smiles

Good effort Woodworks - is the retort insulated under the cladding,if so,is it rockwool or suchlike? Not sure,but I get the feeling that the low pressure yellow flames at the end of the burn is the charcoal itself going up - had lots of these when the barrel deformed on mine and the lid popped off! - lost half a batch on that one,but was too bloody hot to see what was happening inside! Selway bags are good - but as Ty says the delivery kills it for small numbers,thinking of buying a self inking stamp to put my details on the Coppice association bags. Cheers Steve

If you're converting one as I think from other posts you may be,then When I converted mine to a king/stretch cab,I used the original roof and bought a fibreglass section for the rear rounded bit and cut the roof dwon to suit - I think the company was called NorthOffroad,but not 100% sure - I'll dig the name out if you're interested? Cheers Steve

I converted a CSW into a kingcab with a small Hi Cap Tub,it was all fairly straight forward,so a direct change should be easy enough if your good with the spanners - also worked out cost neutral after flogging the removed bits on Ebay - apart from all the time spent that is! You can pick up all of the bits on ebay or breakers - think meccano,then had to go down to the local DVLA office with a couple of snaps to change the body type on the registration document.

Lloyd I'll PM you an option! Cheers Steve

If you just have the holes at the bottom of the barrel,the wood inside will be exposed to the flames and then start to burn itself - whereas the manifold keeps the exposed flame away from the wood. I guess that it would work when the wood inside got hot enough to start gassing - but you may have lost a fair amount of it by then!

How much do you reckon you want to get rid of ?

Well,Kept the faith,reduced the jet size in the manifolds,reduced the amount of wood in the drums to allow the gases free exit,rammed the retort with about as much sacrificial wood as I could - and kept the doors shut,for most of it anyway - had to open the righthand door when the gassing on the lefthand barrel looked like faltering (the righthand barrel would appear to have finished by then). And the results were superb,well pleased 100% conversion,very little dust. Thanks for all the advice and support - got to uprate the air inlets and start thinking about insulation! Cheers Steve

Thanks for all the suggestions chaps,not easy to rotate or turn the drum as the frame that supports them would get in the way of the manifolds and the drum has to be loaded in position and is too heavy to move afterwards - however will try to seal lid better and improve heat containment/insulation and try again at the weekend. The faith is a bit stronger than it was ,but I'll do a couple of tradditional burns just in case! Cheers Steve

Good point,definately seemed to work best around here - mind you I suppose the this would be the hottest part,I put in the three vent points to try and allow the gas free passage,a lot of the remaining brown ends were stuck together with tar so must need to get hotter.

Yeah,just an over-centre sort of clamp that pulls the lid onto the rolled joint - mind you I had to pay £10 for each drum!

I thought that,but had the fire woofing good and hard for two and a half hours and its distorted the 1" box section that the drums sit on! I thought that the wood gas would take over at this point and I could sit back and relax ! If I do have to add more fuel wood i may as well go back to the old kiln system as I will run out of wood, a bit frustrating to say the least! Cheers Steve

Thanks Farmer Tom,feeling a bit more upbeat today! Just used the clamps to seal the drum,but there was the odd gust of gas escaping from there,instead of the intended route! so may seal it with a dob of clay or something.

Thanks John, i had seen that one,but had discounted it on the loss of volume from the central flue - but looks like the insulation is going to be key,just wanted to test the theory out before investing in insulation,but looks like I might have to bite the bullet on that one! was the double barrel just piggy backed on top? Think your gut feel is the same as mine Chris,next plan is to block half the holes and reduce the hole size on the remaining ones. The brown ends were thoughout the drum,but the best conversion was generally at the top of the drum and close to the drum skin. Just the one flue,being lazy on that one,it's the old oil filler hole which is six inch with a length of seven inch liner screwed on - but it didn't seem to be shifting much smoke,thinking that two smaller liners may be better,get hot and draw better directly over each drum!

Managed to scrape a meagre four bags out in the end,but 80% were brown ends. Pics of manifolds attached - any input is more than welcome! Cheers Steve

Cheers Chris,was pleased with the theory,just a bit dissapointed with the test run! I haven't got any pics of the manifold,too hot today - will try and take some tomorrow -makes sense about smaller jet holes,may need to fill some in as well I really wanted the unit to be trailer mounted so that i can take it to felling sites to process the odds n' sods that aren't big enough to go for firewood,double the value out of the day sort of thing,but I think that Rockwool is going to be the way for insulation once the process is sorted! Post some more pics up tomorrow,all being well. Cheers Steve

Well,fired up newly cobbled together charcoal retort today - and the results were not exactly stunning. I've made a small bucket-in a-bucket one up a while ago and it worked fine,so have now tried to scale it up by mounting two oil drums inside a steel oil tank (been using drums for a while and want to improve yield/efficiency - so thought that aretort was the way to go) How ever when I fired it up it never really got going,had loads of heat around it and it started gassing a couple of times,but didn't sustain the gassing for more than 5-10 minutes. The drums are full of short lengths of seasoned birch and hazel - I couldn't shut the outer doors as this seemed to kill the fire - so am thinking the flue needs to be bigger to allow the exhaust out and the manifolds from the drums may have too many holes in,two 7mm holes every 75 mm,about 24 in each manifold,maybe too many to allow the pressure to build? Any thoughts anyone? Cheers Steve

looks like a great site to work on Chris,weather doesn't look too bad either

good stuff - is that Warnham?

Cheers Nick - wonder what it is though,was kind of hoping that someone was going to say Celotex would be fine!

are there any rigid sheets of insulation that would cope with the heat being generated do you reckon?

Not Gas,but it took Power Networks four months to bill me for a cable damage bill,just when i'd thought they'd forgotten.....

Not just me then,even gets me climbing line on a good day!

Hammelyn,but on the advice of a mate I binned the tyre straight away and replaced it with a two ply trolley tyre - never had a puncture,the wheel has now been on three wheel barrows,but not the wifes because she never tips it up at the end of the day and the tub rots out!

Catweazel - fantastic looking dog,is he a pointer?

Has anybody run a tractor driven topper onto the pile to smash it up? been thinking of giving it a go when I get time,realise it won't be a fine mulch,but it might just work!