Crushing and Grading Charcoal

Lump charcoal comes in pieces from fingertip to fist size. A forge or a smelting furnace burns evenly only on pieces of one size, so the lumps are broken in a sack and sieved into grades. Bloomery smelters break it to about 2.5 cm and sift the fines out through a 1 cm (3/8 inch) mesh; the fines are kept for the furnace base, for insulation or for the garden. Weigh each grade: the split tells you how much of a sack is usable at your size.

初学者

About 1 hour per sack

说明

Choose the size

Decide the largest and smallest piece you want. For a bloomery: no larger than 2.5 cm and nothing smaller than 1 cm. A forge fire takes the same range or a little smaller.

所需工具：

卷尺

Damp the dust

Work outdoors. Mist 2 kg of lump charcoal lightly with water to keep the dust down, and put on a dust mask, gloves and glasses.

此步骤所需材料：

木炭2 公斤

水0.1 升

所需工具：

喷水壶

防尘口罩

皮革工作手套

安全眼镜

Break it in the sack

Put the charcoal in a burlap sack, fold the top over, lay it on hard ground and strike it with the wooden mallet. Turn the sack and feel the size through the cloth; stop while most pieces are still larger than you want, or it all turns to dust.

所需工具：

麻袋

木槌

Sieve into grades

Sieve the lot through the coarse screen: what stays on it goes back in the sack. Sieve what passed through the 1 cm screen: what stays on top is your crushed charcoal, what falls through is fines.

所需工具：