coal dust

rockchick113

What do folk do with coal dust,
Every few yars I have a sort out of the coal bunker. I nearly always have a few buckets of coal dust.
I've tried to make those briquettes in toilet roll tubes,butthey never work.
so any ideas

Skulls

I can remember as a child my father mixing the coal dust with cement and making round 'doughnut' shape briquettes. He had some sort of round mould, like a pastry cutter with a bit that pushed the briquette out. In Welsh the briquettes were pronounced grammatically 'pale air' the spelling is totally different.

Robisere

I was born and brought up in a pit village, my dad and brothers both miners. My dad used to 'borrow' a pint of parrafin from pit stores, mix a little at a time with coal dust and make very efficient firelighters with it.

We didn't have to make a lot and not as briquettes - dad had his coal allowance from the NCB and we always had plenty: but the firelighters were key to getting the fire going. One pint of paraffin went a long way, using too much had the wrong effect, made the coal dust too 'runny' to mould into shape.

mumf

The old boy that lived next door used to mix dust with cement to make a briquette. He used a 3" plant pot as a mould. Personally I don't bother as it is too much faff.I just bin the dust.

suki1964

I use it to bank the fire in overnight

There's always a few embers left to get the fire going again the following morning

footyguy

saxonman wrote: »

What do folk do with coal dust,
Every few yars I have a sort out of the coal bunker. I nearly always have a few buckets of coal dust.
I've tried to make those briquettes in toilet roll tubes,butthey never work.
so any ideas

When you say they never work, what do you mean ?

e.g. is it a problem in you making them, a problem in you burning them, or what?

rockchick113

footyguy wrote: »

When you say they never work, what do you mean ?

e.g. is it a problem in you making them, a problem in you burning them, or what?

Compacting them in toilet rolls tubs mixed with a bit of cement to hold the dust together( as read on another forum) but once the tube burns away it just all breaks up.

comeandgo

I have dust and all the smaller chips and put them into plastic bags, add small amount of water and then put bag on back of hot fire, the bag melts and the "cake" of coal settles and burns for a few hours.

footyguy

saxonman wrote: »

Compacting them in toilet rolls tubs mixed with a bit of cement to hold the dust together( as read on another forum) but once the tube burns away it just all breaks up.

It could be that you are not using enough cement to hold the dust together (probably not as you should actually need very little cement - remember the cement will go on the fire too and cement does not readily burn )

Or that you are not sufficiently wetting the coal dust/cement mixture so that the cement can act as a binder. You actually have to make the mixture quite wet, but not sloppy. You are simply using coal dust rather than sand, and should be attempting to create a very weak mixture.

Whilst suggesting it may be an insufficiently wet mixture, do not make it too wet. As made, the briquettes will not burn as they will obviously require drying out first. A good way is to store them by the fire.

I've made them before as a brick size. Made a simple wooden mould and used a single sheet of newspaper to allow easy extraction (once partially set) It could be that using a thicker, more absorbant toilet roll inner, you effectively draw out the mositure too fast which could affect the strength/bindability of the mixture you created.

I see that mumf above had indicated using a plant pot as a mould, or I suppose any other similar size container such as a large yogurt pot, or ice cream container. This should also work if you don't want to go to the trouble of making a wooden mould.

When made correctly, you cannot start a fire with these, but once a fire has got going, these will burn for ages (better than a wood log). They need to be used as a supplementary fuel i.e to make the proper coal go further.

By not having the dust binded together, there is a danger the dust will flare up (as it sometimes does if you just throw coal dust on the fire)

suki1964

comeandgo wrote: »

I have dust and all the smaller chips and put them into plastic bags, add small amount of water and then put bag on back of hot fire, the bag melts and the "cake" of coal settles and burns for a few hours.

That is the easiest and cheapest way of using it up