Here Come the KINKERS!!!

Here's a nice sized clinker for ya. I just fished it out of the Herald. Just fit through the door balanced on my poker. That's sitting on some nut.

Wow! That's massive. I get tiny ones that I'm able to grind up in the grates. That's amazing.

Hey everyone! I restarted on Saturday after some minor adjustments that are producing huge results; Thanks to Ligthening and his post regarding fly ash and air by pass. Although our furnaces are from different vendors, they are in fact the same. I found the passages front and rear that allow air to by pass grates and producing over fire. Over fire is a bad thing for coal and appears to be the main culprit. Once I blocked off these passages, wow.....it is like a different stove!
Since I added a second spin draft knob to my ash door, I have plenty of draft WITHOUT leaving the ash door open! I can hear a nice HISSING from the firebox which tells me the draft is fine, but also I am able to adjust heat production and the pace of the fire using just the spin knobs. Although I might start out with the manual flue damper set at 12 o'clock.....it actually seems to move on its own to the 2 o'clock position ? All is good from a draft standpoint. Now regards to clinker duty, I am now familiar with watching the fire from beneath the grates. No glow.....quick shake. Once all opennings in the shaker gartes show glow. I rake and reload. Open a spin knob 1/4" and away we go. All is good at 2;30pm eastern monday 1-23-2012, after 3 shakes. Insofar as clinker tools: I fashioned one from flat stock just like Lightenings and another from 1/4" rod (like the other one pictured in the post) to go up in thru the holes in the grates. I fitted and measured them while the stove was down. Have not had to use them yet......best to have them ready. The last thing I did which also helps is I took out the grates and shined up all the joints with a bench grinder and stone reamer in a electric drill.....making certain that the shakers grates turn with ease. Little by little my satisfaction with coal is growing as I sit here in boxers and tee shirt. God Bless America.....and thanks to coalpail.com I have learned how to heat my home with coal, which many years ago was passed down from generation to generation. Just another laborious household chore. It is truly the American spirit that can defeat anything! Thanks again. LOU

Sounds like your getting the hang of it Lou.

What I do each morning when I come down is first open up the MPD and the primary air full and add a scoop or two of coal. Then I go and make coffee and toast whatever and by the time I'm done, that coal is lit and ripping. Then, and only then, will I shake, poke, and top it up. Only reason I offer this is sometimes after burning all night, you think there is more coal left in there than really is. If you shake down first, without getting the fire ripping and adding some fresh, you might not have enough left after a shake down to refill and light off without a long recovery time. Just a thought.

Steve.Your suggestion makes sense. Thanks.LOU

LudlowLou wrote:Hey everyone! I restarted on Saturday after some minor adjustments that are producing huge results; Thanks to Ligthening and his post regarding fly ash and air by pass. Although our furnaces are from different vendors, they are in fact the same. I found the passages front and rear that allow air to by pass grates and producing over fire. Over fire is a bad thing for coal and appears to be the main culprit. Once I blocked off these passages, wow.....it is like a different stove!

I'm happy my post helped you about blocking those passages so air couldn't bypass the coal bed. It made a HUGE difference in heat output for me. That bypassing air was just robbing my furnace of heat right out the chimney. Yeah these furnaces we are using are kinda set up for "solid fuel" be it wood or bituminous or anthracite or garbage lol.. BUT now that its tweaked for anthracite, thats all I plan to use. I even bolted a plate over the "over fire draft" on the load door so no air could weasle thru there. But I have to prop the load door open a crack so volitiles can burn off after re fueling so I don't get a nasty puff back.

DO you have a baro damper installed? If so Great!! If not, you might want to consider it. Those by passing air passages acted kinda like a self regulator, letting air by so the coal bed wasn't so likely to over heat. What happened to me was that after I blocked those passages, my furnace heated like crazy but I couldn't control it. it would either spiral upward into an overheat or spiral downward into coldness. Very rarely would everything balance just right and it would be steady. Then I installed the Baro and it became a tamed heat monster (pardon my enthusiasm lol). Now I get a steady 110 degrees thru my ducts for 9 -12 hours at a time

Red ash coal is more prone to clinkers, which are not a problem in my Keystoker 90. I prefer the red ash it seems to have less fly ash in my stoker. My old Buderus hand fed loved white ash coal, not many clinkers and powdery ashes, easy to shake down.

2001Sierra wrote:Red ash coal is more prone to clinkers, which are not a problem in my Keystoker 90. I prefer the red ash it seems to have less fly ash in my stoker. My old Buderus hand fed loved white ash coal, not many clinkers and powdery ashes, easy to shake down.

That makes sense Sierre. It seems like the red ash has a trace of iron in there maybe?

Clinker?? That ain't no clinker!

Now these are CLINKERS:

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Greg L

greg,
were those klinkers from bit. coal or anthracite

LsFarm wrote:Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Greg L

Greg, I once pulled a clinker out of my hand-fed boiler that was the size of a big shoe box. Must have been one hell of a fire that created it, because it was the same day the front of the boiler cracked.

Are we not mentioning that KLINKERS, while similar to KINKERS are the product of high heat coal burning fusion? ......While Kinkers is a term used to LURE the past perfect tense of a 'KINKY coal user' to 'fess up' about a previous 'Hot Time in the Boiler Room', recently.

VERY interesting to see Freetown are Smitty carrying the Banner of 'Kinkers United' at the User Festival in Pottstown this year!!!!!!!!!!!....... We need to have an adult conversation very soon. Thanks to Greg for also sharing that the AA's and AHS's can have Klinkers as big as a small Horse, and that the Hand Fed gang is not alone in the Kinker dilemma.. We don't ask, and don't EVER tell........so feel safe as you massage those Kinkers into the ash buckets........SSSShhhhhhhhhh!

Poor moderators are hard pressed to help the "Hooked on Phonics Set" here on the forum. Just an observation from the peanut gallery.

LsFarm wrote:Clinker?? That ain't no clinker!

Now these are CLINKERS:

Yeah that's what I'm talking about that's what mine look like.

Those are all anthracite, some from my handfed boiler, most from my AA260.

The bituminous clinkers looked similar, but the AFT of the Bit I was burning was so low that I almost couldn't get more that a day or two from the
fan-forced fire, before clinkers clogged the grate..
So I started mixing Bit and Ant to increase my time between firbox cleanouts.. I burnt up the bit as fast as I could.. It was amazing the amount of smoke and soot it would create when tossed on a hot fire..

Greg L