It's been a while

I've been a victim of low resources - money, time and health. On the money front I've been scanning Freecycle pretty much every day I've been around to collect stuff and that's starting to pay off. I now have an old metal wheelbarrow and a load of wood, mostly an old bed and shelving unit.

While this might sound like junk, I have a plan! Dig a hole about the size and shape of the wheelbarrow, stack the wood in it and set fire to the lot. When it's blazing away nicely, upend the wheelbarrow over the fire and bury it with the spoil from the pit. After two to three days it should have gone cold and when you dig it out, it'll be full of charcoal.

The only trouble is that I've put my back out and we're getting to the end of school holidays. So I haven't had either the time or the energy to dig a big hole and light a fire. But at least I feel like some progress is being made. And once I start digging holes, I might carry on and actually make a furnace too...

Graham

Another burn

Hi

The furnace is running again. I used old charcoal on top of fresh and it took a couple of hours and lots of meths to get it all burning OK. No sign of any aluminium dripping out from underneath which is a shame. I had used green sand and made some impressions to test it out but I guess with the slow start it just never got up to temperature.

Tomorrow will tell what happened.

Graham