I am building electric wire stripper and need help. - Page 3

Originally Posted by alloy2

Even I get sidetracked, this morning was planning on going to the Colony to have some steel laser cut for another centrifuge build that I plan on using to clean and de-water waste cooking oil that i use to make soap.

Anyhow the little bit of waste oil that I have on hand to clean can be done by melting it over boiling water, then there's the fact that I'm giving the soap away free to friends and neighbors. No $$$ in that plan.

Now with the many catalytic converter thefts happening in my neighborhood a fellow doesn't dare have a battery operated sazall in his truck for fear of being categorized as a thief. I haven't purchased any cats for the past year.

Fast forward, a new game plan.

There's a seed cleaning plant not far from my home where I can get the waste material free, mostly chaff and weed seeds. i suspect the weed seeds to have an oil content which will help as a binder.

Now you're probably wondering how the hhell is alloy2 going to make $$$ from chaff and weed seeds, simple turn them into pellets for those pellet stoves that all my neighbors have purchased.

Pellets are sold in 40 pound bags, a ton has a value of about $250.00, the machine in this tube video by my estimate can make 500 pounds an hour.

It's home made, I have most of the project figured out, large wrist pins from diesel pistons for the rollers and AR ( abrasion resistant plate ) with laser cut holes for the die. Now that's money well spent.

Not terribly relevant but pellet stoves came up in another discussion and i thought about this post.

It's hard to get the pellet recipe just right. Most kinds need a binder of some kind like corn starch and the moisture content has to be just right. You would have to tinker with the feed rate on the pellet stove auger for the type of pellet being used because different ones have different burn rates ?

That got me to thinking. It might be easier to make compressed biomass bricks for a wood stove. You would still need to get moisture content and the binder right but rate of burn wouldn't be as much of a concern.

Just look around your local environment to see what kinds of biomass are available ? Maybe sawdust from a local mill ? Maybe peat moss ? Maybe waste product from agriculture ? Maybe branches left over after cutting a tree ?

Originally Posted by hills

Not terribly relevant but pellet stoves came up in another discussion and i thought about this post.

It's hard to get the pellet recipe just right. Most kinds need a binder of some kind like corn starch and the moisture content has to be just right. You would have to tinker with the feed rate on the pellet stove auger for the type of pellet being used because different ones have different burn rates ?

That got me to thinking. It might be easier to make compressed biomass bricks for a wood stove. You would still need to get moisture content and the binder right but rate of burn wouldn't be as much of a concern.

Just look around your local environment to see what kinds of biomass are available ? Maybe sawdust from a local mill ? Maybe peat moss ? Maybe waste product from agriculture ? Maybe branches left over after cutting a tree ?

I can get bales of cardboard for the taking.

Originally Posted by alloy2

I can get bales of cardboard for the taking.

Ohh gawd ... that would do it. There's no lack of cardboard around these days. The bottom dropped out of the market a few years ago and you can hardly give it away. I used to bale that stuff on a regular basis. The only concern i would have would be the plastic tape and plastic stickers on the boxes. The residual glue that was originally applied to hold the boxes together could be an issue too. You wouldn't want those contaminants in your pellets.

Maybe dissolve the cardboard in water to make a pulp and then run it through a screen to remove most of the contaminants. There must be an established method. The Chinese have been recycling cardboard and reusing the fibers for many years now.