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I Forge Iron

Water powered forge


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Neat site.

Another use of falling water was to compress large volumes of air for forges and blast furnaces. A trompe or hydraulic air blast used a tower like divice and a venturi to entrap air in a closed box and the water head presure provided a steady pressure. Two examples Mechanical Movements, Powers and Devices:... - Google Book Search figures 634 and 636

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Wow,

Y'know, when I find an interesting shed I want to look at everything, and I don't just mean the contents. The structure is often fascinating as well. The marvels of modern science eh? I felt like I was standing inside the sheds.

OK I'm ready for the whole series of IFI smithys photographed this way! Tell me how to do it with my box brownie and I'll start the ball rolling.
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"Hello Strine it appears that you have not posted on our forums in several weeks, why not take a few moments to ask a question, help provide a solution or just engage in a conversation with another member in any one of our forums?"

I didn't realise there was a time limit..."several weeks". Gee I've got library books borrowed in the sixties and the libraries aren't bugging me yet. What's the problem folks?

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Lauf adP in Germany still has a water powered smithy---including air hammers! that they run once a month for visitors---you can tour it other times.

There is another place, I'd have to look it up again that has a large smithy with a a bunch of powerhammers, drop forges, screwpresses all run from water power but it is not "live" anymore just a museum.

Speaking of which Hessen Park had a helve hammer that still gets used IIRC and Bad Windsheim has a shop that is used a lot when I was there in 1998--I got dragged into giving an unplanned lesson of welding up a billet to the smith---he was in his 80's but hadn't done any patternwelding and I had brought a billet and borax along with me on that trip just in case...(I needed a forge fix really badly by then...)

Thomas

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