Quote:
Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic
And another few thoughts about coal after reading something about coal dust today.
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3. Coal dust can be made into a paste that can be formed into pellets or briquettes so you're not wasting otherwise useful material. The coal paste can either use something like wallpaper paste or other starch type glues as a binding agent. If you don't have access to such glues, you can use sawdust or rice husks - add water then mix the dust & husks/sawdust into a thick paste, place the paste into a mould, add a weight of some kind to press the mix and then leave to dry. If kept dry they have a decent shelf life.
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That sounds suspiciously like the recipe for "fireballs" made during the Civil War by Southern civilians when coal and even firewood became scarce.
It also is reminiscent of campfire-starters made of sawdust and wood fragments placed in muffin tins and wax poured in.
And if you look hard enough in flea markets, you may occasionally find an odd machine made of a crank, a mandrel tube with a slot in it, and a trench/tub/pan for water/grease. These were popular several decades ago to turn newspapers into logs for fireplaces. Individual sheets were started on the tube by inserting an edge into the slot and turning the crank; the next sheet edge was moistened and slapped on the trailing edge of the previous sheet, then cranked tightly onto the core. Repeat until you have a tight, dense paper roll. The roll was then secured with wire twist-ties, tightly-tied cord, or tuna/pet cans with bottoms removed as endcaps. These "logs" were first soaked in the water-filled pan first to get the paper leaves to adhere to each other to reduce included air-space, and then left to dry out for a while (weeks?). When dried they were dipped into melted waste fat or oil now occupying the attached pan, to increase their fuel value. Some advocate skipping the soaking part and just burning them as is.
When staying with a friend in northern Indiana, we supplemented her firewood supply with sections of heavy corrugated cardboard from large shipping boxes; these we cut into foot-wide strips, rolled them tightly, and cast them onto the fire in the fireplace-cum-warm air circulator. Those little buggers burned quickly but _hot_!