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I Forge Iron

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Posted

I was talking to one of my friends, and we got to discussing waste oil forges. He noticed a similarity between an automotive turbocharger and the general workings of a waste oil forge.

Could you use a turbocharger from a car to make a waste oil forge?

Posted

I have also considered this a few times and having perfected (to my satisfaction) my oil forges without using a turbo charger I would say don't bother. There's easier ways to do it all. As far as I understand about the mechanics behind diesel turbo chargers is that they force air into the combustion chamber which increases power and thus speed. This in effect is the same as using a electric blower on a gas/oil or coal forge, so what's the point? You would still need to atomize the oil and this would require high pressure air - ie, a compressor - Easier to buy a siphon nozzle and a compressor.

Posted

Any forge is supercharged be it a bellows, blower or hair drier. Turbo charging is using the exhaust pressure or flow to drive the super charger and this is old news for blacksmith forges. I think there's a concept drawing of one in one of the old standard books, maybe "Art Of Blacksmithing."

The basic concept is to put a turbine (fan driven by moving exhaust gasses) in the stack and link it to a blower. What I was going to try before the stupid tree snuck up on me was one of the squirrel cage vent stack things you see whirling on roofs. I was thinking of hooking it to a shaft and using it to drive a blower. Heck, I was thinking of using a similar style vertical turbine as a wind generator.
anyway, turbo charging a forge is pretty basic but forget using an automotive turbo, they're not even remotely applicable.

Frosty The Lucky.

Posted

This has got me thinking of maybe it could be used for a melting furnace for bronze or heck maybe even for a cupola with cast iron. Some folk just don't put enough air through theirs. Frosty why don't you get with Pat on that one?

Posted

This has got me thinking of maybe it could be used for a melting furnace for bronze or heck maybe even for a cupola with cast iron. Some folk just don't put enough air through theirs. Frosty why don't you get with Pat on that one?


I don't believe it'll work well enough for a cupola. No free air super charger works well against a restricted chamber. Automotive turbo chargers have a lot of exhaust pressure to generate a few psi to the intake. Big rig turbos are the second in line behind roots superchargers.

Pat's got his pretty well debugged. His cupola is more than capable of keeping 20 or more people hopping trying to keep up without tapping 100+lb ladles. Seems folk start complaining when the ladles get to 100lbs or more.

Frosty The Lucky.

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