Broad Top Coal

Oh ya one last Idea, not that I've ever been involved in this kind of crap.

Remove the thumb form your local excavator and replace with a half round seciton of screen pivoted on same pin as bucket. Scoop bucket full of material from ground, extend thumb control, covering bucket with screen, extend dipper and shake out screened material.

Looks like I need to work on my welding and fabrication skills.... I don't think I'm up to the task with my WWII era Marquette, stale 9010 welding rod, and misc pieces of scrap metal. No heavy equipment, either.

Also, if anyone has a Square D QO 200amp service panel, about 100 feet of service entry cable, conduit and several rolls of THHN they are looking to donate to a good cause, PM me HAHA I'd also come pick up any unwanted skid-steers with my Prius.

The Marquette will throw a good arc, but newer units use less power and have some features that make it eazier to control.
I had a friend that would grab that unit and TIG weld with it, just beautiful, he was a true welding artist.

Well I figured I'd post an update.

I've been working at sorting this ROM coal. My setup is about as primitive as it gets!



So far, I've been ending up with about as many fines as I am good lump coal. I am using 3/4" mesh, I will need to screen again with something smaller to get the smaller, but still usable coal out. Here's some I sorted out today :



This stuff really does burn great in a hand fed stove. It seems to have a lower FSI than the coal I got in MD, which was a 9 coke button. The downside with the broad top coal, is that it does not tolerate being handled too well. The coal is fairly friable. The other problem is that this stuff has alot of slate attached to it. I will probably have my 32 gallon trash can filled with slate by the time I'm done sorting through it.

Not sure if I'll stick with the broad top coal or not. The MD coal is almost as hard as anthracite, and tolerates handling without turning to dust.