[Stoves] possible improvements in molding holes in your ingenious clay disk grate

[Richard Stanley]

Kevin, 

Crispin suggested I look at your video but I could not find any ref. in it  to the production process used for the grates, so forgive me if I am completely out of turn in making the following observations. 

Our basic compound lever press would easily work for your needs but I think it would be a bit of over kill. Our "mini bryant" press generates about one ton of force which would seem like much more than you need to punch (??) 1 dozen odd holes thru a (??) 1" thick wet with wet saturated clay.  A simple single lever press would be (probably already is sufficient or ??
Again,  I do not have any idea about your molding or pressing process so I may be entirely out of turn here.

My second unsolicited comment is that it will be far easier to make  slightly conical holes for your grates ( rather than your existing cylindrical ones) because;

1) it is far easier to remove a conical piston then a cylindrical one in the molding process, as the piston(s) will tend to break free upon retraction, rather than dragging back thru the clay disk.  
and, far more more important to the user; 

2) A grate inserted in a stove three stone or otherwise, with  its such tapered holes tapering in  towards  the top / out towards the bottom, will tend  to minimize ash clogging /ease ash clean out. I noticed with Hugh's stoves in Kenya, where he began in the late 70's and again in Mali ten years on, that his cylindrical formed stove holes tended to clog up from time to time / locale to locale Of course the perfectly dry hot burning wood or fuel briquette will leave little   solid carbon behind and bridging would be minimised, but this is of course not always the case in reality, eh? The bits that would tend to bridge and clog a cylindrical hole tend to fall through the suggested tapered hole of your grate.

The idea of making this is ingenious by the way; highly adaptable easily reproduced y local artisans and effective. Congradulations on that !
    
Richard Stanley
www.legacyfound.org