Black Walnut Festival - Stockton, MO

Doc Explains Dwelling Scale Electric Power from Local Wood Resources

The Stockton, MO area goes nuts for a few days every fall with their Annual Black Walnut Festival.  It is an amazing congregation of interesting folks from all ages and walks of life getting together to share in great music, great food, and good times with good folks.

BrushApes ventured out of the brush to meet folks and test a couple of projects that had been gnawing on their minds through the summer.

Doc had been pondering trusses made from low value sawmill scraps 
BrushApes procured wood scraps Wednesday morning, prepared them Wednesday afternoon..

 then pegged them together, tilted them up, and connected them with a barn metal roof Wednesday night, the first night of the festival.

Finished Structure pictured Thursday morning

BrushApes appreciated the kind words, understanding of the value of the concept, and the conversations with mostly old time builders familiar with pegged beam construction.  Most even noticed the square pegs in round holes.

IT WORKED!  Easily fabricated, easily scaled, very strong, awesome design.  Glad Doc finally found some time to test his gnawing thought.

Bonzo had been pondering a small portable triple wall charcoal kiln 

The design was designated the "JAKE", Just Another Kiln Experiment, Jake also being the name of the local tin-bender who rolled the four stainless steel tubes needed.  Tubes were all 1 foot long, four, six, seven, and eight inches diameter.

The test was to see how easily a smoke free kiln could be fabricated from stainless steel parts.  Besides the rolled stainless tubes, a couple of stainless steel salad bowls and a buffet serving dish got upgraded to a higher level of service.

With just snips, a drill, and a few nuts n bolts the JAKE was fabricated while visiting with neighboring vendors and passersby Thursday afternoon.

The innovation besides simplified fabrication relative to the KeyStove LX and KeyStove GH, was pre-heat of primary air, in hopes of making the design less sensitive to fuel quality.

The JAKE tested out well.  It was very simple to fabricate.  The first test with hardwood pellets ran 3 hours with little or no smoke from start to finish.

As for fuels, crushed walnut hulls and floater walnuts gave just under two hours of operation.  Packed peanut hulls ran for almost 40 minutes, but finished with a short burst of foul smelling smoke.  Pretty sure dry bark would work almost as well as pellets but did not have any to test.

Home Emergency Power from Local Resources

Bonzo was not planning on bringing the charcoal powered home generator to the festival.  But after a kid said his stove would charge his cell phone, (BioLite - very nice stove, not a kiln) and Bonzo replying that the char produced in these kilns could power a whole house, there really was not a choice.

It was awesome fun, a great festival, and a great excuse to come out of the brush.  Made some new friends.  Thank you Stockton Chamber of Commerce!