utaholdiron Posted April 7, 2011 Share Posted April 7, 2011 A very old forge and blower. The gearing mechanism is long gone. It was housed beneath the blower and consisted of gears that drove a belt connected to the blower blades. A long, wooden handle operated up and down powered the gears. I got this unit quite cheap because it was not complete. I basically just wanted the blower. All the fastening nuts and bolts were badly rusted, I ended up using a cold chisel and hammer on some of them. Both blower and forge are cast iron so I had to be careful not to break anything. Cast iron being easily shattered. I finally got the blower removed from underneath the forge pan. The blade housing consists of two sides held together by 4 or 5 bolts and nuts. Again, these were also badly rusted. I tried "liquid wrench" repeatedly to no avail. As a last resort, I cut through the bolts with a hacksaw. There was minimal damage to the housing halves and it would be hidden when everything was put back together. The blower blades are all one piece of cast iron, and pretty heavy. I think it would take quite alot of force to get these blades moving fast enough to do any good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 Except that brute force and thin cast iron often devolves into jigsaw puzzle work with expensive nickle rod! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utaholdiron Posted April 8, 2011 Author Share Posted April 8, 2011 Except that brute force and thin cast iron often devolves into jigsaw puzzle work with expensive nickle rod! Master Curmudgeon, of course you are right. I'm still figuring out how to post on this site. My initial post had no text with it, so I added some today. I always enjoy your comments. Alan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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