Junksmith Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 I use a crank blower most of the time for better control. I have an electric, but I found that even with a speed control set low it was moving too much air and burning too much fuel. The gate was the only thing that made a noticable difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaughnT Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 Another option a member here came up with was to rig a handle onto his ash gate handle so it could be locked in the open position. This gave the air somewhere else to go besides the coals. Beautiful forge, mate. Very stout, too, and sure to last for the next thousand years! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bentiron1946 Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 I used to make my forges a bit different, I would control my blast with my ash dump, it pivoted on a bolt over a 3" pipe drop out of the bottom of the duck and the air came into the side with a tee. I had and extension on the slide valve so I could control the amount of air with my foot. I used a fractional HP squirrel cage fan, around 500 to 800 CFM, from W.W. Grangers or McMaster Carr with a bolt on flange with an in-line on/off switch. The fan would sit neatly under the forge out of the way with nothing between the fan and 3" pipe tee but the flange. I never had to replace a fan because it got hot form the fire either nor burned my hands trying to adjust the air flow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the iron dwarf Posted November 21, 2013 Share Posted November 21, 2013 on my forges I use a 1" ball valve to control the air, the big forge has 5 of them and another as a bypass and another to connect several more forges to the pipework Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel OF Posted November 25, 2013 Share Posted November 25, 2013 I've just bought a bouncy castle blower (not arrived yet) & plan to put a slider gate & dimmer switch on. I've just been away training on a brand new Vaughns forge which was insanely loud. After a week an electrician rigged up a dimmer switch & the difference was amazing, I could hear myself think. (Always reassuring to hear that cog turn). I found that leaving the gate full open & the dimmer low to half way worked well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Егор Бреднев Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 On 4/15/2012 at 12:07 AM, TomN said: Here is an image of the details, on the top of my blower. Should be all the electrical info on there! The reason I want a dimmer, is the slide which I already have on my blower doesn't work too well. Especially when it comes to lighting the forge. The blower is just too powerful. Another reason is that the blower itself is incredibly noisey and gets on my nerves a bit. I'd rather just have the fire 'ticking over' most of the time. So 400W max rating on this is too low for my 450W blower? Yes. Because start current several times bigger than working. Buy this module (4 kWt) and be happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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