Side Draft Hood, Todays project

[Wesley Chambers]

Used the info from anvilfire and here http://www.appaltree...oal/imag017.gif to go by. Looking back I should have made the area above the smoke shelf a little taller but it works great as is~

My stick welding is only half decent as is, but trying to work on 16gauge was a pain!










http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUfjJ36fY3E

[Glenn]

Those hoods work well and mine lasted for years.

Pre-heat the chimney with a couple of burning sheets of newspaper as you collect and build your fire, and two more just before you light the fire in the forge.

The junk from the fire (ash, particulate matter etc) collects both on the inside of the hood and on the smoke shelf. My hood has a stack larger than suggested and rested on the top of the hood. The size difference collected ash and particulate matter. The particulate matter needs to be removed from these areas on a regular basis as when it rains, or they draw dampness, they start aggressive corrosion.

The weak point of the hood seems to be where the fire strikes the back of the hood. Twice in the life of the hood, I replaced this area by welding a plate to cover the hole burned into the back panel. In all fairness, the ABA shop has 6 or so of these hoods built at the same time mine was built and do not seem to suffer the same problems. YMMV. And yes I would build another one except that I now use a 55 Forge with a 24 inch diameter chimney.

In the video I would suggest that you build a MUCH larger fire. The fire ball should be about the size of a melon or larger.

[David Einhorn]

Glenn has a good point, your fire needs to be much deeper otherwise you will not have a neutral area to heat your steel. A shallow fire like the one in the video will have much too much oxygen blasting against your iron resulting is converting your iron into iron-oxide, ie rust.

[pkrankow]

Very nice.

In my own research a smoke shelf does more for preventing short chimneys from backing in downdraft weather conditions, and that a tall (over 13 feet) chimney is most important for good draft, as well as the chimney being installed properly in the structure.

It looks like you build a good drawing side draft hood.

Phil

[Wesley Chambers]

I just wanted to see the draw for the fire, Im in the middle of a city and it was 5pm I tend not to forge after this time when people start getting home from work. Also the only local coal I have at the moment is block size (think basket ball or bigger ) so I didn't have anything broken down to use that was just a few pieces of wood and leftover coke. I didn't have the flue pipe attached so I only had about a 2' stack out the roof, should be much stronger once I add the missing 10'

[Francis Trez Cole]

looks like it worked just fine nice job

[JamesG]

Could you put fire brick int he back where the fire hitting the metal. I am at the moment trying to firgure out how I want to make my hood.

[Randy]

You also want to move the chimney off to the side more so that you can put a bank of coal on both sides of the fire. See attached photo. Otherwise looking good.