they do anything to clean, sort, or resize the charcoal when they dig it up? What do they use this charcoal for?

[idris]

Did not get close enough to get details, they were uphill from me. *But it was buried in the ground, with a heap of smoke coming out while the guys were still there. The charcoal in those parts is mainly used for home heating and cooking: they have what they call the Winter Wife, which is a clay pot filled with charcoal, and carried about with you when out in the winter, on a sling around the neck or on a shoulder, kept under the long robe which goes over the clothes. *Could be an idea that might catch on. Every man had one.

[Mac_Muz]

Look up Eric Slone and his books. You might run a search on line too for "charcoalmongers".

Once this was a so called profession. Some of these mongers dies doing this work, by falling into the pile checking on the progress.. Of course I don't think you will have a pile of wood as large as they did.

The object is to burn off the wood and leave charcoal, which is done with high heat and no o2...