Homemade Coal Screen

I have a bunch of coal with fines in it. I want to build a screen to shake out anything smaller than rice coal. Looking through the McMaster Carr catalog I see they sell sheet metal perforated with round holes (Part Number: 9232T131). I'm curious if anyone else has done this and if so would the aluminum stock be sturdy enough to try this out. I'd attach this to a framework and put a few pounds of coal into it to sift out everything smaller than rice coal.

test sieves are very popular check with ASTM E-11

Coal is not perfect size, some regular wire screen with certain size holes might work too.

What's wrong with having fines?

They're blocking off all the air. It wouldn't be bad if it were just a little bit but I'm guessing it's about 50/50 - rice coal/coal dust.

Been using a milk crate with a piece of 1/4" square hole screen in the bottom to sift the "small" stuff and fines out of a pile of coal,works good. See attached pic for what comes thru. I've never seen Rice coal in person so not exactly sure of the size.

Mabye add a 2nd piece of screen in in the box overlapping by 50% to retain the larger pieces in the pic below? (so the holes are roughly 1/4 x 1/8")

Anyone want a few 5 gallon pails of what's in the picture below?

What you all need is what I like to call MAN COAL. This stuff has fines in it the size of nut and stove coal. You want air flow through the coal fire here it is If I were you I would not give the fines away and rather spread them over the top of the fire little bits at a time.

djackman wrote:I've never seen Rice coal in person so not exactly sure of the size.

It's about the size of an eraser off a pencil.

This is slightly off-topic, but I had a bucket of fines collected from last year. I happened to be in a hobby train store last week talking with the owner when a man came in looking for something to put into his HO scale coal car. I ran home, got the fines and brought them back. The owner is selling them for $0.50 per baggie. Some of his customers are using it around their track as well.

If you know anyone who is interested in model trains, they might take your fines off your hands. I wouldn't do it since it seems to me that it would get caught up in the mechanisms of the trains, but to each his own.

Thanks Horace, you just gave me an idea for my Christmas display. I knew collecting those fines was a good idea.

billw wrote:Thanks Horace, you just gave me an idea for my Christmas display. I knew collecting those fines was a good idea.

Glad to help. Post pictures!

I would suggest even getting a finer srceen for that. That dust can get so fine that it can get embedded in your between the ridges of your fingerprints. Actually quite hard to wash off. Get an old metal screen from a window, run some water over it.

djackman wrote:Been using a milk crate with a piece of 1/4" square hole screen in the bottom to sift the "small" stuff and fines out of a pile of coal,works good. See attached pic for what comes thru. I've never seen Rice coal in person so not exactly sure of the size.

Mabye add a 2nd piece of screen in in the box overlapping by 50% to retain the larger pieces in the pic below? (so the holes are roughly 1/4 x 1/8")

Anyone want a few 5 gallon pails of what's in the picture below?

Look at the link Below it will show you the Different standard sizes from Anthracite coal

http://www.readinganthracite.com/images/coal%20si ... 0front.pdf