Char cloth

[Adi007]

Just made some char cloth ... on an indoor fire.
What i did was get an old army fuse tin and knock a small hole in the screw lid. Got some cotton and cut it into 3 - 4 inch squares and stuffed the tin.
Then I placed it upright in the fire and waited for the smoke being produced to die down (took about 10 - 15 mins in all). Popped a small stick in the hole at the top and let it cool. Opened it up to find a nice batch of char cloth!
Nice to have something to do by the fire!

 

[Kath]

It smells like bonfire night round here now!

 

[Adi007]

Well,not only does it smell good, but it also works well ... catches a spark easily!

Oh, and the tin is still usable ... not bad for 50p!

http://www.surplusandoutdoors.com/ishop/877/shopscr759.html

 

[Andy]

i used an old golden syrup tin. it seemed to take ages over my little fire and some of the heavier cloth hasn't done enough.

 

[Adi007]

I think the good think about the fuse tin is that it is a tall cylinder to it has a large internal surface area for good cloth cooking!

The fire was pretty hot too!

Did you pre-cut your cloth into smaller pieces?

 

[Stew]

Oi!
Works for me. I use a Callard & Bowser sweet tin as the retort, worn out jeans for the charcloth and I do burn the vented gases. One of these days I might duct them round underneath the tin to help the burn... Silly & excessive, but entirely in character.

I've done this before with results that we didn't expect. I got what I can only call a positive feedback! I bolted a small copper pipe to the tin lid and the gases were vented from the lid down the side of the tin so they fed straight into the fire. The cloth then got hotter and started releasing more gas. This then made the fire burn hotter, making an even greater amount of gas be vented out. Eventually the lid popped off and had to quickly rescue the whole lot rom burning!

Stew.

Well it was a learning experience!

This tutorial looks great, thanks. The problem I am having is getting a suitable retort I have coffee tins from work but they have plastic lids (not much good in a fire). Can anyone suggest anything else or what can I make a lid for the tins out of?

When I didn't have a big tin around I've just got 2 old tin cans and split one about an inch down one side. I put the cloth in then just pushed the tins together. The ridges on the side help keep it ogether and there's enough space to let gas escape.

This was my first post on BCUK on the Char Cloth Tutorial thread. Both methods were done on indoor fires. The tin used in the first method was about 12" long and about 4" across. As you can imagine, when the lid popped there was quite a panic as it was the fire in the front room!

Never had a problem with it stinking the house out though...either that or I didn't notice it... :-?

 

[Adi007]

Funny you mention that Stew ... I was just a little worried that even though I'd made a hole in the lid that I'd left the gasket plate in there (I hadn't though :-D ) ... that would have made an impressive bang!!!!

 

[Stew]

Also, thinking about it, I've never pre-torn the cloth without any problems.

You can fit quite a lot of cloth in a 12" x 4" round tin and it all charred through.

Maybe penetration of charring depends on the heat of the fire?

 

[Adi007]

Charring seems more even when the can is loosely filled with pre-torn cotton squares ... that's my excuse anyway!!!

 

[Adi007]

Anyone tried making char cloth outta silk? It sounds to me like making it out of tenners :shock: and I'm not about to chuck my silk liner into the char cloth pot just yet ... unless there's a really compelling reason for it! :-D

 

[Rob]

Dont know about the silk, but I have had good results with the large tins of nescafe coffee that we used to get in work.

I think that most come with plastic lids now (which is a bit of a bummer) but if you come across one it is well worth holding on to.

Quite large, but when you are in the mood (and SWMBO is making you chuck out some old t-shirts) then you might as well recyle

 

[Adi007]

I'm waiting for some silk to recycle!

 

[Rob]

Sounds like about the only excuse for getting married T:

Escaped another leap year :biggthump