Blashack coal issues

[lzaharis]

Is Blashack Coal using low speed picking belts to get rid of thier rock?

How many of you have had a lot of rock in your Blashack coal this year?

I have been making 140+ pounds of coal ash every week over a 7 day period
on average burning 75 pounds per day/525 pounds per week of Blashack
Anthracite Rice Coal.

I weigh my ash every day with a Taylor 70 pound hanging scale discounting the
3 pounds the 4 gallon pail weighs after weighing each 4 gallon bucket and it
averages 17 pounds+ on most days before I bag it up.

I have backed off the coal feed to 17 threads out on my kaa-4-1 to see how it
does this week through next Monday.

The low cost, low ash Montana Sub Anthracite stoker coal looks more inviting
every week.

[warminmn]

Not a single rock in 2 tons of nut. More ash than usual but burned fine. Mine was bagged in Dec 2023 if I remember right.

[Sunny Boy]

I'm nearing the bottom of pallet number 6 for this season of Blaschak bagged nut. In the coldest weather my two stoves use up to 3 bags a day. No rocks and minimal fines.

Paul

[stokerstove]

Way more ash and less heat out of my recent 2 ton delivery of Blashack rice. Haven't noticed more rock but haven't really been looking either. I don't always get the chance to compare different batches during a heating season, but this time I have and the difference is disappointing.

[mozz]

Sometimes it's not rock, it's called bone.

[lzaharis]

Hello and good morning Mozz.

Bone is actually sedimentary shale rock, the floatation process if
they use it should have removed the shale.

Now, back to my coal issues, comments, and complaining about
my excellent German Limburger Cheese being stolen right out of
my refrigerator, the cheese wrapper removed and then the block
of cheese run over in my wet driveway by a dump truck with
18.00-22.50 super single tires making a real mess - the local grey squirrels
revolted and stole a 10 wheel dump truck and then drove it in the drainage
ditch after they stole my Coors Banquet beer and the beautiful German
limburger cheese and ran over it because we had not put out a daily ration
of peanuts for them as we were out getting 15 twenty five pound bags of coal.

The suggestion box on the refrigerator door had this comment in it stating the
following.

"Your service Hoovers and we left you an expensive mess to clean up and
the need to hire two wreckers to remove the dump truck we drove into
your drainage ditch and yes, we stole your Coors Banquet Lager Beer and
drank it all and stuffed the dripping bottles in your mailbox, you should be
thankful we did not run over the bottles in the driveway in the limburger
cheese or throw the bottle caps with the serrated edges up on the floor for
you to step on them in the dark to hurt your little footies"

I am still mad that the red squirrels have disappeared.

The grey squirrels you see today are invasive and have chased out the native red squirrels.

;^0

Now back to the coal channel; I loaded the stoker last night at 10:30 with 75 pounds of
rice coal and changed the partially filled 4 gallon bucket of ashes with an empty one.

Since yesterday afternoon we have generated 16 pounds of ash and bone/shale in total.

I have reduced the stoker speed by one more thread to 18 threads out and we will see
how much ash and shale we have in the morning.

[Richard S.]

Bone is actually sedimentary shale rock, the floatation process if
they use it should have removed the shale.

This often has layers of coal sandwiched between the rock, if there is a lot of coal it may not be separated. Be hard to see with rice but you can certainly see it with nut and pea.

[lzaharis]

Hello Richard,

The magnetite separation should have removed it all.

I wish that their coal was as clean as the Sub Bituminous Coal in the 80 foot thick Wyodak Coal Seam in the Powder River Basin. They are lucky out there because the majority of it is covered with 200 feet of sandstone.
Their sandstone is easily stripped clean with a tracked front shovel to expose the Sub Bituminous Coal.

I expect to hear from Blashack tomorrow and I will be asking them a lot of questions.

[lzaharis]

The boiler has been making 180 degree
water consistently for the last 24 hours.

After 11 hours of burning I weighed the
accumulated ash in the Behlens 3 pound
net weight four gallon capacity pail this
morning.

The dead ash and fly ash in the pail
weighed 3 pounds.

The stoker has been operating at
18 threads out for 2 days and has
run constantly.

I am going to back the stoker off one
more turn and weigh the ash again in
12 hours to see how much dead ash
and fly ash there is by weight.

[Rob R.]

The boiler has been making 180 degree
water consistently for the last 24 hours.

After 11 hours of burning I weighed the
accumulated ash in the Behlens 3 pound
net weight four gallon capacity pail this
morning.

The dead ash and fly ash in the pail
weighed 3 pounds.

The stoker has been operating at
18 threads out for 2 days and has
run constantly.

I am going to back the stoker off one
more turn and weigh the ash again in
12 hours to see how much dead ash
and fly ash there is by weight.

Without knowing how much coal you burned what good is it to weigh the ash?

[lzaharis]

Hello and good morning Rob,

The 25 pound mound of coal that I left in the hopper is gone so I am going to say I
burned 35 pounds of coal as a ball park estimate.
I will let the hopper run down to the throat and use 2 bags every 12 hours as a base
weight after I back the stoker off one more thread to 19 threads out on the pusher bar.

So far the boiler water temperature is 180 degrees Fahrenheit, the system water
pressure is 4 PSIG, and the return water temperature is 120 degrees which I am
sure is wrong because the chinese gauge is not directly in the water flow and the
copper piping is hot to the touch.

The circulator is still pushing 12 gallons per minute to the 225 feet of 3/4" fin tube
baseboard.

The stoker boiler has a complete water exchange in less than three minutes with
its 34 gallons per so 20 times per hour is within reason.

I should invest in a laser hand held thermometer anyway.

I need to invest in 2 more Dwyer gauges to monitor the temperature and pressure to replace the
2 two inch gauges the clown car plumbers put in 10 years ago as the gauge in the tee after the
circulator as it does not register the water temperature or pressure.

My boiler bypass valve is shut off so the 120 degree Fahrenheit water temperature may be correct.

I have to check the Dwyer catalog to see if I can purchase a 4 inch gauge with a longer thermocouple
for the return line to the sump. A pair of remote sensors would be better as I could put both gauges
on the wall.

[lzaharis]

Good Morning,

The house is warm and the winds are coming
from the north.

I have not been contacted by anyone from the
Blashack Coal Company Since I phoned them
On Thursday. I have contacted Blashack Coal
Company previously and they did not return
my phone calls.

The stoker is set with the feed at 18 threads out.

The boiler water temperature 180 degrees.

I loaded the hopper with 75 pounds of coal last night and
this morning almost 12 hours later I loaded the boiler with
25 pounds of coal to the same level in the hopper.

When I exchanged the ash buckets this morning I weighed
the dead ash in the 4 gallon bucket and the ash weighed 3 pounds.

The boiler bypass is still closed.

There is still hope for me yet despite the squirrels
making a mess of things lately.

[lzaharis]

Edited for clarity and grammar today 11 May, 2025.

I called Blashack again last week, I do not
expect them to call back.

I don't think they expected to hear from
a retired hard rock miner asking whether
they were going to recirculate their rice
coal through magnetite separation or
whether they had considered or were
considering installing a long wall shearer
to reclaim the coal pillars.

By doing this they are leaving all the roof
and floor rock behind and avoid all the
blasting by just stripping the soil to bed
rock and then letting it fall in when the
long wall miner rips out the pillars and
pulls itself forward as it advances forward
in the old workings that have had at least
50% of the good coal removed.

If and when they call me back, I will ask if
they had entered the old workings to examine
them for roof bolts, steel roof straps, hard wood
roof cribbing to support the roof and any whether
there was railroad track and cross ties left on the
mine floor.

It would not be difficult for a long wall shearer to
advance quickly through the abandoned mine cross
tunnels if the roof shields were long enough as the
hydraulic cylinders that are installed in the floor pad
of each roof chock are connected to the of the floor
pans for the drag conveyor that pushes the drag
conveyor forward quickly after the shearing head
passes it.

As both ends of the tract have been opened by the walking
dragline to the old workings the headgate conveyor would
be placed on the furthest left side tunnel of the old workings.

This benefits the reclaiming method as the conveyor would
be left in place allowing a tract 2,000 feet wide to be mined from
one position as the roof chocks and chain conveyor are the only
items moved and then installed to mine the coal seam in the
opposite direction by placing them in the open crosscut tunnels
on the left side of the mining tract.

A complete wide trench would have to be mined out on the far
end of the excavation to allow the long wall shearer to be
disassembled and then reassembled to mine in the opposite
direction and the conveyor will only be removed entirely when
the total 2,000 foot wide tract is reclaimed.

As the long wall shearer advances in reverse while reclaiming the
coal pillars the conveyor belt retracts and is stored in cassettes
that allow the stored conveyor belt to be moved as one entire
unit as needed saving work, money and labor.


More boring stuff below:

As a possible example:

If they opened a new tract 1,000 feet wide and 2 miles long
and the anthracite coal was 8 feet thick the original coal seam
would have had 3,128,889 cubic yards of recoverable coal.

If fifty percent of the coal was taken originally it would leave
50 percent of the coal in the pillars for roof support and this
would leave 1,564,445 cubic yards of coal that could be
reclaimed in the 1,000 foot wide by 10,560 foot long tract.

More boring stuff: YAAAWWWWNNNN.

The dragline they use like any other is limited to its total boom
reach in any direction within 340 degrees of rotation.

The walking dragline works while walking backwards over on the
tract being stripped plus the total length of wire rope stored on
the bucket winching drums and the drag cable drum.

The remaining hemispere of land that is left is the area that the
walking drag line occupies is always stripped as it walks backwards.

While this is going on the 6,000 volt three phase trailing cable is
being pulled back by the operator assigned to pull it back with a
farm tractor or dozer as the walking dragline retreats/walks
backwards over the exposed mining tract- The same work occurs
in advancing forward over unopened land.

The total depth the dragline can excavate is limited to the diameter
and width of the bucket hoisting winch drums plus the diameter and
width of the drag cable hoisting drum used to pull the bucket backwards
and also allow the bucket to be dumped by releasing the drag winch drum
clutch over the spoil pile.

The total digging depth of the walking dragline is limited to the total
amount of stored wire rope on the bucket winching drums outside
diameter and the outside diameter of the drag cable drum.

The total length of the wire ropes used in the twin winching drums
and the drag cable drum is limited to one layer/lay of wire rope on
each groove in the drum as only one layer of wire rope can be used
to safely to prevent fouling of the wire rope and maintaining proper
tension on the wire rope by maintaining contact pressure with the
grooves on the winch drums.

The multiple boom hoisting winches inside the walking dragline also
have hoist drums that have one lay of wire rope to raise and lower
the boom as needed.

I have more boring stuff that I will add later with Richards permission
in comparing a walking drag line to a bucket wheel excavator.


Leon

[Hambden Bob]

You're Obviously "On The Job",Iz..!! Stay With It..!!

[ben]

Last month I got 7 ton of Blaschak rice.
It's perfect produces white ash.
It burns nice. I burn my unit all summer long.