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Post by photoman290 on Apr 23, 2015 1:48:40 GMT -8
anyone had a go at making a sawdust stove. there seems to some good designs out there. was looking at the one on youtube made by sixtyfiveford. there is an interesting comment about using a weighted plate with holes to slow down the burn. think it may be worth doing some experiments with. being the sort of person who has to see if i have the right size bits i was rumaging aroiund my scrap collection in thew dark with a head torch and a tape measure last night. i have a stainless tank 18 inches diameter which should fit nicely inside a 22 inch diameter oil drum. not sure what size flue i should use considering the usual problem of flue sizing with rockets. anyone care to run though the numbers. my flue is 6 inch and the gap between the 2 drums will be 2 inches. link to his vid www.youtube.com/watch?v=odK33HlcAAs |
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Post by peterberg on Apr 23, 2015 2:51:06 GMT -8
This same method is quite old. Fifty years ago my first employer used it in a kind of potbelly stoves. Regretably not as a contraflow but it worked nevertheless. From what I've heard about this, it used to be very common among kabinet makers and carpenters.
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Post by Daryl on Apr 23, 2015 4:41:51 GMT -8
Haven't made one but I have seen plenty on youtube. The first ones I saw were built by guys over in the UK. Like Peter said, woodworkers find this pretty handy.
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Post by Daryl on Apr 23, 2015 5:42:41 GMT -8
I think this is one of the first ones I ever viewed. It is a sawdust/rocket combo. They do mention adding sand to the top to keep the top from burning in the comments.
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Post by photoman290 on Apr 23, 2015 7:55:04 GMT -8
i remember making one when i was about 14 out of an old paint tin. i found the design in an even older (1920's) book called scouting for boys or something like that. that was 50 odd years ago. funny how some things remain in your memory, especially that sort of stuff. guess like top gear it appeals to the 10 year old in us. the design i saw had 4 holes near the bottom of the tin and you put 2 broom handles in them across each other with the usual stick up the middle. not sure if this is important or not. i haven't seen any using that design recently. i guess the idea is so you can put the tin straight on the ground and always have a draft from any wind direction. the reason for the interest is that i have found a supply of free sawdust not far away at a local sawmill.
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Post by DCish on Apr 23, 2015 8:37:47 GMT -8
How dry is the sawdust you have?if it's dry enough yo burn well that could be a cool fuel source.
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Post by DCish on Apr 23, 2015 8:41:21 GMT -8
As I recall, somebody posted making a sort of hybrid between a J and an L tube rocket, firing it with homemade briquettes of biomass about 6" in diameter. Might be worth checking out as well.
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Post by photoman290 on Apr 23, 2015 9:27:05 GMT -8
the sawdust is from cutting seasoned softwood mainly pine and mahogany. there will be some ply as well i expect,but no tantalized so that's good. i can live with a small amount of resin from the ply. i have after all been burning waste engine oil for the last 2 winters. i also have a supply of green sawdust from a another source but suspect it wont be any good due to the high moisture content. i have thought about briquettes and pellets but both are quite labour intensive or power hungry in comparison. i like the idea of a hybrid. i thought with the you tube vid i posted one could control the top temperature by the amount of sawdust you put in. i already have my thermal mass so the thing to test is if it will draw from the bottom of the drum. i could modify the flue exit so it comes out of the side instead which will make construction easier.i will of course test it outside before i put it in the yurt.
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Post by malton on Apr 27, 2015 21:05:07 GMT -8
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRo6UFAfPIoppotty has some good ideas. at least good ideas to a rookie like me . i want to try smoe of his ideas if and when i get my first stove done.
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Post by malton on May 14, 2015 0:23:46 GMT -8
i tryed taking a small barrel (15 gallon) and cutting a hole in the bottom about 2" and putting a pipe in it and filling it 1/3 of the way up with packed sawdust. i then put it on top of my rmh prototype ( mostly finished . just havent commited to a feed style.) i pulled the pipe out and placed it on the fire brick feed that was quite hot and lit the bottom. it was a failure. it was crudly done. but i dont think it have worked well if i mounted it better. ill try to get pics for the adhd people like myself.
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Post by DCish on May 14, 2015 11:28:58 GMT -8
I bet you could take a batch box, make an insert the width of the throat and the height of the firebox, pack sawdust on both sides, pull out the insert and let 'er rip...
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Post by photoman290 on May 15, 2015 7:06:13 GMT -8
having looked in detail at ppotty1's sawdust rocket i am planning to make a batch box but top feed it rather than front feed it. his design is almost a batch apart from the secondary air intake being different. this design should work well on both logs and sawdust,hopefully.
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Post by DCish on May 17, 2015 10:58:03 GMT -8
Reloading might be tricky from a smoke-back perspective unless you wait until it's completely into the coaling stage, then quickly drop in the log or two and close up the top.
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Post by woodburner on Jun 5, 2015 17:42:11 GMT -8
I've made several stoves in sizes from paint tins to 5 gallon tin pails. some were made in large cooking pots from ebay in sets of 5 for around £30. They all work. The hole in the middle for the small ones is about 1" and for the large about 2.5", though this just happened to be a piece of plastic drain pipe. To protect the tin I put a layer of ash in the bottom, and to prevent poor performance, I put a layer of ash on the top. If you miss out the ash on the top the fire spreads over the top and it makes a lot of smoke.
Sawdust stoves are the most useful stoves for outside catering in that they need so little attention while they are burning, and with an adjustable air supply, they can burn for many hours.
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Post by mkrepel on Aug 1, 2015 9:06:58 GMT -8
This looks like a great way to use up the sawdust from cordwood production. Maybe this could be used to heat a shop after cutting the wood for heating the house. Of course, rocket stoves take away a lot of the need for cordwood, but living, like I do, in an extreme climate might require a fair amount of cordwood to feed a rocket stove or batch box. I don't know, possibly the sawdust from smaller amounts of cordwood wouldn't be enough to make it worthwhile, but maybe some cordwood outfit would have a lot of it laying around...
It makes one think a little.
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