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Thread: The Charcoal Foundry
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17th Apr 2007, 10:36 PM #31
It's been a long time since there was a train, let alone one that burns coal, anywhere near here!
There's been a heap of burning off lately, so I'm going to go around and collect some of the leavings and see how it goes. All I need now is some refractory clay to make a furnace. And some time to build it...
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17th Apr 2007, 11:35 PM #32
The old way to produce charcol was to dig a pit, put in heaps of green Euc and set it alight. Once it was burning well you place sheets of iron over the hole, covered in earth and left it pretty much air tight and left it for some time. If you got the process right you would be left with real charcol, if it was still smoldering when the iron came off you stood a good chance of being burnt to death when the oxygen hit it. Another place to get it from was the old gas factories that disappeared when natural gas arrived, the coke from those was very good for the forge. Hope this useless bit of info is of interest to someone. The rubbish left in the fire is pretty ordinary and needs plenty of incentive to create good heat.
John
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23rd Jun 2009, 11:20 AM #33Golden Member
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Charcoal is wood that has been heated to a very high temperature in the absence of oxygen. Hence why it forms at the base of a big fire. The heating drives off all of the moisture and sap and other bits and pieces that exist in timber, leaving behind relatively pure carbon...which is a clean and excellent fuel source for a home foundry or forge.
Briquettes are sort of man made charcoal. They are not suited to foundry work due to the copious amounts of ash they make, and the incredibly quick burn times. During my initial experiments with my foundry I gave up on these real quick.
I read much earlier in this thread that someone in sydney had access to some coke. Is that still the case? I would love to get hold of some of that stuff for my foundry, I reckon it would work exceedingly well!
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23rd Jun 2009, 10:11 PM #34
I was of the belief that briquettes were made from compressed coal dust .
Then there was the woodettes made from compressed sawdust sold for home combustion heaters.
Kev."Outside of a dog a book is man's best friend ,inside a dog it's too dark to read"
Groucho Marx
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24th Jun 2009, 10:39 AM #35Golden Member
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Im referring to "heat beads" and homebrand briquettes which are a wood product chiefly as they are aimed at the BBQ cooking market where coal products are a strict no no. Besides wood they have a whole heap of other stuff in them.They are designed to burn at a relatively low heat for a long time (vs plain charcoal or wood). Of course when you blast air through them this all goes out the window, and they burn up super quick with progigal amounts of ash.
Back in the day when we had an old wood fire dad used to buy a product which I think is what you are referring to. It was a coal product and was definately compressed into a regular shape. I would love to get my hands on some of that for a go at home as I reckon it would be good.
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24th Jun 2009, 10:49 AM #36
The briquettes that Woodlee is referring to were made from crushed and pressed brown coal. They were about 6" or so long like a small brick with rounded ends. I remember our water heater used them when I was a kid. They are still available I believe and still made from low grade coal.
In the northern hemisphere, the word is probably associated more with charcoal or peat products."I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."
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24th Jun 2009, 10:56 AM #37Golden Member
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Looks like they are... Check this link.
www.bestburningfirefuels.com.au
I notice they sell coke too, that would be awesome to get hold of! I used to work in a BBQ and Heating store in Canberra and we never sold anything like this.
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24th Jun 2009, 11:03 AM #38
Yep the Heat-a-brix would be similar to what we used to get. They were pretty common as a fuel in Victoria in the 60's when I was a kiddy. They were made at Yallourn or Morwell, which was pretty close to where we lived. I can remember helping Dad light the heater. He used Jiffy firelighters to get it started and one or two briquettes would heat up the water for a bath.
"I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."
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24th Jun 2009, 11:09 AM #39Golden Member
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Im going to scout around canberra to see if I can round some of this up.
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24th Jun 2009, 02:16 PM #40
Brendan - my neighbor is a farrier & buys coke for his forge in bulk. If you know any horsey people who can point you to any local farriers who still make their own shoes, you might be able to buy enough to keep a weekend warrior going for quite a while? Probably easier than charging about the bush with a sack looking for piles of charcoal, which would be my other suggestion. But not as much fun.....
Cheers,IW
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24th Jun 2009, 02:26 PM #41
Since starting this thread two years ago, I've discovered that a bloke I know is a farrier. He makes his own charcoal for the forge occasionally but mostly he just burns hardwood down and uses the coals.
When he makes charcoal, he does it in a drum with a fire underneath. I've been meaning to go around and have a look, he lives about 5 minutes from my place."I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."
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24th Jun 2009, 09:02 PM #42
Ooo Aghh,
I like this thread.
It should n't be too hard to do some aluminium founding,if thats the word,then.
I would like to make some pipe die formers and pulleys by casting and then machine on the lathe.
How many of us cast and machine aluminium?
Enquiring minds wish to know.
Grahame
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24th Jun 2009, 09:42 PM #43
have cast ally many years ago
My forge was a 13"' holden whhel on the ground and loose sand packed around the perimeter. I used the blower side of an old vac cleaner for the air.
Despite looking like something made by Heath Robinson it worked extremley well
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25th Jun 2009, 10:14 AM #44Golden Member
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Melting the aluminium is childs play....anyone can do it. I did it on a campfire on the weekend. Venting the mold is the hard part. The first part I made was a cast steering boss for a go kart. It came out needing significant cleaning up, but I spose you could call it a success.
Next was a new swing arm for my mates remote control car. despite being asthetically not that flash, it functions perfectly to this day with no further machining required.
Thanks to this thread I got onto Cast Metal Services in brissie re some "petrobond". Turns out they had a 25kg bucket of it in sydney and im getting a mate to pick that up on monday. Cost was $83.97 inc GST. They make this stuff themselves, the price I listed in this thread before was for brand name Petrobond, imported from the united states. I found a guy in vic who sells this for $260 for 20 kegs.
Im hoping my results will improve significantly with this sand. Some of the stuff blokes are casting on the net has very fine detail, which is what im trying to achieve.
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25th Jun 2009, 10:18 AM #45
Is it reusable?
"I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."
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