Luke March

This is something I forged up this weekend for mother's day. (I apologize for the poor lighting) Mom sure liked it so that was good, and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. Let me know what you think.

Thanks man, it's probably the nicest-looking tool in my shop Actually, I didn't create any gasket for the gearbox. Leakage hasn't seemed to be much of a problem, at least not yet. I'm not sure what the weight is... I just used some of what was on hand, which happened to be steering wheel fluid. If it is leaking there I haven't noticed it. Perhaps the way I painted it (after tightening the bolts) sealed it? Or maybe it is leaking and I just haven't noticed. Hmmm, I'm not really much of an expert on what these originally had. I believe I've read somewhere that there were some leather seals in places on some blowers. My gears still make noise. I imagine they make some noise no matter what oil you use. The gearbox is mounted the way it is shown in the picture. Actually, it's the "pet cock" that is aligned with the blower exit. The oil fill hole is mounted pointing upwards; if you look, it is between the "Y" and "A" on "Royal." No problem, and thanks. ;)

Here's a camping fork I finished up today. I used about 13" of 1/2" square A-36. Finished length is around 30" Comments/critiques are welcome.

Josh - Unless the gears are really messed up, you should be able to fix it. In the solid fuel forges section, there's a thread I posted about a Canedy-otto I fixed up. I had to replace all the bearings, and one gear - but it was really easier than I thought it would be. Most of the work was just getting all the old grime out. Checking the fan is also a very good idea; there could be something in there, or perhaps the fan is making contact with the blower shell.

Well, I finally got the chance to try it out this weekend. After adding some lubricant (power steering fluid is what I had on hand) and working it a bit, it loosened right up and turns beautifully. It gives a great amount of air supply, with so much less noise than the vacuum I used to use! It really is a joy to use; I was up till one-thirty last night forging just so I could use it (well, and make my first real attempt at a knife ) When I'm turning it about normal speed and let it go, the handle keeps turning a good 1 and 3/4 turn on its own.

I haven't put it to a real test yet, because I have to come up with some sort of mounting solution first (before I add oil) I did make sure that it is turnable without oil, so I'm hoping that the addition of oil will make it easy to turn. In the little test I did (less than 1/4 turn with the hand crank) it seemed to produce a pretty good amount of air, even though I haven't added a sealant between the two shells yet.

Well, the Babbitt pouring was a success! Thanks to all who gave advice on this project. After I finished pouring the bearing and getting everything all set, I went ahead and painted it. When I was wire brushing off the rust, I noticed a sort of dark red paint in multiple places - both on the body and on the fan. I also noticed a few of the letters seemed to have some gold paint on them, so I figured I would try to paint it to get as close to "original" as possible. First I sprayed on a few layers of "rust" primer, since even wire-brushing didn't get everything off, and then coated it with a dark red paint made for farm equipment and machinery. I finished off by brushing on the letters with gold model paint. Here are some pictures of the results. Before and after: Some more pics: If you want to see more pics, before, during and after, you can see them HERE Luke

I've decided I am going to go the route of pouring the babbitt. The babbitt metal has been ordered and is on its way. I did up a basic diagram of how the shaft would be set up in the housing before pouring. I intend to center the shaft by having its other end held in its bushing - that way it will line up perfectly. My question is, what sort of things should I be worried about doing to make sure it comes out right? Do I need to pre-heat the housing? (I don't have a torch) How do I keep the threads from being filled in? I know I should coat the shaft with soot or graphite so it won't stick; are there any other "prep" things I should know? Thanks so much, Luke

Yes, I have a small lathe, but sadly, I do not have a four-jaw chuck. The small end of the shaft seems to be off center by about 1/8"-3/16" I think the reason it is misaligned is that they didn't bother with boring it out to be centered, they just left it as cast for the babbitt. I suppose it would have been more surprising if it did line up. :rolleyes:

There should be an opening/valve around 4:00 or 5:00 which is how much you fill it with oil.

Well, I finally made some progress on this. I replaced all the bushings today, and also machined a shaft for the new gear. You can see the comparison between the old shaft and gear, and the new one. And they all fit nicely together in their bushings. But there's a problem. The one bushing was indeed babbitt, but I replaced it by getting a bronze bushing, machining it down, and pounding it in. The trouble is that the other end of the shaft (the part sticking up in the above picture) does not line up with its bushing, which is what I was worried might happen. Now it seems I have a few options. I could find and order babbitt metal, learn how to use it, pound the large bushing back out, and try to pour one so that everything lines up. OR, I could remove the second bushing from its mounting, and just let the gear be supported from one side (It is a 2.7" long bushing, after all)

Shells are looking pretty nice. Interesting concept doing the gears that way. What did you cut them with? Oh, also, do you think 16:1 overall will be fast enough? The Canedy Otto which I acquired has a ratio close to 45:1, and the impeller is more than 8" in diameter. That's a neat site about doing gears in wood that way. I would not have considered doing it that way before.

That's actually good to hear: it means the bronze bushings I ordered from McMaster last week will actually be of some use after all! That's pretty much what I'm planning to do now, except that the hardware store did not have the appropriate sizes, so I ordered some from McMaster, which I will have to lathe down a little to get them to fit properly. My other issue which I'm trying to figure out has to do with the first gear (the bronze one). If you look in some of the pictures, you can see it's pretty badly worn - the teeth aren't "gear" shaped anymore, and they're very sharp on the edges. From research/measurements/etc., I'm pretty certain of the right size replacement... the trouble is finding one exactly the same (i.e., you can't) The closest I found was a gear from Boston gears which I can get for about $35. The issue is though, it's steel rather than bronze, and it's only 1/2" wide rather than 1" wide. Now steel does have more tensile strength than bronze, so I wouldn't be to worried about it breaking... but I am a little worried about what it might do to the other gears. Does anyone forsee any problems coming from this?

Hi, I recently acquired a Canedy Otto Royal Western Chief hand crank blower for a pretty low price, and I'm planning to restore it to much better working condition. You can see pictures of it so far right here: http://s169.photobucket.com/albums/u228/Luke_SkyMarcher/Blacksmith%20Shop/Forge%20and%20Blower/Canedy%20Otto%20Royal%20Western%20Chief%20Blower/ My big question right now has to do with the bushings/bearings. They are very worn. Some are not so bad, but several of them are very bad, and not even round anymore. They appear to be made of bronze, so my initial thought was to get some bronze bushings, machine them down to appropriate sizes, and tap them in with a hammer. However, after doing some more research, I realized they are probably babbitt bearings. However, from what I have seen in my brief time of research, most babbitt metal is lead or tin based... Does anyone know what kind would be most appropriate for the blower bearings? One thing worthy of noting is that the bearing for the shaft that actually attaches to the hand crank seemed to be lead, both in softness and color, as opposed to the other bearings, which are a bronze color. Also, most of the information I have found online for pouring babbitts has to do with pouring pillow block bearings one half at a time. I haven't seen anything about pouring a bearing all the way around a shaft that has to be precisely positioned at both ends... Does anyone have any resources or pointers to try to do this? Thanks so much, Luke

I would a agree with John that the blower in the old photo is a champion. I recently acquired one, and have discovered the remains of some paint on some parts. I don't know whether it was original or not, but it seems pretty old. On the blower casings, and most especially on the impeller, I found a sort of dark red; not a bright red like I've seen some people do, but a dark red, kind of like barn red. Interestingly enough, there is also what appears to be gold paint on the lettering (look at the "R" and "O" on the pictures below). When I finish cleaning it up, I think I will pain it these colors again.

ptree, Do you have any pictures of the part where you add the oil? I just got one of these, and it's missing that piece - so I'm curious about what that piece is, what it's for, how it works, etc.

Keep an eye open on craigslist - I got my 12" chimney pipe for $1/ft. Granted, it is hot pink... but it was affordable! Works good too - even with the bends in it.

I don't recall their exact prices; you can call them to find out. (You should be able to find the number on google) They will sell basically any quantity, but there is a price drop beyond a certain weight; I think one is at 500# and another at a ton...

Hi, Welcome from another Michigander! I get my Pocahontas #3 coal from Streat Fuel and Storage in Flint. It's a real treat to work with, especially compared to anthracite (yuck!) and charcoal (too many sparks!) It burns good and hot, cokes up nicely, and just has that lovely smell... Luke

I got a Saltfork craftsman swage block, as well as the books "$50 knife shop" and " The complete bladesmith." I also made a number of hooks and a trivet as gifts for others.

When I first read that I thought it was referring to an advanced level math problem I don't know why you'd want to do an integral when trying to forge a blade in an hour, it would take too much time! (I also don't think it would give you much of an advantage in a competition like this to be able to do one ) Seriously though, its a good question - is a separate handle piece required? And what about helpers? Can you have a friend come and do some striking?

Pat Roy, when you say "sonic velocity," are you referring to the speed of sound? Vacuum motors go fast, but not that fast. Well, to continue on this blower topic a little further.... To try to get a better idea of original gear ratios, this thread is very helpful: The pictures are very useful, and I was able to count the teeth on three of the four gears. In total, I would estimate the ratio at somewhere between 30:1 and 36:1 total. Now in gathering parts for my blower, I got this blower impeller from ebay. (The rod it's on is something I had separately) It has a diameter of 8" Presuming the need is for 3" of water, and that Caleb was right in saying that the tip of the blade needs to be going 114 ft/sec to produce that, an 8" impeller needs to go approximately 3273 rpm. Now if I assume a comfortable speed to turn the hand crank is 1.5 revolutions per second (90rpm), then I would need a gear ratio of.... 36:1! Remarkably close to my estimate from counting the teeth on the other thread. Getting the ratio is the more difficult part, though. The gearbox I was looking at on ebay was, in fact, a worm drive, so I didn't get it. I looked into what it would take to buy gears, but the total cost of new ones is about equal to the cost of one of the blowers on ebay. Used gears can be found on ebay, but it's near impossible to find matching ones in the right sizes, especially since so many people don't list the specs. Looking at what I have, I can easily use bike gears to get a 10:1 ratio, which means I would just need a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio in series with it... I have a couple pulleys for a belt drive around, but I dont think they're that much different in size from each other....

When I first heard the advice that it would take at least 10 tries to make a working pair of tongs, and many more to get a good pair, I figured it wasn't worth the bother, since tong-making wasn't the reason I got into blacksmithing. When I took a blacksmithing class, I found out how mistaken I was. In fact, tong making is not as hard as some people make it out to be. It's just a series of steps, like everything else in blacksmithing. If you can use a fuller, draw a taper, drill or punch a hole, and make a forge weld (or if you have an arc welder), than you can make a pair of tongs. There are some youtube videos which demonstrate different versions of the tong-forging process; take a look at them to see what you're aiming for. My first pair of tongs is useable. You can see them below. Now, I admittedly had previous experience making forge welds and drawing tapers, and I had a little bit of coaching, but I don't see any reason why it needs to take a person 10 tries to get a working pair of tongs. I figure its kind of like forge welding; some people have (or had) a lot of difficulty doing it, and have given it a bad reputation. So don't be discouraged like I was; give it a try - it is possible. Luke

Thanks for the info Caleb... I think I'll have to chew on that for a while. By the way, thanks for the link Don, I wasn't able to see it earlier because it was blocked at work. Well, I got a lot to think about now... you can be sure I'll ask if I have more questions... And I'll be sure to show you what I end up doing. And if anyone else wants to post up their blower ideas, go ahead! Luke

Yes, thank you, that is helpful. Are you saying that pressure head is a more important consideration in forge blowers than CFM? Or just that CFM will depend on the pressure head? No, I don't have gears just "laying around," but I was looking at this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220693570218&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT which seemed decently priced to me. I was also looking at materials I have on hand; I was able to find a fairly large vacuum motor which I could hook to a hand crank, if you think that would work. The outer diameter of the fan is is about 5"; at 17,350 rpm it gives 106 CFM (that's with a pressure head of four inches of water) The one question I still can't seem to find an answer to is what does a forge need. Whether its in CFM or in pressure, or a combination of the two, it would be nice to get an idea of the range of numbers we're talking about here.