For me, as someone who had Waaaaay too much comfrey AND is has an Ag-businessthe problem is how to sell it.
There are products on the market that contain comfrey but i generally think the market is negligible, apart from home-made creams and oils potentially being sold at farmer’s markets.
Hugely generous plant without much economic use. really a shame.
W
I’ve looked into it superficially. A lot of the negativity surrounding comfrey comes from one study where they overloaded rats or pigs and then found liver damage. Even if anyone would never consume the amount in the study , it kept the bad rap.
William
tony uljee wrote:could be that the machine was running far to hot and the core has overheated causing the varnish to melt and leak out between the laminations of iron plates.
That’s kinda what i was worried about. The machine runs and welds. Should i be worried a out using it??
Thanks
W
John C Daley wrote:I dont know what you mean by ' Image says it all"
I use arc welders a lot, but that plate has inscriptions I am having trouble discerning.
The copper plates have all kinda of bumps gunk on it. They are hard almost like metal. Doesn’t wipe off. Thanks for the manual.
W
Gerry: I Didn’t use the bench as a thermal mass storage because
A) that would have required a manifold, something I’m hesitant to build since it seems beyond my capabilities.
B) I thought wrongly that it might store some heat anyway.
C) the bricks around the insulated heat riser and the stone on the top hold heat.
D) This is a small little room where we make morning coffee or will go to when it’s cold and we’re working outside, so not much need for prolonged heat, although i made a fire at noon and at 7pm the room was still comfortably warm.
William
Hi Gerry. Thanks for the reply.
1) exhaust chimney not insulated. i could lokk into that.
2) the bench and “volcano slope” are just cob and old clay bricks. No pipes/no manifold. They don’t seem to collect much heat which is unfortunate.
3) i think internally the heat riser is about 30cm. I realized too late it was too big but the firebrick slabs didn’t really fit together well and i learned later how easy cutting brick is.
4) heat riser is insulated with perlite and surrounded by galvanized sheet roofing pounded out flat.
5) fire tunnel il 60 cm and 17cm tall. I built an extra front-piece to get the wood loading thing up higher to make a “J”. The gasses go up above the heat riser hmthen come down around the bricks and then 15 cm from the bottom they enter the exhaust pipe, so the outside temp reading around the inlet is lower than it would be up higher.
6) so far stone lid is ok. Went up to @ 90 celsius today. We’ll see.
Thanks again.
Gerry Parent wrote:
1) Is the exhaust chimney outside insulated or single wall pipe?
2) Is your bench a bell (hollow chamber) or is it a pipe run?
3) What are the dimensions of your heat riser? It looks really big to me from the photos. Overall dimensions also look off to me. Was your dog house the right size as a form to produce the necessary final dimensions for the core?
4) Is the heat riser insulated? This is the key place where high temperatures are needed to help burn up the wood gasses and produce a clean burn.
5) Can't exactly tell how the flow of gasses proceed beyond the top of the heat riser. Do they travel all around that brick mass or between the firebrick heat riser and metal shell?
6) The stone on top may very well crack and crumble from the intense expansion/contraction experienced over the heat riser if not protected with some insulation.
Hi, just writing to show a rocket mass heater i built, following generally the Minnie by Peter Van den Berg and a little skimming of the RMH book by Ernie and Erica.
Any comments would be helpful as this is a first attempt with virtually now previous knowledge. I’ve probably made some mistakes, but i’m writing this sitting next to the working model, so i suppose not too much got bungled. Had a problem with the riser and it got a little too wide. Also put stone on top, which could expand and blow the whole thing up in a few minutes here, so we’ll see. I lined a cement dog house with fire brick and learned later it was reinforced and had metal inside. Oops. And the masonry work is shoddy, but I’ve never done that before. Here are some pics.
William
William Bronson wrote:For me, that air compressor tank would be more valuable holding compressed air.
There are many scrapped cylindrical items that can be used in rocket stoves, but safe pressure vessels are harder to come by.
I took your advice. Here’s the result. Thanks for the help everyone.
When people volunteer, most of the time what they “get in return” is intangible, like a sense of having helped, or having “done something” for a cause or the personal relationships that stem from the “work”. The intangibles are endless.
As for the other question, that of reciprocity ending, i think we would be in a “last person on earth” scenario, and still there would be “gifts” from the plants and animals and rocks and all the other beings we share space with and have reciprocal relationships with.
It reminds me of a fun film called Nothing (2003).
William
paul wheaton wrote:I wonder .... does the gift economy only exist within capitalism? It seems that people wish to replace capitalism with gift economy. But if there is no capitalism, it would seem that there is no longer such a thing as a gift.
??
Potlatch was practiced before capitalism existed in n. America, so technically the answer is yes. There are probably many other forms of gift economies that existed before, during and outside capitalism.
I think maybe you’re asking a deeper question: can people give things without expecting something in return? But since having any normal and healthy relationship requires reciprocity, i think expecting or desiring something in return is not in and of itself unhealthy. It’s how one manages that desire.
William
William Bronson wrote:For me, that air compressor tank would be more valuable holding compressed air.
There are many scrapped cylindrical items that can be used in rocket stoves, but safe pressure vessels are harder to come by.
Yes, after posting this i also got the idea that maybe if I fixed the motor I could get it going again. I have a feeling the motor broke and they shoved it aside and bought one 3 times as big (their current compressor). But this one is nice and portable. And... I do have a motor that I had to get rid of on another thread:
https://permies.com/t/147363/wrong-motor#1166716
Hi Kenneth,
Thanks for the info on the shaft. As for the previous post, while i’m always open to new ideas, honestly i’ve already built two other manual container fillers but haven’t been able to bring the work time down at all. It takes about 15 minutes to make 100 containers, no matter how you slice it, since the hand motions don’t differ all that much.
Last year we were making so many we had to outsource and paid 4 cents per filled container. We ended up paying something like 12,000 euros to have a constant supply of containers.
So, you can see the need we have to automate some of the process to do a bunch without a heavy burden on people doing it.
W
Gerry Parent wrote:Yeah, pretty small William. Looks to be about 14" diameter? Really depends on what your trying to heat and what you expect out of it.
It could also be used as a small bench bell or even used as an outer form for a heat riser if you were thinking of casting a perlite/clay one?
Good idea on using it as a riser from a brick/clay base. Thx
W
I'm thinking of buying a gear-reducer or a gear motor. I honestly don't know the difference between the two or if I'd need a primary motor to run it.
I'm checking out videos on youtube and it seems a product like this would work. I need less than 60 rpms and more than 100 torque. I'm getting those values based on the fact that I need the cheese wheel thing to rotate around about once every 3 or 4 seconds, so I'm thinking 20 to 30 rpms. The torque value I got based on what an average person puts to a bicycle, so 100 newtons or whatever.
So 50 euros for that and then I'll need a power supply unit I guess, but I know an electrician that can help with that.
I suppose another idea would be to find a gearbox that reduces the rpms (2700) down to what I need (20-30) and place it between the drill and the main shaft. But I have even less of an idea of what that would entail.
Hello everyone,
I took kenneth’s advice and went with a drill setup.
It’s still too fast and the drill overheats and smokes at the low A/C current.
I’ll post some photos.
I had to learn how to weld to get this going, so i guess that’s educational:)
William
Eliot Mason wrote:What in the world are you trying to do? That motor is rated for 1.5 hp or 2hp depending on configuration - which is a LOT of force. Spinning at 2750-2950 RPM is indeed fast (that's like power-tool, table saw fast) but it should have lots of power for anything that you can accomplish with half a bicycle!
Like i said in the original post, i bought the wrong motor😩.
The bicycle, and the seeing pedal before it are back-up ideas since I can’t find the right motor and the key shaft thing makes it even more difficult since I can’t find a keyshaft attachment.
The point of the whole project is to fill containers with potting soil, so there’s a 30cm disk that rotates (3kg) and above there’s a rotating circular lawnmower blade that should help send potting soil down the chute.
William
Here is the current state of the haphazard project, as you can see the length I’ve gone to to circumnavigate the motor issue. Sorry for the rotation.
William
Chris Sturgeon wrote:William, this may be a good motor to use backward.
Do you have any use for battery charging or other trickle-in loads? This paired with a wind-mill or hydro-wheel could make a decent generator.
Yeah i was thinking a table router or a planer for woodworking as an alternative. Thanks for the idea!
W
I recently bought a motor blindly and surprise, surprise....it’s not what i need.
This motor runs way too fast and it has like zero torque.
What i need is a motor that runs slow but can move two gears that have a little weight to move.
The current motor i fear would spin thing out if control. I put a current regulator on it tobslow it down but it’s still too fast.
In the end i’ve been forced to slap a bicycle pedal drive on it for the time being, but i think a motor would probably be more appropriate, ideally with a foot start/stop and speed regulator.
Uploading a pic of the current motor specs.
Also, i was totally unable to attach anything to the shaft. It has one of those raised parts on the shaf that you probably need a special attachment for.
Totally clueless@motors.
Thanks
William
Which I invite every human to read, it has some really interesting insights that most definitely pertain to the discussion here (human brain size and capacity is discussed on many pages of that book).
Secondly, a quick thought about Paul's quandry:
It bugs me that interest in electric cars is huge while rocket mass heaters are getting less than 1% of the attention. Don't get me wrong, I applaud the electric car. I just think interest in stuff about our heat would be bigger.
Derrick is in the final stages of a new book "Bright Green Lies" that addresses this very thing. The basic premise is that big-E Environmentalism in the past was all about conserving natural habitat and species. Now environmentalism has essentially become the lobbying arm of a specific subset of industrial capitalism, the renewable energy sector. I believe that to be true, based on the limited awareness of public discourse on environmentalism I've experienced in my lifetime. It's less about inhabiting a planet in some sort of harmony with other beings and more about buying renewable energy (or a myriad of other fake-eco solutions).
I think you might find your answer in there, expect that probably spring of next year.
https://www.facebook.com/BrightGreenLies/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bright-green-lies-a-documentary-film#/
Finally,
The sensation I have watching this discussion is that
a) it's all about me.
b) it's all about humans.
c) we're totally fucked.
To blow all that up and get past that, I would also encourage everyone to acknowledge that humans have lived, on this earth, for thousands and thousands of years without messing it up. We've managed in about 200-500 years to gum up the works seriously. We as a species know what to do and we have done it. From our vantage point that might be a little hard to digest, but our imagined privilege as civilized human beings (but more importantly the energy and murder of the planet needed to sustain that privilege) is exactly the problem.
If we could, for a moment, put ourselves in the position of other beings who are experiencing the haloscene in a much more dramatic way I think we would act and interact with each other differently.
If we could, for a moment, imagine that this catastrophe was being forced upon us from alien beings, from the Talaban, from whatever imagined enemy, I think we would know how to act and we would behave much differently. The fact is that the main culprits for the destruction of the natural world are people with nice hair and expensive suits who drink champagne and attend social gatherings with important people and take expensive vacations on big yachts and who generally inhabit the Apex our our society. Oh yeah, and we generally live in a world where accountability is an anathema. Especially for quote "lesser" beings.
As for the idea that global warming is natural and we can't do anything about it, all I can really contribute to that is...whatever. Humans are adept at one thing: justifying unreasonable behavior. Believe what you want to believe, the gazillion beings who die and struggle because of what's currently happening paint a completely different picture -- and as Paul mentions, it's not just global warming.
And what's absolutely astonishing is that it could be exactly the opposite: hello permaculture! hello Loess plateau! hello greening the desert! hello 100 million new trees in India just the other day!
Probably I'm like most of you saying "Hells yeah! where do I sign up!" And that's one of the problems, nowhere to sign your name, do some (or many) hours of work, and produce real tangible change in the real world.
Which brings us back, in some ways, to "Personal vs. Political change".
All the best to everyone. hope you are well.
William
Hello,
I may or may not have planted or transplanted from another place a hosta in this spot. My place is pretty messy and I'm not there a lot of the time, so I don't really keep tabs on what is planted where.
And what's the red stuff on top?
William
found this guy in the back part of the land we're managing. new to me.
it has the shape and stem of goldenrod, but it seems to grow in the shade better.
thanks for the help,
W
Currently my biggest problem with this whole issue is being in a position where I'm surrounded by people who are very able to do jobs but aren't willing the turn any job into a business. They want a job, not a business. For me, it becomes problematic because I could actually help these people turn their passion into a business, but I'm unable (and pretty much unwilling) to turn that passion into a job for them.
I think there is a completely different mindset that one comes to the table with. One of the employee and one of the entrepreneur. One thing is that society has changed from the late 20th century and now favors entrepreneurs, but people (for a lot of good reasons) just want to be employees. Being responsible for one's situation in life, being responsible for a whole business, I can imagine that it's scary and a huge load of un-necessary.
On the other hand, personally only want to work with non-employee individuals. I think the idea of creating micro-businesses that support each other is pretty cool and can lead to some innovative stuff and general wellbeing of the participants. Although I can understand their motives, being surrounded by people who just want to plop themselves into a job, collect their wage, and go home is pretty horrifying to me.
A lot of times people are presented with a container, not a job. It becomes their life's mission to fill that container with awesomeness. Other people just see a container that doesn't hold a job for them and so they move on.
Walt Chase wrote:
Could you change your pot type/size/shape to match a commercially available one in order to be able to grow as mentioned in the above quote?
We've discussed that. It could be done, but we've sort of have everything based on this size. If we had a size that standardized seeding trays could work with, it'd be great. The problem is we would have to have to take it out of the tray and put it into something in order to sell it. Usually the seeding trays and the product containers aren't designed to match, so there's that.
But yeah, it's worth looking into further. It would definitely be a solution for 80 - 90% of our varieties.
-W
That looks exactly like a measuring cup to me... Just awkward and slow because there are a whole bunch of measuring cups hooked together.
True, but like I said, there doesn't seem to be a way to get a similar weight when pulling out potting soil with a cup. Every time it's different. In the above case, when the soil is compressed, the weights are the same, within a few grams of each other. The quality is a lot better than cup-into-container-one-at-a-time. The difference in time when doing 100 is not that much different.
Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
Doesn't the weight per volume vary a lot depending on moisture content?
Not very much. The coco coir stays in bags and pretty much maintains its moisture content pretty regularly. If you leave it out for a day on the table, absolutely.
Cynthia Quilici wrote:Could you use cut-off versions of the plastic pots themselves as measures?
One idea I had is similar to this: use seeding trays with the exact size of the containers, and flip the greens out when done. The problem is nobody makes seeding trays that are this size/shape. Would have to be custom made and cost a lot of money and have minimium orders in the range of 20000 trays.
@Joseph Lofthouse
You would think that a measuring cup would do it, but aside from being extremely slow (like half speed compared to other methods) the fluffed up nature of potting soil makes it so you don't actually get the same amount in the cup each time. It can vary by 10 grams from my most or least acceptable grams (85 and 77 grams)
Here's a prototype of a wooden thing I made. If you compress the potting soil into these, they come out almost exactly right. It's just slow.
The reason for the obsession is mainly aesthetic, but it's sort of what our product has morphed into after about 5 different incarnations and 3 years, so I'm kinda stuck with half-filled containers whether I like it or not at the moment.
I'm currently wondering if liquefying beforehand might have some effect. Like some slurry that gets dosed out in Ounces/Centiliters. The containers have 4 holes in the bottom so hmmmmm, maybe it would leak out.
