@Gunner 90mph freight train! I imagine that Wisconsin railway man's eyes did get big! We do have a different mix of needs and a different mix of machinery over on this side of the pond, for sure. @Simes Looks like a good bit of kit. Did you dump a pint of kero in at the end there? Do you still have eyebrows?
Holy ****!!!!, Simes!! I'm amazed that it took as LONG as five minutes to boil a measly pint of water! And do you still have eyebrows? Gunner
Eyebrows still intact but it was fun using a simple pot grip, slightly fewer hairs on the back of the hands. An interesting trial run with a few observations and further questions. I used commercial fire kindling, had this been treated in some way to improve flammability? It looks just like simple pine 2*1 lath which I split to fit the stove. It may be worth trying again with larger pieces. The rate of combustion is far faster than pellets. Q do pellets naturally reduce primary air as they are more compact. It was a very open fire bed. The rate of gas production far exceeded the ability of secondary air to mix, hence the combustion so far above the constrictor. If careful I believe I could have recovered Stockholm tar from the pans. The burn time was approx 20 mins at full chat, but from that to the last bits of char took about 15 seconds, it was quite a marked finish to flame production. It may be that little and often addition of more fuel at this point may be the best way to use it. Again another excuse to use again. I will definitely be fabricating a damper for the firebed, but it t might be easier to see what less fuel surface area achieves, bigger 'logs'. There was was virtually no sooting on the stove itself and could be packed away as was.
Have to use the phone to post the remainder of the flame shots. Formating may not be the best. Houston we have lift off, a small sprinkling of.meths was enough. Ok so far so pop the pan on. Accelerating. Escape velocity. Bxxxxxxs, forgot to smear with washing up liquid. The tin of beans took about 3 mins to heat up, long handle spoon a definite help there as they needed constant attention.
Small update of the stove in meths mode. The burner I think was originally marketed as a 'Simon' stove. This is an OUT-D that popped up as a suggestion on Amazon, about £6, but 6 week wait. Needed a coffee and can use this indoors. Central burner dropped into stove body. And after warming up to operating temperature. No scientific fuel measurement, quick guess I had enough in the chamber. Promise I'll do better next time. My biggest concern at this point was over heating the burner assembly as it's enclosed. Possibly getting a little over excited and inefficient combustion, but it works. Couple of mugs of water boiled in 5 mins. Must try this outdoors.
Yes Simon, it izzz called a Simon stove! Dunno why. I had 2 of these, think I sold one on. Cheeerio, Wim
If it's anything like the commercial fire starters we provided for renters staying at our place in Mammoth Lakes, then yes, it's definitely treated. Try holding a piece in your hand and lighting the end with a lighter. ....Arch
@ArchMc Will give it a go, I was going to check on the packaging to see if there were any statement on contents, can't remember where I put it as I only used a couple.of sticks of it. @Marc, @snwcmpr. The stove came with a small SS 'dish'. Having no instructiins with the stove I made an assumption it was meant for holding Hexi or equivalent. I was never happy with the reasoning. Could it in fact be the damper? If this is complete rubbish then let me know. Sitting on the grate it will reduce primary air and divert the rest up the inside of the chamber. Inverted it pretty much covers all grate holes, fire would then rely on air entering centrally through the top.
Two observations from putting the 'dish' in using pellets. Firstly it's not a 'damper', or if it is it really doesn't work very well. Secondly reducing primary air is effective but needs to be across the whole fuel bed. Thinking potato ricer inserts here which come in a variety of hole sizes. As in previous links the holes punched in a can lid. Fuel bed didn't really get hot enough to draw secondary air, or if it did it was not very effective, and probably not getting to gassification state. And the remaining pellets in the dish burned very slowly. Cup of pellets lasted 30 mins but was unable to boil water, max temp was approx 60 Deg C.
Update using lumpy bits. 2*2*1 same kindling sticks. Stove in standard arrangement, slight breeze. Burns with far less intensity and didn't manage to boil water after 20 mins. Sooting on the pan less, but pine is probably not the best fuel anyway for this. It did leave a good char bed that additional fuel could be added to to maintain a fire, pellets are prone to smothering if added as I found out earlier, although I may have introduced them too late on my first attempt or too much. Conclusions. Lumpy bits may have been too lumpy, benign conditions ie indoors as designed for would be best if using less fuel bed. I need to construct a chimney, and some damper disks. The chimney may help in draughty conditions as the flames were easily moved from the pot base.
@Marc @snwcmpr More adventures in TLUD land. Small sheet of Alu, tin snips and a drill. et Voila. 3 inches high. Now let's try it out. Initial lighting. Starting to gassify and pint of water on. Fully up to speed. View into the chamber. Tar residue. Observations. Sitting higher above the flame it just got 2 pints to boiling point, no lid. No real change in burn time. It funneled the flame well, but not too certain about improved combustion overall, given the sooting. @ArchMc Think the kindling wood is just plain kiln dried soft wood.
Think I figured this ^ out. @Simes were you lighting from the bottom? One picture from my latest burn: Didn't catch it in full roar, but it was much more impressive than normal due to a full refuel, which was bottom-lit from the remaining burning fuel. Like firing a boiler, a little and often seems to be much better.
@Marc Thanks for the pics, this is fun isn't it. My impression at this time is the small gassifiers are quite fuel sensitive as there's little ability to adjust the basic combustion process. Pellets provide a uniform fuel bed, and also provide a primary air control. The candle analogy I think is critical here, putting the pot too close to the flame for effective heating results in condensates of the unburnt fuel, the tar. Lifting the pot above the flame unless you can control side draughts reduces the heat energy. The chimney not only provides improved through draught but allows better combustion and in addition directs the heat to the base of the pot. A fundamental shortcoming in the Lixada I have I believe. They are suprisingly efficient, and putting small pieces of simple kiln dried softwood into it resulted in the conflagration we've seen. Same wood but larger pieces reducing effective fuel area by a considerable amount just results in a very slower burn. I have yet to experiment with adding fuel during the process, whether the small stick burn became bottom burn I'm not sure, it just seemed to burn everything at once. I need to try again with 'natural' log wood of a suitable size with a continuous feed once it has a working fuel bed. I can live with the restrictions of the stove as is because it is very compact, I may look to get another with the chimney at some point, my simple efforts look to prove it's effectiveness, but would be nice to have one already designed for one.
ok ok I'm now a TLUD addict. Think this is similar to yours @Marc. Without knowing how these things actually function in real life I bought the smaller version. I think the taller ones will work much better as I think we've discovered. It's few weeks away and I don't think I'll do much more with the smaller one I have now. It does what it does, and very effectively as well. Soot is a side issue I'll have to manage, we'll not eliminate that without forced draught primary air as @presscall has found with recent reports. Oh well now we know. As Ken @snwcmpr has said use the pellets for general standard experiments, for the real world I'll continue with some other lumpy wood.
Sounds good, looking forward to hearing your insights on it. I have a 55 gallon drum of kero, about half empty now. Once I've burned through it, I'm going to put a smaller barrel inside it, cut some appropriate holes, add a chimney, and make a huge TLUD gassifier. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH(cue maniacal laughter now). If kero/white gas/paraffin/meths/etc get out of containment, it can be a real issue. I really like that if wood pellets or sticks get out of containment, it's nothing to worry about at all.
@Marc Think it's spelt MWAHAHA, you missed the W. Also I believe the the stove I have IS designed to be multi fueled at the end of the day. Will work as a wood gassifier, will take a meths burner and a lump of hexi (which I have yet to try). It will not be perfect in each mode but it does seem to work adequately. I may therefore twin it with the pot set previously shown for the longer term. More hexi recipes in the offing I think.
Interesting, I had not thought of hexi or meths. In the last photo I posted, you can see a Lixada multifuel pot support I was experimenting with, to the right of the gassifier. I call it a pot support and not a stove as it was no improvement over three rocks as far as a fire was concerned, but it did come with an alcohol "bowl" burner that can be added, which worked OK. I may try that alcohol bowl in the gassifier, see what happens there.
