Glog briquette failure!

[Julian]

That's the second time you've used that phrase tonight.  You haven't come into a fortune have you with an invitation to sit along side that gorgeous babe Deborah Meaden?

I really don't think it's too wet, but due to the compression, there appears to be precious little glycerine left in the briquette.

[nigelb]

I did watch a couple of episodes of Dragons Den at the weekend. Debs is fine...now Hilary is one scary looking mama

Who was the other girl that used to be on before her main buisness went down the pan?

[K.H]

Thats the trouble with compressing the mush, you end up using very little glyc, i wonder if reversing it would be better? maybe compress some briquettes then soak them in glyc?

[julianf]

remember those kids toys - a tiny insect thing, and then you put it in water...

[bertle]

remember those kids toys - a tiny insect thing, and then you put it in water...

Nope, enlighten me?

[julianf]

as i remember them, they acted like if you compressed some foam, and then held it in compressed form with some water solluable glue.

BUT -

the ones i had were not foam - they were, IIRC, some sort of jelly stuff.  you put this small pill or something in a bowl of water, and it expanded into some jelly scorpion or something (which then, if you tried to lift it out, fell apart)

id imagine they were made of some industrial effluent in the 80s.  probably made of foam now.

[Julian]

Thats the trouble with compressing the mush, you end up using very little glyc, i wonder if reversing it would be better? maybe compress some briquettes then soak them in glyc?

I think you've hit the nail on the head.  But soaking the briquettes I've made wont work either because they just don't hold together.  The photo below shows, on the right a glog 24hr after compression and a briquettes made from sawdust and veg oil as JulianF suggested.  Most of the oil in the latter was squeezed out leaving the dust almost dry.



I think these things need far more pressure than my little test rig can produce.

[julianf]

I think that, when they use veg oil, they only use very small amounts.

Do you have any steel pipe there?  Id imagine even a bit of scaffold would be good for a test?

What does the av. vice go to?  Probably nothing even close to a press : (

[Tony]

Sounds like an excuse to build a hydraulic press to me

[julianf]

I want one...  but i dont know enough about them to be able to spot what i need on ebay cheaply : (

[Julian]

I want one...  but i dont know enough about them to be able to spot what i need on ebay cheaply : (

Lumps of metal to make a frame and a big car jack ... open Disco bonnet look front right.

[julianf]

Yep, i want it speedy ('lectric) though.

The press, i mean, not the dis...

[Julian]

The suggestion was just for experimentation.  If you want speedy electro/hydraulic won't be your answer, unless you go really big.  Take a look at all the affordable log splitters and they are incredibly slow compared to splitting with an axe, they're just not quite such hard work.

The best splitter I've seen drives a very heavy flywheel and uses some sort of a clutch driving a crank to which the splitting head is fixed.  I'm not sure if the same arrangement can be used for extruding though, because it relies on building up kinetic energy between logs, where as an extruder would need to run continuously.

[Chug]

Is this an experiment to find something better than carpet tubes or milk cartons?

I haven't really played with glyc logs but seem to remember someone worked out a good ratio of glyc to fine sawdust.......maybe Jules?

Edit: yes, was Jules 30L per cement mixer full of sawdust
http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/forum/viewthread.php?tid=33453#pid381817

[K.H]

I made a log maker, but its the same old thing, the idea was to get rid of glyc but by the time i had compressed it very little was used up