[Stoves] How to make smokeless coal?
neiltm at uwclub.net
neiltm at uwclub.net
Fri May 26 04:59:58 CDT 2017
On 25 May 2017 at 2:41, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
> Question for you: can you ask around some old-timers and find out where
> the expression "Scotch method" comes from when referring to lighting a
> fire on top in order to reduce smoke? This name arrived in Southern Africa
> with people from Europe more than 100 years ago, 120 at least. But where
> did it originate?
It doesn't seem to be within living memory of the 'old timers' I know in
Scotland I'm afraid, but they sent this:
Not sure if the so called 'Swedish log' counts as a TLUD?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lIWMKx8anI&feature=c4-overview&list=UUIq7
3l9XpOlq0LYP3l5tQPg
Finnish method ...used during Finnish Russian War according to this
chap...
Did anyone ever have a conversation with Paal Wendelbo about what he
might have known of the history or ubiquity of lighting fires from the
top in Norway? We have heard the Norwegian resistance stealth fires
story, which I found interesting in relation to Baden Powell who actually
describes bunking off into the woods while at boarding school and
lighting "stealth fires" and trapping and cooking rabbits, but then the
top lit idea is entirely missing from 'Scouting for Boys', and its hard
to imagine he would have known the technique but not shared it. He talks
of learning other fire techniques in India and SA, and from N American
Indians, and he had what he called and illustrated as the 'star fire', we
know as the three stone fire. This suggests the approach did not spread
like wildfire exactly! And then died out where it perhaps was once
adopted. Why, since it is so obviously an excellent and useful fire
technique? Haven't noticed Ray Mears using it, and he is a practical
reviver/rediscoverer of lost bushcraft. I bet your old scout troop don't
light camp fires that way any more Crispin.
There seems to be a general hinting in the direction of Scandanavia as
possibly somewhere to focus on finding the origins, but probably also
China, and we know that this would have been multiply discovered, because
the TLUD has been as we know.
My first attempt at one of Paal's TL fires was a revelation, and the
first time I had ever lit an open fire, and it burned down to the end of
every stick, leaving just char and ash without once touching it after
lighting, and very little smoke. In particular it burned the windward
side completely, the pyrolysis front moving against the side wind,
whereas with a conventional BL fire, the unburned wood has to be moved
over to the lee side. A pot hung from a tripod could have been well
placed over that fire.
I got my daughter trying it out in her open fireplace, and she was quite
pleased with the result.
The cheap Chinese ebay/amazon ND stoves have similarities to the prior
bushbuddy, but unlike the bushbuddy, they separate in the middle for
packing small, and the grate is different. Since it emerged that these
are not cheap Chinese knock offs of the British stoves, but were the
original basis of those stoves, it seems likely to me at least, knowing
how good they are that some native Chinese expertise was brought to bear
on them.
Best wishes, Neil Taylor
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