what i got wrong for the first months watching your channel was: i thought everything is final. but now i know its a process. I love being part of this journey and i respect the crative work! thank you
literally just film whatever you do and talk about it as you do it, i'd watch it as would everyone else. you live a charming hard worked life that you built for yourself, are well educated in the art of working within limitations, and your whole operation is basically the american dream. Being able to provide somethng for one's family on their own terms is something most of us wish we could do.
Bridging would be a problem for a wide hopper, but if you kept the sides straight vertical and made the hopper several feet tall, that would keep bridging minimal and allow you to use the weight of the charcoal itself to push the charcoal against the blade (rather than needing a squisher).
This is a good idea. And if you make it tall enough to fit a whole wheelbarrow full of charcoal into it, and made some kind of simple ramp up to the top, you could reduce the amount of shoveling you have to do. #SaveYourBack
Ah you considered the rock crusher approach, that is where I was leaning toward. Yet, you have proven your approach to work well. One thing I would try is reversing your blades so you save the sharp side for cutting your wood and the back side for crushing your charcoal. Not sure if you would want to put a dull blade grind on that back side, but I bet you could even have it square and it would probably work fine and not dull your fine blade edge. 11 minutes a wheelbarrow load is mighty fine! Like you said it may not be commercial but it is a boutique bonanza for the small producer. Since you have perpetual motion going for you, you could have an army of these tables in a line being fed by trained monkeys. I was watching an old video of a pail workshop in Italy maybe? It was all ran with water power, the hammers, snippers, etc. We lost that simplicity somewhere along the way. I think your finding it once again.
I just love your presentation style. Reminiscent of Oliver Postgate narrating classic programmes like Pogles Wood, Bagpuss and Noggin the Nog. You are obviously extremely talented but have the ability to come across as an enthusiastic amateur which engages people who may feel out of their depth watching an out and out professional. It certainly works for me. 👍
I use an old mighty mac style hammer mill. I built a custom rotor, swinging 32 "leaf spring steel" .25x3.5x2 hammers/knives. It spins slowly, 200-500rpm, powered by a 6hp engine with 4.5 to 1 belt reduction. I also made an adjustable outlet "screen" with removable leaf spring steel slats that can rattle around slightly to reduce clogging. Biochar is surprisingly abrasive. The old truck springs I used were annealed, cut and drilled easily, reheated to dull red, then hardened in oil and tempered back to "straw color" . I use it for compost/char/soil mixing too. It can chip biochar nearly as fast as I can shovel. Chip sizing is not as consistent as yours, but close. It will still clog if the biochar is too wet.
no problem. I will send some pics soon! I have been tinkering with biochar making machines, planting willow for future biochar (1 acre so far) and testing properties of biochar for filtration, gardening and pyrotechnic uses for a few years now. might have a few questions for you too in that email...
I can't wait to see one day the whole production line in work. From the moment lorry dumps the load of branches near your railway, through chopping, drying, cooking, grinding, packaging, transporting and selling. How long do you expect the batch turnaround to be? How many batches are you aspiring to produce say within a month (giving you would do nothing but that). Isn't drying a bit of a bottleneck? Keep up awesome content. PS: I would love to see Sandra in these videos from time to time.
Dear inventor Tim. 👍👌👏 Congrats! Seems to work just fine for you. Thanks a lot for making teaching explaining recording editing uploading and sharing. Best regards, luck and especially health to all of you.
There are never problems on this channel....only solutions!! It's absolutely fantastic! Congratulations on the ever improving mechanics and processes, Tim. You're doing an amazing job. Your vids give the greatest joy on Saturday mornings while I sit and sup my coffee. I makes me want to take annual leave, go to west Ireland and volunteer my help so you can get your enterprise really rocking! Well done. Looking forward to whats next. Greetings from Perth, Western Australia.
A plate crusher probably would be quite good for this kind of crushing, wet material isn't really a huge problem for them unless the material is particularly sticky. I used one quite a lot for metallurgical samples, rock and soil. It never really got clogged except when it was fed big chunks of wet clay. Even then it still slowly cleared the clay, but ended up speeding it up by ramming that through with a 2x4.
I have had many comments and ideas in my mind, but seeing you spitting out solutions your self, and having way more experience than me, I love to sit back and enjoy instead. Thank you for sharing all this. Hidden jem here on UA-cam. You will soon hit many houndreds of thousands subscribers
Improvise, adapt, overcome...... Your videos are always a great example in problem solving in ways that don't require huge budgets. Thanks for keeping up this great project!
I use a crappo Bosch "gear pump"-type garden mulcher for my charcoal (works like an automotive oil pump). It might be a bit quicker than yours, but your final product looks more consistent (so far as I can tell from the image on my phone screen!). I'm not sure if these mulchers are still sold, since they're bloody hopeless for their intended purpose of mulching wood -- but as they're geared down to work very slowly, they do surprisingly well processing charcoal (for my modest needs on a small-holding). Although I imagine that your CNC plasma cutter could easily knock out a couple of giant "gears" for a bigger version of this type of system (should you wish to explore such an approach).
Nice one Tim. If you leave 2 inches of charcoal in the hopper, stop the machine, then light the charcoal you've got an instant barbeque😁. A dual purpose machine!
I love watching your progress on this amazing project. Kudos on doing a time study. I work with small scale farmers in the U.S. to encourage and help them track time on their farms to help them understand the cost to produce things so that they can make sure that an enterprise (such as garlic or chickens or whatever) is "profitable." All too often labor, that of farm workers as well as that of the farm owner, is inadequately compensated. Down the road, I would encourage you to do time studies on the entire process in order to help determine the selling price for your biochar. As you are certainly well aware, there are a lot of steps and factors to consider! Cheers.
Efficient or not, it's always satisfying seeing the machine startup and run. People don't really build this sort of stuff anymore, as far as I know. Its kind of like re-living a part of history and a lot of fun too! Thanks for sharing :)
You Sir are a master of Victorian/Steam Punk? style ;) engineering, with such a fine informative, story telling narrative; using practical modern tech. I love your channel, all the best to you all. Thankyou :)
Good content. If you used a 2 pin hinge system for the press lid (e.g. a pin at the front of the hopper connected to an arm going to a pin at the back of the lid (you can see this arrangement on allot of flatbed toasted sandwich makers or grills)). that would make the lid work better.
*@Way Out West - Workshop Stuff* 10:40 About the con-rod being bent or so. Again, make it break where YOU want it to break in that case, so it breaks some part that is very easy to replace, for example a "shear pin" (as you know). Make it "fail safe" as in; when it fails, "it fails in a safe way".
That's an interesting machine, weren't sure what you were going to do with the coal at first. But I really like how you talk! You would be a great story teller!
I grind the charcoal with a Chipper (Garland 780). The trick is to have the right moisture and to remove the exit chute. If the charcoal is to wet, it will bridge and the chipper will get clogged. To dry, and it will get dusty. I do get smaller particles that the ones you show in the video and some dust. In any case, it solved my grinding problem and I am able to take it around my property.
What a wonderfully satisfying crunchy chuffy noise. M³/hr dunno mebbe 1 and a bit given the 14min for two barrows. Keep up the good work we are loving it here in Tang.
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 we sieve it, use the larger pieces for smelting, the "fines" go for biochar. We've a big A frame support with a sloping sieve, we pour our barrels down the sieve. We use barrels to seal and quench our charcoal as we want it crispy for smelting. When we finish a burn we lightly quench the surface with a watering can and shovel into barrels, a small hole in the bottom prevents vacuum collapse and a lid seals well enough to prevent burning whilst cooling.
Looking good Tim. Let’s assume commodity value mentioned in the farmers journal for Biochar is €1750 per tonne. I’d say you have what? 30kg in one wheelbarrow? Even at half rate that’s €26.25 per 30kg or €875 per tonne. The question is labour time and process time+ fuel consumption + packaging + any other costs + taxes. Regionally sold I’m sure you’ll make a few quid. It’s not a process for the faint at heart!
It's curious that it's sometimes sold by weight - because it can hold a lot of water. That barrowful probably weighs 70kgs, but in a week it could be half that
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 A lot of bagged garden products here in Australia are sold by volume, as this does away with the problem of water loss vs stated bagged weight.
Volume makes sense but in a world of freight and haulage weight is key, my advice would be to try replicate your process and work within a certain RH level.
@9:42 - You're correct! Those types of crushers do NOT handle softer materials well. Sticks, charcoal and mud would likely blind the feeders over and clog the jaws.
I know I had suggested bi-directional cutting before, but if you have concerns with the connection rod flexing, just use a weaker shear pin, or make it more spring loaded. You've already got a spring in there, so just make it more of a working feature. Better to have a partial stroke and a bit of a warning with the spring getting compressed. The jam will probably clear on the next pull stroke. It might require nothing more than slotting the shear pin hole so the machine is pushing the pin against a spring in the tube rather than the pin just working against the hole it's in. It'll still shear on the pull stroke. Oh, and don't make the machine more efficient than the speed you want to work at. . .
Good stuff, thanks Tim. May be you could fund the project by selling sound bites of the machinery working. I think it sounds wonderful - needs to be in a quirky or eccentric movie of some kind!
Brilliant developments. I was thinking if you don't mind having alternative ideas brought for suggestion. Would a traditional style stone mill work? I wanted to make a hand powered one for grinding flour but it is apparent that it can be adjusted to produce larger granules if you fix the gap between the top and bottom stone which can be steel instead of stone. With the speed and power your motor produces it would grind a wheel barrow full in a couple of minutes if not less by my reckoning. They're relatively very simple to build. Love what you've done already though. Cheers J
Thanks, Josh. Always ready to consider new suggestions! Those stone mills are magnificent and I would like to try it - but I guess they'd need constant flushing through with water to stop it clogging up? Grains have to be super-dry to go through them, I think?
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 Its hard to tell if it would clog, maybe it would... Than less you built an auger screw for it but then that's complicating it. Fun to build though. Cheers J
Hi Tim your assumption that a jaw crusher would clog up with wet charcoal is correct, they do not like wet sticky materials at all. I can give you this as first hand information as I own and use a jaw crusher myself. Love the videos and the rambling explanations don't change anything the content is individual and enjoyable.
I wonder if you might get the same result more quickly if you replace the blades with expanded metal grating for the grinding process. in theory you could have the entire base made with it and get a grind in both directions across the full length of the stroke. In theory you could also vary the size of the grind with different sizes of grating. Edit: obviously this wouldn't be useful for making shingles, but modularity is a great thing
Love your videos! I’ve watched every one now. Just a tip if possible you could put the hinge point of the “smoosher” device further out. That will make the angle of it less steep when pushing down and it will be more effective with bigger loads. Cheers!
well done. 1. your plate crusher idea could work with wet charcoal if you added a third plate that would lift and drop in a groove on the fixed side with a small motor with a cam that would sort of act like a scraper after each opening cycle, then lift up again when it crushes. would be easy to do with a limit switch that triggers to drop when the crushing jaw is widest open, and lift with another limit switch when it is past a certain stage of closing. can wire the limit switches as two relays on a DC car wiper motor which are cheap to get. but how it works now is great too. 2. would be great to have a sort of jig that you can switch between the two modes easily just by changing a few bolts. one for logs and one for the charcoal. 3. the ball mills that are used in the mining industry is another idea. can take an old oil drum and add some flatbar support to it to reinforce it, and then use large deformed ball bearings (which can be bought for cheap at scrap yards) and grind the charcoal like that. it should also give you the same consistency you are after depending on the time in the ball mill and it will be able to do it with wet charcoal. can add a belt directly onto the drum to turn it from the large flywheel. and then use gate rollers to support the drum from three points on the front and back to keep it steady. How Ball Mills Work (Engineering and Mining) ua-cam.com/video/aVQ9B3LtCPk/v-deo.html
As always, thanks for the video Tim! :) The weight from the wet charcoal should hopefully be heavy enough that if you have a hopper above to feed it down into whatever grinder you're using, it shouldn't be necessary with the push plate above. A jaw-crusher should be self clearing due to the motion it makes, again material above it will help push stuff down and through. They have no problem grinding down wet gravel and clayous materials. Granted, these are abit heavier than wet charcoal but I think it should work. Worth an experiment, don't you think? :)
Just the natural movement would stop it from clogging but because it presses it in and crushes it to a certain size then draws back allowing anything to size will naturally drop down
@9:34 - Funny you should mention a jaw crusher. I used to service such machines and I was thinking that a horizontal impact crusher (secondary crusher) would be ideal!
Great video, great narration. Love it! My ideas would be: To use some sort of funnel, angled surface instead of the front plate and to either angle the surface of the "squash plates" or change the lid (hinge it higher or with double joints as already suggested maybe) such that it presses down more unifomely. But that is probably tricky to build. :)
Probably too late now, but if you cut those 'squash plate' timbers on an angle they would press down against the charcoal with a parallel surface (ie pushing the coals furtherest away from the hinges at the same time as pressing through the ones closes to the hinge). That might increase efficency. Thanks for all the videos, I couldn't watch them without you! ;-)
you would need a hinged press down. So when you pull down you need to be able to contact the whole area. So really you need this to be spring loaded and a handle to press down. For example two pipes, Have you ever seen a commercial dishwasher? You know how the doors move up and down by they handles. that is exactly what you need just with the wood bits. That is what you need This would also allow you to fill the hopper up with the entire wheel barrel then add the weight while you move the empty one and bring in a new one.
@@brycereid7047 yes and know. I can not recall if this was the comment I said dishwasher. Yet A commercial dishwasher uses a simple movement upward which then open the 2 end to allow the tray in. You could build something much like this to open and then press down evenly. You could also do the same thing with a bit taller hopper then using the weight to hold it down while you then use some sort of life that dumps it all in. Yet I am sure that this whole thing can be solved by just making a much taller hopper and keeping it full and then at the end of the run just drop a weighted slab on it to finish it out. Though you would need a lot of wheel barrels there to keep up. The other thing would be to make a simple fork lift using a winch then sliid the fish box on it and then raise it up and the tilt or some thing to dump the fish box in to the hopper. This way you can have everything you need right there and with an empty fish box you then can fill it up with finished product. Though this might change in to something else. I gave Tim a pretty simple idea on how to make one of those rock crushers. I think he is going to try it maybe, I kinda hope so. I took what I know and broke it down to some time as simple as possible and if he ponders over it and tries it we may see an entire new idea born.
A delightful problem you're working on. While the single unit may not be commercially viable, I think it's not meant to be. However, what it is good for is to work out the concept of production. Once you have a design that makes the best finished product to your eye, that final machine can be reproduced three or so many times in order to make production you're seeking. Another idea for a grinder comes to mind. One with a set of wheels that spin opposed to each other. One or both of the wheels has raised nubs that can grab the charcoal and pull it down into the shatter zone between the wheels. Since the wheels/drums would be spaced, say a double finger width apart, with the nubs long enough to bridge half that length. Though the wheel/drum should be set so that the nub from one would land in a clear space between the nubs of the other.
A hinged plate rock crusher vibrates itself, and so should unstick any stuck charcoal. But you would have to load it no more than its capacity or the weight will overcome the strength of the vibration that unsticks it via compression. The only solutions to that is either to press down REALLY hard, or load it light enough that it doesn't stick. On the loading thing, it could be possible to make a hand cranked belt loader, a flat and long hopper whose bottom is a belt, walls on all sides with a slot at the end determining the material loading speed. Or you could stand near the rock crusher and load it manually like you're doing for this one. Hint: you need to adapt the vibration speed to the material AND size of output.
I watched every episode. My opinion is to weld up a old large pipe with a hole at the top with a hopper and a slot at the bottom . Material can only fall through . Set it up with some hardox 400-500 on the ends of a hammer mill set up. Kinda like a concrete / stone grinder. Simple and proven to work
Hi Tim, great Videos and great process! You asked what we user for grinding. Well I use a hammermill. It goes very well and fast. But the material must be totaly dry otherwise it clogged.
9:30 A circular version of this design is how quarries dispose of boulders on-site. They crush up boulders the size of fridges. Sometimes they bury the whole crusher under rocks and gravel and it never slows down, and the massive pile of rocks just sinks in on itself as it gets eaten. There are youtube videos of these machines in action, worth a watch! I would guess that it is less likely to get jammed up with wet charcoal, because the whole shape of the container holding in the pile of charcoal is changing, basically forcing the pile to shift and keep falling, and pressing down on the charcoal at the bottom harder and harder. I've never worked with any of these machines or touched wet charcoal, I'm just guessing. The boulder crushers are different from your diagram in that the bottom edge of the crushing surface moves more than the top edge, which is probably more resistant to jamming, just at the cost of more power. And truly, the only kind of jam I've ever seen them get is when a boulder sits at the top of the crusher because it's too big to fit down in. Anything that actually goes in is done for. Maybe, since charcoal is so much softer than stone, a variant of a conical boulder crusher could work just by spinning in place, like a giant pepper grinder.
Have you considered making a gyratory grinder? It would be similar to the plate grinder but in a cylindrical form. The gap between the gyrating armature and the outer cylinder determines the size of the output. I don't think they are as susceptible to clogging as a plate grinder would be.
Like you mentioned, double cut for in and out stroke. You could use 1/2" bars welded vertically and expand the work area 4x, then theorically, you'll reduce your time 3/4 less... now I'm intrigued lol I love the work and will sub to follow...
If you were going to re-make another machine for grinding up charcoal, I wonder if you could make a gyrating cone crusher. They are normally used in industry to make HUUUUUUGE boulders into tiny little aggregate (fancy term for rocks that are worth more than regular rocks) and the videos of them crushing up stuff is very satisfying to watch. But, rock is kinda like charcoal, because you don't want dust. You want chunks. And by moving the cone back and forth, you can adjust the output very finely, and with just a little screw instead of re-welding a slot more or less. That would work well with the short output you have from the engine, I would think. Because you want the cone to be moving a tiny amount, which multiplies the force a lot. And since the charcoal is far more brittle than rocks, the materials would not have to be made for the same pressures.
If you are using a jaw crusher the easy way to decake it is to use water to move the material. Just have a small stream of water from a spray bar or better yet a large stream of water that pushes material in from a hopper and is just recycled by a pump after the char is removed with a screen. We used to just break it by hand but we werent making that much so it was easiest.
I think that adding that extra blade and the hinged top has definitely improved productivity, plus as you say it's easy to convert the cutting table to slice the timber for burning. 11minutes for a barrow, considering your man handling for part of the process is pretty good. Think you need the weigh it though to find out a true time of manufacture. It would be interesting to see how much it costs to make, wood, fuel and man hours. Think you could easily find a market for the product, either in Ireland or over here in the UK. Every one wants natural products these days, we don't want something that has been sullied in a factory or shipped thousands of miles.👍🤗
Seems to be coming along nicely You have effectively 2 machines - a wood slicer and a charcoal grinder, but they absorb different power. One variable is stroke, number of blades etc, but the other is speed = so gearing from the engine. This may be a bit tricky but you can cut profiles of gears out on a CNC cutter like yours, in fact you could cut out shapes for an entire gearbox. Depending on how the power output of the engine is controlled, you need to match the torque and power of the driven machine to the output of the motor. To get some idea of the torques involved, you could devise a tension spring in the connecting rod, with some suitable pointers, strap a small camera to the rod and see what happens when it runs - from the film you could read how much the spring extends, then, knowing the spring rate, you can get the axial load in the con rod. And thus how much power each machine uses. Then simple calc to work out the best speed to run it at - maybe different speeds for slicing and another for grinding. So a 2 speed gearbox with dogs - but now this is getting really mad LOL I am also dreaming of a Heath Robinson device with levers and flip flops, winding drums, ropes and pulleys to intermittently lift the sliding hopper thingy you made for loading the wood slices, dunno what to call it, but very nice nonetheless. Reminds me of Neals Yard water clocks - perhaps get Tim Hunkin to help - in fact, are you not him ? Same name and all
Never apologize for giving us content! We're always appreciative to see how your projects are coming along.
The charcoal videos are great. All the videos are great!
I don't even know what this invention is. A giant cheese grater for charcoal?
Why not just process it in a ball mill.
@@Coecoo because that would make to fine of a powder. He doesn't want fine particles of charcoal he wants chunks of charcoal
@@PrezziePrez If you ball mill it for a long time, it turns into a powder yes. You can do it just for a few minutes in order to get chunks.
what i got wrong for the first months watching your channel was: i thought everything is final. but now i know its a process. I love being part of this journey and i respect the crative work! thank you
Guess it’s final if it works not just good but good enough.
it amazes me how long lasting good enough can really get ya.
Cool video. The story of this grinder is more gripping than most netflix boxsets.
Always makes me smile when a new video comes out :)
literally just film whatever you do and talk about it as you do it, i'd watch it as would everyone else. you live a charming hard worked life that you built for yourself, are well educated in the art of working within limitations, and your whole operation is basically the american dream. Being able to provide somethng for one's family on their own terms is something most of us wish we could do.
its just good wholesome, content man, is all.
Bridging would be a problem for a wide hopper, but if you kept the sides straight vertical and made the hopper several feet tall, that would keep bridging minimal and allow you to use the weight of the charcoal itself to push the charcoal against the blade (rather than needing a squisher).
You can also greatly reduce bridging by making at least one surface move with slotted bolt holes and a simple cam to bump it.
This is a good idea. And if you make it tall enough to fit a whole wheelbarrow full of charcoal into it, and made some kind of simple ramp up to the top, you could reduce the amount of shoveling you have to do. #SaveYourBack
@@manitoba-op4jx All i can imagine is a Dr. Seussian type invention where a boot on a motor is kicking the side of the hopper XD
@@DirkSchut yall bump this suggestion so it gets seen
what weight?
Ah you considered the rock crusher approach, that is where I was leaning toward. Yet, you have proven your approach to work well. One thing I would try is reversing your blades so you save the sharp side for cutting your wood and the back side for crushing your charcoal. Not sure if you would want to put a dull blade grind on that back side, but I bet you could even have it square and it would probably work fine and not dull your fine blade edge. 11 minutes a wheelbarrow load is mighty fine! Like you said it may not be commercial but it is a boutique bonanza for the small producer. Since you have perpetual motion going for you, you could have an army of these tables in a line being fed by trained monkeys. I was watching an old video of a pail workshop in Italy maybe? It was all ran with water power, the hammers, snippers, etc. We lost that simplicity somewhere along the way. I think your finding it once again.
I just love your presentation style. Reminiscent of Oliver Postgate narrating classic programmes like Pogles Wood, Bagpuss and Noggin the Nog. You are obviously extremely talented but have the ability to come across as an enthusiastic amateur which engages people who may feel out of their depth watching an out and out professional. It certainly works for me. 👍
Every time you spin up The Wheel it's just terrifying to watch.
Now I want to build one.
I use an old mighty mac style hammer mill. I built a custom rotor, swinging 32 "leaf spring steel" .25x3.5x2 hammers/knives. It spins slowly, 200-500rpm, powered by a 6hp engine with 4.5 to 1 belt reduction. I also made an adjustable outlet "screen" with removable leaf spring steel slats that can rattle around slightly to reduce clogging. Biochar is surprisingly abrasive. The old truck springs I used were annealed, cut and drilled easily, reheated to dull red, then hardened in oil and tempered back to "straw color" . I use it for compost/char/soil mixing too. It can chip biochar nearly as fast as I can shovel. Chip sizing is not as consistent as yours, but close. It will still clog if the biochar is too wet.
thanks Ryan - interesting. No videos of it though?
I could send info if interested. Otherwise, its just a hammer mill wood chipper/shredder spun much slower with much heavier hammers.
Thanks, Ryan. I get the idea, but it would be great to see a photo or two of the hammers if you can be bothered. rustyironpig@ gmail.com
no problem. I will send some pics soon! I have been tinkering with biochar making machines, planting willow for future biochar (1 acre so far) and testing properties of biochar for filtration, gardening and pyrotechnic uses for a few years now. might have a few questions for you too in that email...
I can't wait to see one day the whole production line in work. From the moment lorry dumps the load of branches near your railway, through chopping, drying, cooking, grinding, packaging, transporting and selling. How long do you expect the batch turnaround to be? How many batches are you aspiring to produce say within a month (giving you would do nothing but that). Isn't drying a bit of a bottleneck? Keep up awesome content.
PS: I would love to see Sandra in these videos from time to time.
The sound when you start the machine and coppling in the belt is THAT great !!
TY ++ 👍
Great vid, love seeing the progression of the grinder and seeing the wheel makes me happy every time!!!
Dear inventor Tim.
👍👌👏 Congrats! Seems to work just fine for you. Thanks a lot for making teaching explaining recording editing uploading and sharing.
Best regards, luck and especially health to all of you.
A good idea turned into a functional machine, I love watching what you get up to, thank you.
5 and a bit barrows and hour seems reasonable to me. Love the ideas process and simplicity!
There are never problems on this channel....only solutions!! It's absolutely fantastic! Congratulations on the ever improving mechanics and processes, Tim. You're doing an amazing job. Your vids give the greatest joy on Saturday mornings while I sit and sup my coffee. I makes me want to take annual leave, go to west Ireland and volunteer my help so you can get your enterprise really rocking! Well done. Looking forward to whats next. Greetings from Perth, Western Australia.
I only wish I had the time and resources, to f*** around like you do figuring stuff like this out for myself…. What a fun channel to watch.
Experimentation is how things are developed in the real world. I like your experiments. Keep them up!
A plate crusher probably would be quite good for this kind of crushing, wet material isn't really a huge problem for them unless the material is particularly sticky. I used one quite a lot for metallurgical samples, rock and soil. It never really got clogged except when it was fed big chunks of wet clay. Even then it still slowly cleared the clay, but ended up speeding it up by ramming that through with a 2x4.
I have had many comments and ideas in my mind, but seeing you spitting out solutions your self, and having way more experience than me, I love to sit back and enjoy instead. Thank you for sharing all this. Hidden jem here on UA-cam. You will soon hit many houndreds of thousands subscribers
Please keep the tinkering coming really enjoy 😊
One of my new favourite channels.
Great stuff.
I love your methodical approach to experimentation. Really enjoy your vids.
Improvise, adapt, overcome...... Your videos are always a great example in problem solving in ways that don't require huge budgets. Thanks for keeping up this great project!
finally finished the channel binge for now. Keep up the great work!
Thanks, will do!
I use a crappo Bosch "gear pump"-type garden mulcher for my charcoal (works like an automotive oil pump). It might be a bit quicker than yours, but your final product looks more consistent (so far as I can tell from the image on my phone screen!). I'm not sure if these mulchers are still sold, since they're bloody hopeless for their intended purpose of mulching wood -- but as they're geared down to work very slowly, they do surprisingly well processing charcoal (for my modest needs on a small-holding). Although I imagine that your CNC plasma cutter could easily knock out a couple of giant "gears" for a bigger version of this type of system (should you wish to explore such an approach).
Thanks, David. I need to find someone who has one already so I can see for myself
Nice one Tim. If you leave 2 inches of charcoal in the hopper, stop the machine, then light the charcoal you've got an instant barbeque😁. A dual purpose machine!
The heat would definitely damage it, though.
Your videos area always such a delight, I enjoy all the ones that I watch and I have many left to watch - which is a good thing for me.😀👍
Thanks for the effort in filming all this and the story telling. 👍🇦🇺
I love watching your progress on this amazing project. Kudos on doing a time study. I work with small scale farmers in the U.S. to encourage and help them track time on their farms to help them understand the cost to produce things so that they can make sure that an enterprise (such as garlic or chickens or whatever) is "profitable." All too often labor, that of farm workers as well as that of the farm owner, is inadequately compensated. Down the road, I would encourage you to do time studies on the entire process in order to help determine the selling price for your biochar. As you are certainly well aware, there are a lot of steps and factors to consider! Cheers.
Efficient or not, it's always satisfying seeing the machine startup and run. People don't really build this sort of stuff anymore, as far as I know. Its kind of like re-living a part of history and a lot of fun too! Thanks for sharing :)
This is the way the Industrial Revolution first started
This is some backyard engineering and i love it
I never thought I would become an expert on charcoal grinding.
You Sir are a master of Victorian/Steam Punk? style ;) engineering, with such a fine informative, story telling narrative; using practical modern tech. I love your channel, all the best to you all. Thankyou :)
Thank you for a great informative video. I’m always fascinated by these useful machines!
Good content. If you used a 2 pin hinge system for the press lid (e.g. a pin at the front of the hopper connected to an arm going to a pin at the back of the lid (you can see this arrangement on allot of flatbed toasted sandwich makers or grills)). that would make the lid work better.
Nice to see how your machines are coming along, hope you get more railway laid soon!
I hope so too!
I do love that lid, I hope that even after the squash plates and handle are installed it makes that lovely honk - I need a Goose Plate of my own!
I don't know why I am here, but I enjoyed this video and it was very well done!
It's always a pleausure to watch the videos of your marvelous machinery ⚙🔧
*@Way Out West - Workshop Stuff*
10:40 About the con-rod being bent or so.
Again, make it break where YOU want it to break in that case, so it breaks some part that is very easy to replace, for example a "shear pin" (as you know).
Make it "fail safe" as in; when it fails, "it fails in a safe way".
The con-rod already have an shear pin. Con rod is one big with one smalller pipe inside. Connected by a pin
That's an interesting machine, weren't sure what you were going to do with the coal at first. But I really like how you talk! You would be a great story teller!
Cool, thanks!
Looks like you’re getting that thing working good. Looks like you could expand it again and again too. I love the design.
I grind the charcoal with a Chipper (Garland 780). The trick is to have the right moisture and to remove the exit chute. If the charcoal is to wet, it will bridge and the chipper will get clogged. To dry, and it will get dusty. I do get smaller particles that the ones you show in the video and some dust. In any case, it solved my grinding problem and I am able to take it around my property.
I love this process. That machine is amazing. You are awesome !!!😊❤😊
Tim, Good day. Always a great day when you post a video. Thanks
What a wonderfully satisfying crunchy chuffy noise. M³/hr dunno mebbe 1 and a bit given the 14min for two barrows.
Keep up the good work we are loving it here in Tang.
Thanks, Tim. Do you grind your charcoal at all?
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 we sieve it, use the larger pieces for smelting, the "fines" go for biochar. We've a big A frame support with a sloping sieve, we pour our barrels down the sieve. We use barrels to seal and quench our charcoal as we want it crispy for smelting. When we finish a burn we lightly quench the surface with a watering can and shovel into barrels, a small hole in the bottom prevents vacuum collapse and a lid seals well enough to prevent burning whilst cooling.
Yes, that makes a lot of sense
Awesome gadgetry! Your getting close now!
Your inginuity Tim, never ceases to amaze me!
I like it. Its one of the best so far.
Absolutely love this type of Engineering
Great work Tim thanks
Looking good Tim. Let’s assume commodity value mentioned in the farmers journal for Biochar is €1750 per tonne. I’d say you have what? 30kg in one wheelbarrow?
Even at half rate that’s €26.25 per 30kg or €875 per tonne.
The question is labour time and process time+ fuel consumption + packaging + any other costs + taxes.
Regionally sold I’m sure you’ll make a few quid. It’s not a process for the faint at heart!
It's curious that it's sometimes sold by weight - because it can hold a lot of water. That barrowful probably weighs 70kgs, but in a week it could be half that
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 A lot of bagged garden products here in Australia are sold by volume, as this does away with the problem of water loss vs stated bagged weight.
Volume makes sense but in a world of freight and haulage weight is key, my advice would be to try replicate your process and work within a certain RH level.
Thanks shoestring Tim! Love the videos :)
Very satisfying to watch
Excellent to see you iterating and innovating :)
Oh thank goodness you took your impact driver off the machine before firing up the engine! I was anxious there for a second!
It'll happen soon enough : - )
😅
Excellent progress 🎉
Great work 🎉 love to see a new way out west video 😊
@9:42 - You're correct! Those types of crushers do NOT handle softer materials well. Sticks, charcoal and mud would likely blind the feeders over and clog the jaws.
That hinge might be better as a floating hinge with a small weight on the lid. If you over fill, the back can lift a little for even down pressure.
I know I had suggested bi-directional cutting before, but if you have concerns with the connection rod flexing, just use a weaker shear pin, or make it more spring loaded. You've already got a spring in there, so just make it more of a working feature. Better to have a partial stroke and a bit of a warning with the spring getting compressed. The jam will probably clear on the next pull stroke. It might require nothing more than slotting the shear pin hole so the machine is pushing the pin against a spring in the tube rather than the pin just working against the hole it's in. It'll still shear on the pull stroke. Oh, and don't make the machine more efficient than the speed you want to work at. . .
Happy Friday everyone
Good stuff, thanks Tim. May be you could fund the project by selling sound bites of the machinery working. I think it sounds wonderful - needs to be in a quirky or eccentric movie of some kind!
Brilliant developments. I was thinking if you don't mind having alternative ideas brought for suggestion. Would a traditional style stone mill work? I wanted to make a hand powered one for grinding flour but it is apparent that it can be adjusted to produce larger granules if you fix the gap between the top and bottom stone which can be steel instead of stone. With the speed and power your motor produces it would grind a wheel barrow full in a couple of minutes if not less by my reckoning. They're relatively very simple to build. Love what you've done already though. Cheers J
Thanks, Josh. Always ready to consider new suggestions! Those stone mills are magnificent and I would like to try it - but I guess they'd need constant flushing through with water to stop it clogging up? Grains have to be super-dry to go through them, I think?
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 Its hard to tell if it would clog, maybe it would... Than less you built an auger screw for it but then that's complicating it. Fun to build though. Cheers J
As always, another brilliant video. I this charcoal enterprise works out for you!
Hi Tim your assumption that a jaw crusher would clog up with wet charcoal is correct, they do not like wet sticky materials at all. I can give you this as first hand information as I own and use a jaw crusher myself. Love the videos and the rambling explanations don't change anything the content is individual and enjoyable.
I wonder if you might get the same result more quickly if you replace the blades with expanded metal grating for the grinding process. in theory you could have the entire base made with it and get a grind in both directions across the full length of the stroke.
In theory you could also vary the size of the grind with different sizes of grating.
Edit: obviously this wouldn't be useful for making shingles, but modularity is a great thing
Love your videos! I’ve watched every one now. Just a tip if possible you could put the hinge point of the “smoosher” device further out. That will make the angle of it less steep when pushing down and it will be more effective with bigger loads. Cheers!
Great video, enjoyable to see your progress.
Great progress!
well done.
1. your plate crusher idea could work with wet charcoal if you added a third plate that would lift and drop in a groove on the fixed side with a small motor with a cam that would sort of act like a scraper after each opening cycle, then lift up again when it crushes. would be easy to do with a limit switch that triggers to drop when the crushing jaw is widest open, and lift with another limit switch when it is past a certain stage of closing. can wire the limit switches as two relays on a DC car wiper motor which are cheap to get. but how it works now is great too.
2. would be great to have a sort of jig that you can switch between the two modes easily just by changing a few bolts. one for logs and one for the charcoal.
3. the ball mills that are used in the mining industry is another idea. can take an old oil drum and add some flatbar support to it to reinforce it, and then use large deformed ball bearings (which can be bought for cheap at scrap yards) and grind the charcoal like that. it should also give you the same consistency you are after depending on the time in the ball mill and it will be able to do it with wet charcoal. can add a belt directly onto the drum to turn it from the large flywheel. and then use gate rollers to support the drum from three points on the front and back to keep it steady.
How Ball Mills Work (Engineering and Mining) ua-cam.com/video/aVQ9B3LtCPk/v-deo.html
As always, thanks for the video Tim! :)
The weight from the wet charcoal should hopefully be heavy enough that if you have a hopper above to feed it down into whatever grinder you're using, it shouldn't be necessary with the push plate above.
A jaw-crusher should be self clearing due to the motion it makes, again material above it will help push stuff down and through.
They have no problem grinding down wet gravel and clayous materials. Granted, these are abit heavier than wet charcoal but I think it should work.
Worth an experiment, don't you think? :)
Just the natural movement would stop it from clogging but because it presses it in and crushes it to a certain size then draws back allowing anything to size will naturally drop down
Great project. Really inspiring to see
@9:34 - Funny you should mention a jaw crusher. I used to service such machines and I was thinking that a horizontal impact crusher (secondary crusher) would be ideal!
Great video, great narration. Love it!
My ideas would be: To use some sort of funnel, angled surface instead of the front plate and to either angle the surface of the "squash plates" or change the lid (hinge it higher or with double joints as already suggested maybe) such that it presses down more unifomely. But that is probably tricky to build. :)
Probably too late now, but if you cut those 'squash plate' timbers on an angle they would press down against the charcoal with a parallel surface (ie pushing the coals furtherest away from the hinges at the same time as pressing through the ones closes to the hinge). That might increase efficency. Thanks for all the videos, I couldn't watch them without you! ;-)
Good idea
you would need a hinged press down.
So when you pull down you need to be able to contact the whole area. So really you need this to be spring loaded and a handle to press down. For example two pipes, Have you ever seen a commercial dishwasher? You know how the doors move up and down by they handles. that is exactly what you need just with the wood bits. That is what you need This would also allow you to fill the hopper up with the entire wheel barrel then add the weight while you move the empty one and bring in a new one.
The machine does not need to be super fast if you have things you have to do inbetween time.
@@kameljoe21 a panini press style lid hinged in the center! 🥪
@@brycereid7047 yes and know. I can not recall if this was the comment I said dishwasher. Yet A commercial dishwasher uses a simple movement upward which then open the 2 end to allow the tray in. You could build something much like this to open and then press down evenly.
You could also do the same thing with a bit taller hopper then using the weight to hold it down while you then use some sort of life that dumps it all in.
Yet I am sure that this whole thing can be solved by just making a much taller hopper and keeping it full and then at the end of the run just drop a weighted slab on it to finish it out.
Though you would need a lot of wheel barrels there to keep up. The other thing would be to make a simple fork lift using a winch then sliid the fish box on it and then raise it up and the tilt or some thing to dump the fish box in to the hopper. This way you can have everything you need right there and with an empty fish box you then can fill it up with finished product.
Though this might change in to something else. I gave Tim a pretty simple idea on how to make one of those rock crushers. I think he is going to try it maybe, I kinda hope so. I took what I know and broke it down to some time as simple as possible and if he ponders over it and tries it we may see an entire new idea born.
A delightful problem you're working on. While the single unit may not be commercially viable, I think it's not meant to be. However, what it is good for is to work out the concept of production. Once you have a design that makes the best finished product to your eye, that final machine can be reproduced three or so many times in order to make production you're seeking.
Another idea for a grinder comes to mind. One with a set of wheels that spin opposed to each other. One or both of the wheels has raised nubs that can grab the charcoal and pull it down into the shatter zone between the wheels. Since the wheels/drums would be spaced, say a double finger width apart, with the nubs long enough to bridge half that length. Though the wheel/drum should be set so that the nub from one would land in a clear space between the nubs of the other.
A hinged plate rock crusher vibrates itself, and so should unstick any stuck charcoal. But you would have to load it no more than its capacity or the weight will overcome the strength of the vibration that unsticks it via compression.
The only solutions to that is either to press down REALLY hard, or load it light enough that it doesn't stick.
On the loading thing, it could be possible to make a hand cranked belt loader, a flat and long hopper whose bottom is a belt, walls on all sides with a slot at the end determining the material loading speed.
Or you could stand near the rock crusher and load it manually like you're doing for this one.
Hint: you need to adapt the vibration speed to the material AND size of output.
Your just amazing with your inventions and ideas
I watched every episode. My opinion is to weld up a old large pipe with a hole at the top with a hopper and a slot at the bottom . Material can only fall through . Set it up with some hardox 400-500 on the ends of a hammer mill set up. Kinda like a concrete / stone grinder. Simple and proven to work
Woo another video :D I always look forward to your content
Hurrah! Thank-you!
Hi Tim, great Videos and great process! You asked what we user for grinding. Well I use a hammermill. It goes very well and fast. But the material must be totaly dry otherwise it clogged.
thanks, Peter. Interesting. Does it produce a lot of dust?
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 it would, but with a cyclone I blow the charcoal direct into a big bag.
And in the feeder is no dust.
Great work Tim! Any type of mechanical contraption building in this style is very interesting to me!
No idea what you are doing or why, but it was good viewing, thank you.
love your videos.. Keep innovating! 😀
9:30 A circular version of this design is how quarries dispose of boulders on-site. They crush up boulders the size of fridges. Sometimes they bury the whole crusher under rocks and gravel and it never slows down, and the massive pile of rocks just sinks in on itself as it gets eaten. There are youtube videos of these machines in action, worth a watch!
I would guess that it is less likely to get jammed up with wet charcoal, because the whole shape of the container holding in the pile of charcoal is changing, basically forcing the pile to shift and keep falling, and pressing down on the charcoal at the bottom harder and harder.
I've never worked with any of these machines or touched wet charcoal, I'm just guessing.
The boulder crushers are different from your diagram in that the bottom edge of the crushing surface moves more than the top edge, which is probably more resistant to jamming, just at the cost of more power. And truly, the only kind of jam I've ever seen them get is when a boulder sits at the top of the crusher because it's too big to fit down in. Anything that actually goes in is done for.
Maybe, since charcoal is so much softer than stone, a variant of a conical boulder crusher could work just by spinning in place, like a giant pepper grinder.
Have you considered making a gyratory grinder? It would be similar to the plate grinder but in a cylindrical form. The gap between the gyrating armature and the outer cylinder determines the size of the output. I don't think they are as susceptible to clogging as a plate grinder would be.
lovely as always
I don't grind my own charcoal but your set up seems to work very well I don't see the point in changing it.
Like you mentioned, double cut for in and out stroke. You could use 1/2" bars welded vertically and expand the work area 4x, then theorically, you'll reduce your time 3/4 less... now I'm intrigued lol I love the work and will sub to follow...
If you were going to re-make another machine for grinding up charcoal, I wonder if you could make a gyrating cone crusher. They are normally used in industry to make HUUUUUUGE boulders into tiny little aggregate (fancy term for rocks that are worth more than regular rocks) and the videos of them crushing up stuff is very satisfying to watch. But, rock is kinda like charcoal, because you don't want dust. You want chunks. And by moving the cone back and forth, you can adjust the output very finely, and with just a little screw instead of re-welding a slot more or less. That would work well with the short output you have from the engine, I would think. Because you want the cone to be moving a tiny amount, which multiplies the force a lot. And since the charcoal is far more brittle than rocks, the materials would not have to be made for the same pressures.
If you are using a jaw crusher the easy way to decake it is to use water to move the material. Just have a small stream of water from a spray bar or better yet a large stream of water that pushes material in from a hopper and is just recycled by a pump after the char is removed with a screen. We used to just break it by hand but we werent making that much so it was easiest.
I think that adding that extra blade and the hinged top has definitely improved productivity, plus as you say it's easy to convert the cutting table to slice the timber for burning. 11minutes for a barrow, considering your man handling for part of the process is pretty good. Think you need the weigh it though to find out a true time of manufacture. It would be interesting to see how much it costs to make, wood, fuel and man hours. Think you could easily find a market for the product, either in Ireland or over here in the UK. Every one wants natural products these days, we don't want something that has been sullied in a factory or shipped thousands of miles.👍🤗
Seems to be coming along nicely
You have effectively 2 machines - a wood slicer and a charcoal grinder, but they absorb different power. One variable is stroke, number of blades etc, but the other is speed = so gearing from the engine. This may be a bit tricky but you can cut profiles of gears out on a CNC cutter like yours, in fact you could cut out shapes for an entire gearbox.
Depending on how the power output of the engine is controlled, you need to match the torque and power of the driven machine to the output of the motor.
To get some idea of the torques involved, you could devise a tension spring in the connecting rod, with some suitable pointers, strap a small camera to the rod and see what happens when it runs - from the film you could read how much the spring extends, then, knowing the spring rate, you can get the axial load in the con rod. And thus how much power each machine uses.
Then simple calc to work out the best speed to run it at - maybe different speeds for slicing and another for grinding. So a 2 speed gearbox with dogs - but now this is getting really mad LOL
I am also dreaming of a Heath Robinson device with levers and flip flops, winding drums, ropes and pulleys to intermittently lift the sliding hopper thingy you made for loading the wood slices, dunno what to call it, but very nice nonetheless. Reminds me of Neals Yard water clocks - perhaps get Tim Hunkin to help - in fact, are you not him ? Same name and all
11 minutes for a heaped wheelbarrow load sounds pretty good to me!
For your current level of operation, your setup would work just fine, you can always scale up in the future if things take off.
I was going to suggest you checking out a plate mill to see what other people are doing! but I think this method is working great so far :)
Nice improvement!