Ideas

I see your point. Altruism is in short supply these days, whether or not it's always been that way, I cannot say. Altruism has got to be one of the major forces behind successful innovation, no? At any rate, the greedy always get their fill until they eat them selves to death, I believe that.
 
Paul, that is an awesome idea. The world is changing as it always does, but what's different now is that information can be passed around the world instantly and for free. This forum is a wonderful example. And many guys who cut trees for money or fun are also tinkerers and builders. Patent law helps protect people's ideas, but faster progress is always made when people share. Oftentimes the originator of the idea gets left behind, and people who make a living using other people's ideas and labor usually make the money. However with like minded people sharing ideas we can often pass up those that usually win. Just a few years ago, 3d printers were only available to large businesses, now they can be built for a couple hundred and a couple of weekends. I have built a fair portion of my current gear, and have plans on building more.

As far as your burner goes, the technology already exists in the form of gasification. Before natural gas was used, wood waste and coal were heated without oxygen giving off producer gas, which was piped to provide heat and lighting. The wood and coal were pulverized for easier feeding and controllable burning, which I'm afraid is probably still needed. During ww2, many cars and trucks were converted to use charcoal instead of gasoline, which was in short supply. Even today femas oh $~~t plan to keep our food supply chain moving if oil stops is gasification, complete with plans on how to build a rudimentary one out of a metal garbage can.
 
PCTREE said:
Burnham greed is nothing new but when I was a kid it wasn't a virtue... Wasn't something admirable. I once read the cause of pretty much every civilizations demise is excessive leisure time. There is a certain amount of labour required to sustain a civilization. The less some do the more others have to. Our system is seriously skewed to the idle that reap benefits from the hard workers
Click to expand...

Well, I guess I do live in a bubble...tossed the television 35+ years ago, don't do social media at all. But I have to doubt your premise that today most people see greed as a virtue.

I do not accept your premises, my friend.

If some level of labor is required to sustain a civilization, well hell, this one ought to be at the peak...because every one I know is working their ass off. Sure, there are the one percenters reaping ungodly benefits...but there have always been those. Read your history.
 
For the burner, one important point I see is the duration of the process, regardless of the unit's size. For a mobile system, running from one job site to the next, all has to be ended before everybody goes home. I can't see a trailer of some sort fully loaded of "burning" wood traveling on the roads. I guess some officials would have something to say against that:/:.
The progress speed of pyrolysis front in wood is about 0,6 mm per minute (0,024"). A 20" diameter log (dry) would take almost 7 hours to become charcoal. The furnace would have to be of the size of a marine container for the big trees.
You must divide finely the logs to get a reasonable duration, like the size of kindling. A 1" chunk needs already 21 minutes but that's doable with a continuous process.

Big unit either way, the furnace isn't alone on the trailer.
 
" The less some do the more others have to. Our system is seriously skewed to the idle that reap benefits from the hard workers."

Truer words and all that, only I get flamed when I type it.
 
For the splitter, the first I saw in the vids with the box wedge is the Tempest Wood Splitter. It's an horizontal unit, one or two ways.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KebaeAJUjwc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I didn't look at it for a long time and now there are many with this system.
A fully automated splitter is a good idea, because it makes no sense to muscle over each time the big round to put it back in front of the ram.
Some improvements on those:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xmdWbpqC69M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
But please, no bip-bip-bip !
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uZtGeDPhtyw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rgq0Zi6pR54" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NfPZ-MYlmaU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
But a hand is always needed to ease the things time to time ...
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #35
I had saw the tempest before but not those others from europe. Very close to what I was envisioning . I do see benefits to the conveyor setup as I was having a hard time figuring out how to ensure the block was correctly oriented without manual intervention. Need to let that percolate some....

See this process is already starting to work, merely by the exchange of ideas.

As for the char production , Im not trying to turn the logs into char, they are just the fuel for the process. Wood chips would be augered through the fire box in 4" pipes to produce the char.
 
And a big one, since I live in it, too.
On the other side of the planet.
 
It looks like the Tempest splitter could use a taller bar to push the wood and not have the wood skid away above sometimes.
 
There's an outfit nearby that produces bio-char from the tan oak on their timber lands. The fellow heading it said, "It's a boutique product we sell as a soil amendment for landscape contractors in the Bay Area, and we're making money at it."

It's a cool concept.
 
gf beranek said:
There's an outfit nearby that produces bio-char from the tan oak on their timber lands. The fellow heading it said, "It's a boutique product we sell as a soil amendment for landscape contractors in the Bay Area, and we're making money at it."

It's a cool concept.
Click to expand...

It's a very cool concept (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta) and is a proven one with technology that actually exists on a commercial scale today. If I'm not mistaken all existing coal fired power plants gasify the coal before burning in the boilers (it's how they use all the energy available in the coal). The process they use to gasify the coal is the same for wood, and the input/output streams can be modified to produce more charcoal, up to 50% (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar). This has the advantage of using already existing power plants to literally clean up what they have released over the years. And if soil amendment isn't the carbon sequestration go to after all, the railroad system is already there to ship the biochar to coal mines where it could be buried (which would be super ironic and give coal towns work again).

If you don't think that's cool, just imagine heating and powering your house on woodchips, instead of splitting, stacking, drying, moving logs to wood stove, and then tending a fire all winter. Woodchips are uniform enough to auger in automatically, and moisture content doesn't negatively hurt a gasifier (to a point). That's what got me researching this a few years ago. Too bad it's one of those projects i haven't gotten around to yet lol.
 
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BlackSmith said:
" The less some do the more others have to. Our system is seriously skewed to the idle that reap benefits from the hard workers."

Truer words and all that, only I get flamed when I type it.
Click to expand...

What victim mentality. Life isn't fair. Choose to do something low risk like trade your time for money and get rewarded low.

Life is better than it has ever been in America. It is important to remember that the American dream isn't a promise of anything other than the chance to fail. For every fat cat that makes millions by bringing a great idea to the market place, there are 4 more that went home with a bloody nose.

Life isn't fair. Some people are born to kings and queens. Some are born to poor folks. You can make arguments on how the system is rigged against you or you can go out and change your station in life.

Poor people (Poor = People Overlooking Opportunity Routinely) tend to do poor things like finance cars, TVs, and drink Monster Energy drinks.

I think you will find that most of these people you view as idle actually take risks and bring value to the market place.

I work way harder than I every did in tree work yet I never sweat. Heck, many days I never put on pants.

Risk = reward
Market place determines value

I have to admit, I can't get my hands or head around wealth or what it takes to live, or how one could ever retire. I once heard that if you didn't make $80k, you would struggle and that over $80k, additional money does not bring additional happiness. I cannot correlate money and happiness as I don't like money or things. I do like not worrying. Black ink makes me happy.

There is such an income disparity in our country that I have lost all feeling for income. I once thought $100k was a lot. Now I wonder how a family could make ends meet and save on that. I thought $200K was a lot, only to scale that mountain and bump into folks who routinely bring in over $400k a year. Then I see my neighbor wind up the $2 million Eurostar helicopter he parks on his sport court.

I haven't a clue of the answer but buy into the Mike Rowe philosophy of "chase your heart and dreams is a good motto for your hobby. Chase opportunity is a motto for your career."

For myself, growth has never come from a place of comfort.
 
No, many time risk = bloody nose and no promise that additional risk will get you anything but a bloody nose.

I have been lucky, but I wish someone could have been a fly on the wall in 2013-14 when I had 2 small children zero income and no skills other than mad tree skillz and soft skills. You want to talk about adrenaline sport - nothing like hang gliding.

Right now I consider myself very lucky, but as time passes, luck is going to get less of the credit.
 
I'm a big believer in luck. Be in the right place, at the right time, doing the right things, eventually right things will happen.

Be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong things, and eventually, wrong things will happen to you.

I think making your own luck and making your own weather are related.
 
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