Archie's Little Red Forge

[Archie Zietman]

Hello.
Here is my forge and it's blower. I call it my little red forge because it is on the red cart. I might paint it all red soon. One wall still needs to be built up a bit, but apart from that it is done, and works beautifully.

[Ten Hammers]

Archie, that's a first class rig bud. Glad you got up and running. Give us some pics of the pot too if you don't mind..

Ten

[Archie Zietman]

I didn't get any pictures of the pot before I fired up, but I took a few pictures of it running:






To start it I balled up some newspaper pages (one ball in front of each tuyere) and then poured in charcoal around them. Then I lit them and let the blower rip! I didn't have to bother with 5 minutes of puffing a little pool toy, in 10 seconds all the coals were hot. I got a bit nervous when the clouds of sparks come out at the beginning, so I stuck the metal pan over the top to keep them from flying everywhere. The wonderful thing is, all I had to do was plug it in and unplug it a few times (to let the coals settle down, and not go flying) no busywork, only plug, unplug and pound hot metal, welding heat in 2 minutes! 8)


Edit: insert the BBCode and the images will work in the forum.

[T-Gold]

Nice! I have one of those blowers too -- they put out about 1000CFM at a relatively low pressure. It is a Dayton or a very, very good clone, and if you keep it oiled it will outlast your kids. You can buy replacement parts for it from Grainger if necessary, and a new motor can be fitted pretty readily. I got mine from a scrapped fume hood, and used it to dry our carpets when we had them cleaned recently... worked a treat!

[Archie Zietman]

here it is after a fair bit of tinkering and tweaking.
http://www.yourimg.com/page/0519354/Picture015.jpg

[elkdoc]

Purty picture there, Archie! 8)

What're all those gloves for? :wink: :lol:

[Archie Zietman]

None of those gloves are on my hands, alas! I took the picture yesterday when a few friends came over, and I showed them how to light the fire, where to stick the steel in the pot, and how to pound metal. They went home satisfied, and with big pitted pointy nails, which I had let them pound on. The reason they were ALL in gloves was because I was nervous that one of them would smash themselves with a hammer, or pick up the steel by the hot end or something crazy, so I made them all wear gloves and glasses (I only do glasses and ears).

[elkdoc]

Good boy, Archie! There's nothing wrong with gloves, per se, but I can't stand them. More than anything I wanted to give you a hard time. :P

Have a great Christmas, buddy! Happy pounding!

[Archie Zietman]

you have a great christmas too! pound a lot of hot metal, and have fun!

[Archie Zietman]

two halves of my biggest clinker (it broke in two while I was gouging it out)
http://www.yourimg.com/page/0519355/Picture031.jpg
I am completely redoing the liner, so that it will not gum into the charcoal.