Coal Fire?
- Thread starter RobeKinn
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used cotton wool and Vaseline instead last time, when the stupid thing went out and there were no fire lighters left
Split wood to fine pencil thick pieces. Use newspaper scrunched into a ball to get the sticks going or roll newspaper and tie into a knot. Pile them up and then get the coals around them. You want the flames from the wood and newspaper to lick up against the coal. No point having your starter fire on top of the coal, nothing will happen!
Definately paper and kindling sticks with coal on top. Once the coal gets going get the fine particles of coal from the bottom of the bag or box and dampen it slightly with water and shovel it on top of the lumps of burning coal and the fire will burn for hours with no interference, it's called backing up the fire round these parts.
Coal by itself is hard to start burning. You need to heat that "green" coal up to drive off lots of the chemically bonded gasses inside it - leaving you with just the carbon fuel - called coke. Just like turning wood down into just coals - leaving you with charcoal, you do the same with coal to get coke. And that coke is then much easier to start burning. You will see the difference between green coal and coke. It is about half the weight, more gray colored, and crumbles easier than coal. But it is now mostly pure carbon fuel for your fire - with few impurities left in it. So when you have your coal fire going, you should always save some of the coked out coal to help you in starting the next fire. Just push some of the "coals" off to the side and they will go out.
To start a coal fire, you basically have to start a small wood/paper fire. Crumpled up newspaper or shredded strips of cardboard to start the fire, with small sticks of wood on top - with your coal piled up around the outside. As your "wood" fire starts burning, place some of your coked out coal on top. Or put some small pieces of green coal on top. The heat will start baking out those "gasses" and eventually get the coal to burning. That coked out coal just starts burning a lot sooner and easier. And the smaller the bits of green coal, the easier they are to get burning. Once you get some of the coal/coke burning, slowly start adding more chunks to get more of a fire going. And then start adding more green coal up the sides and over the top. All that Smoke you see is the heat driving off those "gasses" and getting your coal to that coke stage where it will burn.
As you get your fire going and start adding more green coal on top, you will also see that the green coal is having some "oils" baked out of it. This helps pack/bind together that coal to create a layer that covers over your fire and helps hold the heat inside. And that extra heat also them helps turn that green coal layer into coke to burn.
So start a small wood/paper fire first to then get your coal fire burning. Otherwise you are relying upon that lighter fluid to burn long enough to then get your coal burning. That can some time, but goes faster with that already coked out coal.
And every now and then I get frustrated and just pick up the gas torch and blast the coal/coke in the forge until I get it going enough! Some days the coal fire just doesn't want to start, but I never take the "hint" and go do something else.
Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
To start a coal fire, you basically have to start a small wood/paper fire. Crumpled up newspaper or shredded strips of cardboard to start the fire, with small sticks of wood on top - with your coal piled up around the outside. As your "wood" fire starts burning, place some of your coked out coal on top. Or put some small pieces of green coal on top. The heat will start baking out those "gasses" and eventually get the coal to burning. That coked out coal just starts burning a lot sooner and easier. And the smaller the bits of green coal, the easier they are to get burning. Once you get some of the coal/coke burning, slowly start adding more chunks to get more of a fire going. And then start adding more green coal up the sides and over the top. All that Smoke you see is the heat driving off those "gasses" and getting your coal to that coke stage where it will burn.
As you get your fire going and start adding more green coal on top, you will also see that the green coal is having some "oils" baked out of it. This helps pack/bind together that coal to create a layer that covers over your fire and helps hold the heat inside. And that extra heat also them helps turn that green coal layer into coke to burn.
So start a small wood/paper fire first to then get your coal fire burning. Otherwise you are relying upon that lighter fluid to burn long enough to then get your coal burning. That can some time, but goes faster with that already coked out coal.
And every now and then I get frustrated and just pick up the gas torch and blast the coal/coke in the forge until I get it going enough! Some days the coal fire just doesn't want to start, but I never take the "hint" and go do something else.
Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
Another vote for scrunched up newspaper covered with wooden kindling then coal on top, its also handy of you can put the shovel into the front of the grate with a sheet of newspaper to give the fire a better draw (well a sheet of aluminium from old discarded Men At Work sign does it better cos it doesn't catch fire but not many have one of those lying around, ahem).
Aaaah, but aluminum can and does burn - if you get it hot enough. That one Brit warship down in the Falklands found that out when hit with an Argentinian missile. The aluminum superstructure started burning, and they had the devil of a time putting it out. And the U S military also found that out with the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The initial version had aluminum armor - which would catch fire from a common Soviet hand-held rocket. And you basically needed a chemical fire extinguisher to put it out. Like burning magnesium, water just doesn't quite work at putting out burning aluminum.
But I appreciate the significance of using part of that Men At Work sign!
I do actually "work" when blacksmithing, but it still seems more like play to me! Especially when working out some new project! Like that "tourtiere" project. The second versions of them will get tested out this weekend at the 1803 Sayer's Fur Trade Post living history gathering. I like the second version better, and I'm pretty sure three people up there also will. A Tourtiere is a French baking pan/pot/kettle - that works similar to a "dutch oven". But it was in use for over a century before the cast iron "dutch oven" came into common usage in the 1850's and 1860's. You put it over the coals in your campfire, place your pie or biscuits in it, then put on the lid and add more coals on top of the lid - to "bake" whatever is inside. The originals were made from sheet iron or sheet brass. The cast iron versions only came around in the mid 1800's. A ... fun ... project to figure out how to replicate. But now I know I'll have to make a few more. (The ... WORK .... part!) Possibly even one to keep for myself? Hmmm ....
Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
Indeed it can, but you have to get it a hell of a lot hotter than a sheet of the Cumberland News burns at to do so
I did used to have a very thin sheet of aluminium (about .02 of a mm) and that would just melt holes in it, the sign is far and away better.
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