Thought the old guys were wrong about coal grades, turns out I was

For years I ran whatever bituminous I could get cheap from the local supplier in Springfield. Kept wondering why my heat was inconsistent and I was burning through steel. After a guy at the MAC show last June told me to try a specific low-sulfur grade from a place in West Virginia, I gave it a shot. The difference in my forge welds was night and day. Anyone else stubbornly stick with bad fuel for too long?

3 comments

3 Comments

sandrat241mo ago

Wait, you mean you were out there for years running cheap bituminous without knowing what you were actually burning? That's a wild ride. I've seen guys do that and end up with half their forge eaten away, but you stuck with it. The inconsistency alone would have driven me nuts, especially when you're trying to get a clean weld. How did you not lose your mind on the cold mornings when the fire just wouldn't cooperate? I bet you learned more about fuel quality in that one MAC show chat than all those years of guesswork combined.

ruby_patel2717d ago

And honestly that's the thing about most hobbies and trades, right? You figure out your own little bubble of knowledge through trial and error and then one conversation with someone who actually knows what they're doing just demolishes everything you thought was true. It's like when I was trying to learn how to maintain my old truck, I spent two years swapping out spark plugs every three months before a guy at the parts counter told me I was using the wrong heat range and that's why they kept fouling out. Same with cooking, I burned through so many cast iron pans before someone finally told me you're not supposed to wash them with soap. All that time wasted because nobody told you the basic thing that changes everything.

the_kevin1mo ago

Bought a bag from a different supplier one time, swore it was anthracite based on how clean it burned, spent three hours trying to weld with it before I figured out it was just really well-screened bituminous that had been stored dry. @sandrat24, that was the same week I found out my forge floor had a crack running five inches deep from all the clinker buildup I'd been ignoring. Cold mornings I just started using a hairdryer to force air through until the coal caught, looked ridiculous but it worked.