Separate Nails from Wood Ash

[JohnnyMX]

We have tons of bonfires and they usually involve pallets which means a ton of ash and nails in the fire pit. I wanted to try this and see if I could keep the ash as long as it wasn't much effort to remove the nails. The fire ring is built for standard pallets to help contain the mess. I built the whole thing with stuff I had from pallets and an old garage door torsion tube. I did have to buy a piece of 1/4" hardware cloth for the screen.
You basically shovel, shake, remove nails with a magnetic wand, and put the charcoal back in the pit. The next process was taking shovels of ash and passing the shovel under my magnetic floor sweeper as a final check for any rogue nails. The nails fly up and stick to the rake right through the ash. The magnets I have just from working with metal in the shop. Doubling and offsetting the screen may reduce the amount that made it through the first sift, but I would probably want second pass anyway just to be sure. I already run the rake around the pit to try and keep any stray nails out of the path of feet and did that when done in case anything fell off when going from pit to sifter.

I ended up with two tubs of clean ash and about 35+lbs of nails. This was a very easy process and didn't take too much time to do.

I made the frame to fit the RTV so it would slide forward/backward but not move much side to side. The tube works really well when sifting as the sifting box slides very easily and nothing gets caught on the round bar.

 

[PILOON]

My separation method is to simply place my magnet inside of a plastic bag and drag it thru the cold ashes.
Works just fine for me.

 

[JohnnyMX]

If I stayed more on top of it that would probably work for me as well. This was about a year's worth since last clean-out. What size magnet are you using @PILOON? Something crazy or just an old speaker magnet or something?

 

[Hughman]

I use an old speaker magnet zip tied to a rake. Hardest part is getting all the nails off the magnet. I like the plastic bag idea.

 

[crashz]

I like the sifting portion. Gives you a nice clean product. Are you spreading this as a soil amendment?

 

[JohnnyMX]

Yes. I will be using the final product in plots and some other plantings around the house. This is why it needs to be 100% nail free. It will get added to what we burn inside the house that never sees nails or anything other than clean firewood. I have also heard of people using old pillow cases to help remove the nails from the magnet which seems like it would work well. The wand grabs the nails and then you just pull up on the plunger and everything falls off and repeat. Wouldn't have bought that for this project, but it is easy if you have one.

 

[2manyrocks]

35lbs of nails from burning pallets is impressive. Must burn a lot of pallets. Also like the fire ring.

 

[JohnnyMX]

We do bonfires all year long and have been burning many pallets as they are free and abundant. I tell everyone we can do fires any time you want, just bring some pallets. This was worst case as there were probably more nails than ash.

 

[Richard]

A bit of work but I've always de-nailed the (only a handful) of pallets that I've had and then, toss pieces onto fire.

Simply not worth the cost or effort to have a rear go flat on me because of an errant nail. Bad enough for a front (backhoe) tire but those rears get downright heavy and awkward! By de-nailing them, I know there's nothing in them verses "thinking" I got all the nails out of the burn area. I can't imagine having 10 pounds of nails. Having 30+ pounds is unfathamable (and not going to happen while I can remove them beforehand!)

 

[PILOON]

If I stayed more on top of it that would probably work for me as well. This was about a year's worth since last clean-out. What size magnet are you using @PILOON? Something crazy or just an old speaker magnet or somethig.

If I stayed more on top of it that would probably work for me as well. This was about a year's worth since last clean-out. What size magnet are you using @PILOON? Something crazy or just an old speaker magnet or something?

I had a store bought 6 inch magnet that I'd simply insert in a sandwich baggy that I'd remove and toss.
Actually collected probably about 2 gals worth of burnt rusty nails that way.
Worked for me, can't complain.
LOL, wife was not happy with my consumption of sandwich baggies.