Made some Charcloth

[Hammock_man]

On the off chance that there is some one who has never made any char cloth, here is some I did to day.

First off I used a Swedish candle as the stove as i knew the burn would be a long one

I did not want the thing falling over so the wood was placed in the wind shield of a swedish army stove.


I had packed the baked bean tin with a cut off from the bottom of an old pair of cotton curtains. (Did not take a before photo!) I popped the lid back on and put some Ali foil over the top to hold it all in place.
As you can see the candle is burning well and some of the gases from the cotton have forced their way out and are burning.



By now the candle has collapsed but the gases are still coming off, I re-sited the tin in the flames as it was far from done.



There is some wonderful charcoal in the bottom and the bottom of the tin is red hot. You can just make out a small flame at the top of the tin so the job is not over yet.



After a good while the wood had burned way down and no smoke was coming from the tin. After it was removed and allowed to cool, this "plug" of charcloth slipped out of the tin. It was a lot smaller and so very much lighter. The whole thing had been made from two pieces of cloth rolled to fit. In the past I have cut the material into lots of nice 2 by 4 bits, just did it different this time.



The acid test! Will it light a sulphur match and as can be seen, it did.

In short, if I can do it..... anyone can

 

[Monikieman]

There's nothing quite like making your own char cloth. Great write up and pic

 

[topknot]

Nice one, long time since I made char cloth

 

[rancid badger]

Just wondering; how did you close the tin when cooking the cloth and then stop the combustion (seal the tin) when you were satisfied it was more or less cooked?

Steve

 

[Hammock_man]

The simple answer is, I didn't.
The tin was filled with a roll of cloth which as quite tight and came up to about where the indentations stopped. I placed the tin lid on top of it and then sealed the tin with a bit of ali foil. I had torn of a 4 inch strip from the roll and folded it 3 times to give 8 layers. This was placed over the top and squashed tight to the tin edge. Place it on top of the fire and that was it. As the wood burned away the tin was moved around but that was it. The gases found there own way out, some times smoke, sometimes flame. When I was down to just coals, I added a few small pieces of wood; just to raise the temp a bit as there was still some smoke coming from the tin but in the main I just let the fire die out. I took the tin off the bed of coals and left it to cool by its self. The foil did show it was worse for wear but under it was the tin lid which must have helped. As you can see from the photo the cloth came out as a single plug with folds in place. I do not think any caught and burned.

In terms of being "satisfied" it was cooked it was more to do with the wood running out then anything else. The wood itself was a good fit for the swedish cooker windshield and as can be just seen from the first photo, about twice as high or less. Still a fair amount of fuel for a baked bin tin of charcloth.

Thanks for the interest.

 

[rancid badger]

Well it seems to have worked anyway!

I usually use a syrup tin with a tight fitting lid with a small hole in it for a vent. When there's no more gas/flame spouting from the vent, I remove the tin, plug the vent with a wet cocktail stick to prevent any further combustion and put the tin to one side to cool. It's more or less the same procedure as making charcoal in a ring kiln, just you seal everything off with sand or soil.

I've had a couple of occasions when the vent has blocked as the oily tar from the cloth had congealed in the hole and the lid has blown off!.

I've also had a couple of firings where I haven't managed to halt the combustion and the cloth has continued to burn in the tin, so I think you've done quite well with your firing.

Cheers


Steve