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I Forge Iron

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Posted

Sitting on a shelf gathering dust I have two or three hand cranked grind stones that clamp to the edge of a bench.
They are geared and have a cast iron body and are probably for sharpening knives or small tools but you need someone to turn the crank while you work.
I often see them come up on E-bay and at car boots.
Looking at these the other day I came to wondering that if I were to drop off the stone and the guard, replace the small handle with a longer one with a counter weight to give a bit of umff. After which replace the the stone with a set of fan blades made from some sheet then fabricate a new housing if they would be servisable as a cheap/lightweight forge blower.
Has anyone tried this?

Posted

I have thought about it, but I don't think you are going to spin a blade the size of a blower uses. The gears in a hand crank blower are much larger than in the grinder, so they won't tolerate the same load.

My Lancaster blower is about 50:1
My hand crank grinder is about 12:1

I think it would work, but not nearly as good as a blower.

Phil

PS Lincolnshire UK, or Lincolnshire, IL, USA?

Posted

I've been using my hand crank ginder holding tools one handed for quick touchups - cold chisels and center punches pretty much. It works pretty well, but mine is situated such that I can rest my arm on the workbench and experience reasonable control. I certainly wouldn't do any super accurate work with it.

Posted

Sounds like a great project for a slow day - and if you really want to make a truly Rube Goldberg piece get an old sewing machine treadle for your power source :lol:

Posted

Hi Phil,
Its Lincolnshire UK.
Samcro I will get a photo burned off - you are welcome to one but shipping may be a killer.
I have a small French cranked blower, really light weight almost tin plate which is what gave me the idea.
Another option that came up is if you already have the fan with a smallish pulley on the side the stone could be replaced by a pulley wheel or
short of that put a thin disc of tin or ply wood either side of the stone to mock up a pulley and put a belt between.
With the gearing on the mechanism 6-1 ( I would have to check this) and a large pulley driving a small pulley?

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