Scott Weinberg

I forgot to add:

Around here in the midwest, the pubs/bars  often get giant dill pickles- pickled pork hocks- hard boiled eggs,  in 1- 2 gal glass jars,    These were always free if you were patient in waiting for them.  These were used to set on the counter to entice the afternoon crowds.  Sounds good? NOT!

In the back kitchen it was mostly plastic large containers, but lots of them. definitely sealed though.

At the risk of you getting a large catalog every quarter for the rest of your life, (there goes the trees)  you can go to  ULINE  company at uline.com  800 295 5510 to get catalog

There you will find all kinds of containers and a few examples as such

Boston Round glass bottles  32 oz @2.50 in case lots of 12
Many others of this size in glass including large mouth

Glass jugs at 1 gal size  still fairly cheap

wide mouth glass jars at 1 gal and cheap

unfortunately it takes plastic to get bigger for less, but for your situation, they would last for years and years.

Garey Buck wrote:

Scott, the plan is for this to have wheels on one end so it can be moved out of the way, it will get used when I smoke meat, or the occasional cigar in the frigid Michigan weather. I have not settled on a barrel yet, we have steel bolt barrels that are approx.. 14" diameter, I also have a couple different size air compressor tanks. The intended use is for a portable radiant wood burning heater.

Garey, I see this is out of my range of operations, so my advice would not be so accurate.  I didn't know you were shooting for as small as a meat smoker and all the way up for a group radiant heater.  I have not been involved with one with such a range.  But I can ponder with a fair degree of certainty that it will be hard to do both ( low enough heat for meat smoking and high enough for a effective radiant wood burning heater.

Garey Buck wrote:
I assumed from what I have read the 9-18-36 was 9" burn tube 18" cross tube and 36" stack, am I incorrect??

 I will defer this as well as I have not been around enough beyond my full blown J tubes, well beyond a single large barrel, and vastly beyond 14" barrels.

Garey Buck wrote:For the occasional 4-5 hour run time should I insulate the stack in the barrel?

Most J tubes run pretty full bore for there size, ( and about the same amount of time for each burn of approx. 60 minutes all out)   As it has been pointed out, insulating your riser will get you the most efficient burn, but hardest on your steel.

Best of success.

Garey Buck wrote:Okay so I started building my rocket J tube patio heater, can someone answer a couple questions before I weld it all together?  I am using 5" square tube 1/4" thick, (because it was free) I have cut it 9"-18"-36". I plan to put a pull out ash drawer in the  in the bottom horizontal tube, I also plan on a barrel of some sort over the stack, and then a vent pipe out of the barrel. I have watched a lot of videos with many different ideas, and upgrades.

Assuming your barrel is sitting on the floor or shelf in common to the bottom of your METAL J Tube,  how tall is your barrel?

You say a barrel of some sort?  Other than a 55 gal barrel, what other options do you have for a buck or two?

your 9-18-36 dimensions was based on a proven formula?   Presuming  18" would be your exterior feed tube, 9" would be your cross tube? and 36" your riser?  if different you can post a drawing.   so 18-9-36

Being your planning on this as a patio heater? your vent tube is just going up a ways   Are you planning on insulating this at all?  By watching the video's did you see one that was working really well?  Seems like one to copy then. with NO changes.

 

Garey Buck wrote:
2. Will the square tube allow the air to swirl to create a vortex flame, or should a devise something to make it vortex?

There has been 100's of square  exit risers,  maybe not so many of metal, but that looks to be your intended direction.

Garey Buck wrote:
3. Is it necessary to insulate the stack inside the barrel?

ALWAYS WORKS BETTER

I decided after reading this subject title with the questions and great replies of Peter on the matter.  

Being that I built into my  7" sized bell with related ISA  measurements, a very simple 8" dia inspection door that takes all of 10 seconds to slip off and inspect the insides, I found exactly as Peter mentioned.  It was eerie  inside though,  I related it to the photos of bottom of the sea, where nothing moves, and things settle in perfect peace.

I suppose you could say I had 1/4" of the lightest dust on the bottom of the bell.  But probably less, and directly across my inspection hole, was my exit flue, looking like the day it was installed.

This is a 7" system and a single bell that was experimented with on many levels for exterior facades,  from 1-1/8" granite, up to 4" thick granite on the entire back side, and as simple as 12 x 24" tile on the right side of the bell.  All of the secondary mass facades was installed by nothing more than 100% silicon.

I found conversing with Tom ( Dragon Masonry stoves)  and Glen, high in the Colorado Mountains, to be inspirational, if not informative. As all three of our stoves have worked out well.  This was/is my 4th stove, with the others being J tubes for almost instant heat.  Pre-planning for MASS heat has been most rewarding.  

The intention of this set up was never to be 100% fulfillment of the heat required in this house, as I could not build big enough for that. instead it has been a excellent efficient supplemental stove.  We light in the morning, and add to as much as required to reach bell temp of 150-160 degrees, then close it up. until as much heat has radiated off to get to 100 degrees.  Exhaust temps are held to the same level, rarely going higher,   Thus we feel the system is as efficient as I could expect.   Over fueling simply doesn't happen.  The ability to turn a 1/2 round bar of steel, a dull red in about 10 minutes can always be counted on.

In short, I feel with the amount being burned in this, my typical season of burning would be relate-able to many burning 3 seasons.

Just thought a "seasoned" report might inspire some to move forward yet this winter with a build.

Best of success!

I am jokingly sending this, but without my lift and truck, these trees would slip by me.  Here I am about 40' up and still at 3.5' dia,  with a lot above me.  But that is a lot of fire wood, and takes big everything to split up.  If you don't save saw logs out of parts of the tree.  Fun to see things pile up.

Julian Adam wrote:Because I am using 2 kinds of bricks, I would have a gap of 6 mm (1/4th inch) where the wider bricks are, and a gap of around 15 mm (0.6 inch) where the smaller bricks are. You are saying this will not make a noticeable difference in heat transfer, Scott and Thomas?

I got behind on my replies, sorry.  

Julian, I presume the gap difference would happen because you want to keep the face of the bricks on the outside flush with each other?  And rightly so, And I think Glen said it well, that things might not be quite as uniform, but... will you be able to really tell?  That is always the question, but honestly I think so little of change will be made that your good to go.    After all the first bell is the work horse, collection what we give it, The second one is to help us extend even more collected heat,  READ  extend, not more.  We can hold more, but the fire will not produce more that it did the first time.

Best of success.

Howard Hoffman wrote:I have a stove I built very similar to the Liberator Rocket Stove. I don't have room to put in a large mass bench like many off gridders are doing. I do have room on top of the stove. The question is what would be best to store the heat? I could use bricks or a metal bucket with sand. What would be the best thing I could use on top of the stove to continue to radiate heat Thank you

Sand by it's very nature is insulative, not heat conductive or storing.  Best example, would be a beach exposed to a full day of summer sun, you can hardly walk on it (the surface)  but 1" below is perfect.  The same can be said about pebbles but to a lesser extent, and on up the ladder until you get to solid bricks, stone, and the like.

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Trace;
Within reason, there is not much difference in how large the gap is.
The main idea is to provide safety without exhaust escaping into your building.
The other is to add mass.
The most common gap is 1/4" or so, the thickness of cardboard.
By using cardboard the mortar cannot bridge between the bells, the cardboard can be removed as you build or it can be left in place where it will char away.
Some folks will place copper heating coils between for water heating so they gap 1"-3" to allow room for the piping.

For those contemplating a double skin bell, is simply making the inner skin as strait and true as possible (and exhaust tight)  This allows you to be very creative with your second (mass) skin bell.  As simple as just adding a little tile, large brick, granite or soap stone. And letting the gap take care of difference of coefficient of expansion of each bell.  As the temp reading between the bells will never be the same,  Each can expand and contract in there own ways. And not rubbing or installing stress on each other.

Really the sky is the limit in incorporating your second bell, the gap that Tom listed above is the key.  By the way, my expansion on granite in 48" from 85 degrees to full warm of 250  was only 1/32"  (.08 mm) But it can be for certain that the inner bell was different and mostly likely more.

if your core and bell is built on a shelf/base and if this base has the extra room around it, you can be building your second bell as your drying out the first bell.

Don't let a second skin hold you back.  More can be good, but less is never bad. As long as the first one gets built.

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Elizabeth;
Any style RMH may have trouble starting with a completely cold system.
I have had J-Tubes, First Generation Batchboxes, and a Walker riserless core, each has smoked back a time or two when cold.
I also recommend installing a bypass gate with all RMH builds to facilitate cold starts.

Remember all newcomers to wood burning stoves of any type or make, not just RMH's- the words of the first sentence (above) .  Any style may have trouble starting with  a completely cold system.   It is my opinion, that after the first burn and warm up, with the fact that most Mass based stoves, retain some heat by the next burning, which often cannot be said if standard types are allowed to go out, will lead to the last line here.

These massed based stoves, will most likely be good to go on the draw, every day.