hdvoyager319

I decided to build a Side Blast forge, Mark A. forge design with a Super Sucker Hood into a 10" dia. chimney. The criteria for the forge is it must be portable with no part weighing more than 50#. The forge is in the -734 picture. The 10 gal. water tank is to the rear left and is connected to the Tuyere via. an upper hot water hose and the bottom cold water hose. The Hearth is 24" sq. x 9" deep. The Champion Blower is below the Hearth and is powered with a 1/3HP motor. Picture -729 shows the air hose, the Guillotine Gate Valve and the top Hot water outlet and the bottom cold water inlet. Picture730 shows the Tuyere in position prior to loading the hearth with Fill Lime. Lessons learned: Welding the tapered 5" and 2-1/2" air pipe inside and outside is very difficult. A flux core wire welder was used to make the welds. The flux core weld is rough and hard to make water tight. The inside welds were done with a Inverter stick welder which turned out to be better quality. First pie slices were removed with a Plasma Cutter from both pipes. The pipes were heated with a torch and the four sides pounded together. The Air Pipe was welded to the front Donut. The water tightness was tested by placing the donut on a piece of putty and the pipe filled with water. The outer 5" pipe was welded inside and out and placed on a putty seal to test for leaks. The outside pipe was centered on the Donut and welded together. The assy was then water tight tested. Using the Plasma Cutter, upper and lower holes were cut for 3/4" female pipe connectors. Then the connectors were welded in place. the final step was welding the rear plate on the Tuyere. The bottom hose connector was plugged and the top connector was used to fill the Tuyere with water to test for leaks. To meet the 50# criteria, the Tuyere was separate from the Water Tank, connected using 3/4" ID hoses. The 10 gal. Water Tank was also welded inside and outside. Initially, it leaked almost everywhere. The tank was filled with water and the leaks marked and welded shut. This process was conducted several times to fix all leaks. The Guillotine Air Gate Valve is shown in -729. A slot was cut in the 2-1/2" Schedule 40 pipe and the lever operated Guillotine was welded in place. There is enough air leakage to keep an Anthracite coal fire lit when the forge is in the idle mode. The first and second test firing was a partial success. The water cycled nicely from the Tuyere back to the Water Tank. The Tuyere plunged up and was cleared by disconnecting the air tube and running a rod thru the air tube to remove the blockage. Corrective actions required: The Tuyere will be raised to be 5-6" above the Hearth bottom when covered with fire brick. The air inlet will be changed to a "T" with the air coming in the bottom. The outboard tube well be plugged. When the Tuyere gets plugged, the plug will be removed and a rod inserted to remove the obstruction. The forge Hearth will have fire brick placed on the bottom and the extra space so a small amount of coal can be used. The Fill Lime will be replaced with Wood Ashes. The ashes will be wet and packed to make the Duck's Nest. I have used Bottom Blast stationary and Rivet forges for over 20 years. The clinker problem triggered me to build the Side Blast forge. Question: With the old bottom blast forge, the fire was extinguished by raking the red coals out on the forge pan to cool. How do I extinguish the Side Blast Forge fire as there isn't any place to rake the red ashes out to cool. Also, I don't want to mess up the Duck's Nest and mix coal with wood ashes. If the air is turned off, and I am using soft coal, I will come back to find all the coal smoldering the next day. The next part of the project is constructing the chimney. The chimney will be a 10" tube salvaged from a wrecked Grain Auger. The Super Sucker Hood is finished and will be mounted over the Tuyere as close as possible. A frame will be needed to support the hood. The grain elevator tube has a flange end which will be mounted to the top of the Hood. For any servicing of the forge or moving of the forge, chimney must have a removable section. The flange section of pipe will be cut 4' long. A 2' section of 10" chimney pipe will be attached between the 4' peace and the remainder of the chimney. To keep rain water out of the chimney, a flap will be used to cover the open pipe. The design is similar to the balanced exhaust caps used on farm tractors. A cable will be attached to the cap to pull the cap open when the forge is being used.

Removing coal fines: I have a hardware mesh sieve that is 18" square with 6" high sides. My coal is sifted thru the sieve before being used. When I come back the next day, there is a lot of fine ash mixed with the coke and unburnt coal. Again, everything is sifted to remove the fines, ie: anything that will pass thru 3/8" square hardware cloth mesh has been used to fill in soft spots in my driveway.. Tractor Supply sells Anthracite Nut size coal. This coal has been washed to remove the fines. My soft Blacksmiths coal supply is about 5-10% dust and fines. I will try making a dust and fines and mold them into brickets. I have a load of coal removed from a basement. There are a lot of coal brickets mixed in the coal. So far, the coal brickets work as well as the coal chunks.

Thank you. I found Lee Sauder's article "Forging and Using a Wrought Iron Tuyere". He used wood ashes wet and tamped to make the Duck's Nest (I used Fill Lime). He also tilted the tuyere down. Do you have any ides of how much of a down angle I should use? Should the water cooled Tuyere be packed in clay or ashes in addition to being water cooled? How high would you recommend lifting the Tuyere's center above the bottom of the Duck's Nest? Is a fire brick necessary under the Tuyere? When I pulled the fire, the brick was glowing quite red. The Tuyere was laying on the fire brick. My Hearth is 24" square by 9" high. How far should the Tuyere extend into the Hearth? I am thinking about making a 16" or 18" square by 9" deep Hearth to cut down the amount of coal needed to fill the large Hearth. I started the fire with charcoal then soft coal and topped the fire with Anthracite coal. The Anthracite coal was used for the rest of the test run. With the Guillotine closed, there is enough air leakage to keep the Anthracite coal burning. Also, the fire didn't creep out like the bottom blast forge does which requires continuous control watering. How strong should the air blast be? With the 1725 rpm 1/3hp motor connected 1-1 with the blower, the air flow would be adequate for a bottom blast tuyere. The pulley diameter is adjustable so it isn't any problem to increase the air flow by 50%. In the diagram you sent, are the sides of the Hearth lined with fire brick or clay? I have been reading everything on the Side Blast Forge that Google posts. The cooling of the tuyere using hoses connected to the water tank worked well. However, I am building a wire mesh "A" frame over the tank. the rising heated hot water (coffee percolator principle) should lift the water above the tank to trickle down over the 1/4" sq mesh Hardware cloth. Some 1900's tractors and gas engines used this method to cool the water. I have been using a bottom blast permanent style forge for the last 20 years. Depending on coal quality, the clinker problem can be a show stopper requiring clean out at short intervals. That is why I decided to make the Side Blast Forge with a Super Sucker Hood and 10" dia x 20' chimney. The tube is from a grain auger loader that was wrecked. Also, no part should weigh over 50# so this old man can move the forge piece by piece. For a chimney Top Hat, I intend on sealing the chimney with a flat plate that is balanced similar to the tractor balanced exhaust cap. It will be held open by pulling a cable down and locking it in the open position. I am in new territory with this forge. I appreciate any suggestions or corrective actions to eliminate potential problems. thank you and any others for help.

Surfing the web, I found an article by Lea Sauder titled "Forging and Using a Wrought Iron Tuyere" This article covered in depth using a clay covered Tuyere, and how to make one. I believe that Lea's article will solve your Tuyere problems.

My forge is based on the article, "Building the Side Draft Forge" written by Mark Aspery. This is the basic design of my forge. I made several changes to the forge to make it capable of being broken down into components not weighing over 50#. The water cooled Tuyere follows the dimensions in the article however the Tuyere is connected to the separate water tank via upper and bottom hoses. The hot water rises up the Tuyeres top pipe to enter the top of the tank and the cool water flows out the bottom water tank hose into the bottom of the Tuyere to circulate the water in the Tuyere. The front portion of the Tuyere protrudes 8" into the Hearth. To use less coal, fire bricks were placed on either side of the protruding Tuyere which left about the last 2" of the Tuyere exposed to the heat of the fire. Other fire bricks were used to fill the space in the 2' square 9" deep Hearth. Since the Tuyere is water cooled, there was zero evidence of the fire heating or burning the exposed end of the Tuyere. ??Mikeyn, is your Tuyere water cooled or is it a bare pipe extending thru a bed of insulating clay? I failed to determine what was blocking the air pipe, I just pushed a rod thru the pipe to clear it. The blockage was solid black when viewed thru the opened rear of the air tube. When the blockage was pushed out with no difficulty, I assumed it was ashes and possibly some fill lime from the Duck's Nest. Every time steel bar stock was placed in the fire zone, the coal was pushed out the other side, requiring the coal to be raked back into the fire zone. Since the bottom of the Tuyere is buried in the fill lime, the air tube hole is only a little over an inch above the fill lime. After the fire was established, the coal used was Anthracite "Nut Coal" purchased from Tractor Supply. The Nut coal is in walnut size chunks with very little fines or dust. However, the Nut coal burns with a considerable flame (which eats any smoke) and creates a bright yellow/white heat when the full air blast is used. After 4 hours burn time, the fire was pulled to extinguish it. There were two small 2" dia. clinkers pulled out of the bottom of the Duck's Nest plus ashes, coke, and unburnt coal all mixed with a little fill lime. I wrote to Mark Aspery and received a response suggesting that raking the coal back into the fire could also cause fill lime and ashes to be raked into the air tube and cause its blockage. I have a theory: Since the anthracite coal is extremely hot, is possible that some of the coal and fill lime could be pushed into the air pipe during raking (as Mark suggested), the coal could quickly burn out and then with the cooling air supply hitting it, cool to a mass? When I get the forge back together, the Tuyere will be raised 4-5 inches above the bottom of the Hearth. Sand will be used and the fill lime removed. The Tuyere air pipe will be changed to add a "T" section with the back side of the "T" giving access to clean out the air pipe. Then, I will carefully inspect any air blockage to determine what it is. Also, is the blockage inside the air pipe or is it clustered ash outside the pipes opening. PS: I live in Scotch Grove, Iowa which is between Cedar Rapids and Dubuque. So if any of the blacksmiths with a Side Blast Forge who lives within a 100 mile radiusI, I could possibly schedule a visit to review their Smithy to see how they have solved this and any other problem peculiar to the Side Draft Forge design.

After a days forging in my old bottom draft forge, I pull the fire and am amazed at the size of the clinker that comes out. For the next fire, all the old coke and coal from the previous fire are run thru a hardware cloth with a 3/8" sq. mesh. The fire is started with a charcoal base, then the coke from the previous fire, then raw coal is added around the fire. The large chunk coal is placed around the sides of the fire to make the fire deeper without using more coal. As the chuck coal heats, it becomes greasy in appearance. A "Coal Hammer" makes quick work to break up the chunk coal into small pieces. Another trick to increase the heat in the fire, is to place a piece of thin steel plate over the fire. The steel will reflect the heat down onto the fire. Placing a flat piece of large chunk coal works the same way to reflect heat back into the fire. Now, the project steel will heat a little faster. The steel over the fire also spreads the heat out to be able to heat a longer piece than would be possible without the steel sheet over the fire.

I am Paul R.. I have always used the traditional bottom draft forge. I have several small forges and a large stationary forge. the coal I have been using was removed from several house basements. I have several tons of soft ball size and larger chunk coal. The clinkers formed in the forge require the forge to be cleaned out every 2 hours. This forge doesn't have a clinker breaker, just a grate. I then researched the Side Draft Forge where the clinker are formed below the air inlet. I am in the process of building a Side Blast Forge. The Hearth is 24" sq., 9" deep. I basically am following Mark A. design. I wanted each component of the forge to be separable. The forge stand is made from 1" sq. tubing with removable legs. The Water Tank was reduced in size to be easily removable: 9"w x 24"l x 18" h. The tuyere is per Mark A's design except it is connected to the Water Tank thru 1" dia. hoses, top and bottom. The air is supplied using an electric blower. Currently,I am building a Super Sucker Side Draft Hood and will be using a 10"x 25' grain elevator auger tube as the chimney. Problem: The forge has been fired up twice to test its function. Both times, the air supply plugged up at the end of the tuyere. By disconnecting the air supply, I could run a rod down the air tube to clear out what was deposited in the tube. When I looked down the tube, the end was black with the plugging material. After pushing the rod thru, I had a view of red hot coals. Then the fire roared to life up to welding heat. Am I the only one to have the air supply plugged up and need to push a rod thru to remove the material that is plugging the air supply? Set-up information: The bottom of the Hearth is covered with fire brick and then "fill lime" is used to fill the Hearth and make the coal's nest. The bottom of the water cooled tuyere is resting on the firebrick. There is about 1" of fill lime over the firebrick which makes the air hole about 1-1/2" above the fill lime. The fire was started with charcoal, then a little bituminous coal and the forging was done with anthracite coal. since I am running without the chimney, the clean burning anthracite solved the smoke problem. I will add pictures of the forge when it is back together. After 4 hours of forging, the top 3/4 of the water tank was hot and steaming but the bottom 1/4 was still with cold water. Since my cut down water tank holds about 10 gal. (15 gal. is recommended) a method was devised to cool the water using the natural rising of hot water ( coffee percolator effect) tp pump the water up and then over a screen arched high over the top of the tank. After having water in the system for several weeks, the inside of the tank got quite rusty. I have a drain facet on the bottom of the tank. The water was emptied into a old beer keg after a day's forging.. A sump pump will be placed in the keg and used to pump the water back into the forge when the forge is to be used. Welding the tank and tuyere with a flux core wire welder was quite difficult to make the seams water tight. The flux core weld is at best, rough and may have some porosity. The seepage leaks were located and then the tank was re-welded to plug the leaks. All welded seams were welded on both sides. Welding the inside of the tuyere was difficult with the wire welder. A stick welder would have done a better job as it could have reached in easier to weld the inside where the pipe was cut out to make the taper. After the 2-1/2" air tube pie shaped cut outs were welded shut, the end was plugged and tested for water leaks. The 5" tube was also welded and tested for leaks. After the two tubes were welded in position, the assembly was tested for leaks. After welding the tuyere, several weeks later, cracks surfaced in two large, thick welds. The crack was "V" ground out and the crack filled with new weld. Have any of you made a Side Draft Forge and hood? What problems did you run into? And how did you fix these problems?