openspaceman

Nor me but I was buying tungsten carbide tipped mulcher teeth rather than chipper blades. It strikes me chipper blades need to be a fine balance of tempering between being hard enough to maintain a sharp edge without being brittle enough to shatter.

We had the first tracked forst 6" and I only used them once or twice, I was impressed with the feed compared with the older timberwolf 150 and greenmechs . Apart from teething problems, I remember loose hoses and blown fuses, they seemed to be okay up to 300 hours but I got sent out to pasture soon after that.

Stress control saves the engine from stalling and keeps the flywheel speed up (which also reduces blockages). Nothing saves the sudden shock of the blade hitting the first bit of wood , other than perhaps reducing the blade protrusion from the flywheel. It is that bite of the blade that flexes the flywheel toward the anvil.

I've not done laths but I wonder if a course is necessary, the business of splitting/riving is straightforward. We were just presented with a stack of chestnut rounds and told to split and point them for stakes. After that thinner stuff, especially hazel, is a doddle. Choosing your wood is the key. The skill is in selecting the bit of the tree length to cross cut for the product you want. Look on a tree as being a bunch of short straws, all overlapping and glued along their lengths with a glue that is weaker in bending than the straws are. When you start a split look at where it is running from the wedge, billhook or froe. If it is running downward turn it over and press down to direct the force to stress the lower glue line. Always push downward to make the split run that way. Always half each cross section till you have the required size. a quick search and this shows the basics https://youtu.be/WB4aZS8xmNE

The cost I presume, if I bought my logs from the local log man it would cost me over £1500 a year, cheaper to use gas, cheaper still to use a heat pump if I had an EV.

Yes and it has had a terrible effect on my solar pv panels, it has already doubled the amount of electricity I have had to buy this winter and no sign of let up. I would normally be self sufficient in 20 days from now.

I'm not so keen on her pronunciation of "lover" in the song mount the air. I have the cd in my car and it jars with me. I think the violin player changed her name from Mary to something more Irish from a bit of voice slipped in commemorating her dad.

and better insulated I wouldn't need to heat with wood.

what's wrong with starting a small fire adjacent and hand balling the heap on to it, that way any mammals can get away. Having seen burning rabbits trying to escape a fire and chasing them to put them out of their pain I won't fire old piles in situ.

I would have thought that is the only time you need to advertise, once you get established most work is from recommendation, or was in my case.

I'm just wondering why HMR&C weren't there dipping their tanks for red diesel use in non agricultural activity

I'm surprised that it gets beyond being torrified as that's only 260°C, without referring to texts I thought it needed to get to 330°C before it was proper charcoal.

I think @adw means put a spacer between the clutch shoes and the drum.

So the 500°C is separated from the char by the wall of the retort. Thus it's unlikely you will achieve equilibrium with the same temperature inside the char, as I said once the char exceeds the ~450° temperature after the exothermic stage more energy is needed as some of the carbon changes from a chain like structure to more graphite like ring structure. I wouldn't worry about cooking it longer, keep an eye on the flames of the offgas and when they die down it's good enough. One thing is that the pyrolysis is much faster than drying wood, so it is better the drier the wood is to start. Else the energy for drying has to be supplied through the retort wall.

Okay before I take it all apart it looks like I need to get the intake boot off to look at the impulse line but suppose this means taking the cylinder off?

Re reading your earlier post it isn't clear that the clutch drum is spinning freely on its needle bearing

If it was plastic string it will have melted into various places, including the sprocket nose bearing.

I thought I had answered that question but I note no answer to my Thursday question. The rate of charring is very dependent on initial mc.

Thanks to spud's link to the secondhand coil and flywheel I have it running with the coil. It cuts well but takes a while to slow down to tickover once the throttle is released, any suggestions. First I will check if the butterfly is snapping shut but I wonder about an air leak. I have a short video: VID-20250206-WA0000.mp4 - Google Drive DRIVE.GOOGLE.COM which I will leave up for a little while

Yes I can see that and presumably it is a bit harder so should wear less??

That's a bit brittle, I have bent a bar through 90° but never broke one

So many variables, species?, Top height?, average dbh?. Stacking whole trees to chip for biomass ,on site, in future can be fraught with difficulties as well as roadside space. It also needs a decent volume to justify the machinery. Firewood works in lots as low as 20m3 if an 8wheeler and crane collects.

I prefer the term pyrolysis offgas for what evolves from slow pyrolysis. To me syngas is specifically a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen that is produced by the gasification ( 0.2 stoichiometric air) of carbon (coke). I am not a chemist and I was too stupid to learn chemistry at school, my brother was though and top of his field in carbon. As to extended cooking; I expect once a retort has reached 450°C no matter how long you kept at that temperature not much would change. It's complicated by the feedstock but if the temperature uniformly ramps up to ~300°C the endothermy of drying and torrefying is over, then there is a short exothermic stage when the pyrolysis continues up to 440°C. After this the carbon matrix begins to change, whilst pyrolysis and cracking witin the matrix continues, and this is likely endothermic.

No need for arguments, I'm happy to explain my understanding but not getting involved with bickering.

It is not gasification and no oxygen is added as in gasification. If you consider that instead of wood being a complex mixture of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and trace compounds you simplify it to a compound of elements in the ratio C:H1.4:O0.6 then when you add energy they disociate and reform as true gases H2 CO CH4 , I haven't accessible text or inclination to work out the proportions but there is little C left over.