How Do You Pronounce That Doo-hickey Under The Firepot?

[stonetrooper]

I've been doing alot of blacksmith reading lately and wanted to know the correct way to pronounce tuyere so I don't look stupid when I'm talking to a blacksmith. Is it "too-yare" or "too-yairy" or "tie-year" or "too-E-airy"? How do you pronounce it?

[rlarkin]

"twee Air"

[Dave Leppo]

combustion atmospheric inlet plenum 8)

[Archie Zietman]

I pronounce it tweer, always heard it called tweer.

[gobinu]

FreeDictionary "Tuyere" has pronounceations for most words. Click the little speaker icon next to the work and you can hear it.

Twee-air is what I hear.

[stonetrooper]

That is cool. However on the one above with the American flag it sounds like "Two-air" like "to ere" is human." Can I just call it the doo-hickey under the firepot? Y'all* (I'm from the South) will know what I'm talking about.

*you-all (y

[Frosty]

It's pronounced lots of ways, including: the doo-hicky under the fire pot.

To air is close to the original pronunciation.

Tweer is okay.

For all y'all sutheners Tyree is regional.

There's another I can't recall at the moment as well but those are the main ones.

The audio pronunciation guide is cool.

Frosty

[Dallas de Marr]

Heh, thanks for asking, stonetrooper. I've wondered it myself, but been too embarrassed to ask. :)

Edited May 23, 2008 by Vladimir Marenus
Spelling. >.>

[skunkriv]

tweer is what I say and mostly hear in the midwest. Also have heard twee-air. Have heard and seen it written as tuey-iron (that may be in England)

[stonetrooper]

To-ear: My limit is usually about "to-ear" of corn.
To-air: "To-air" is human, to forgive, divine.
To-year: I've been blacksmithing about "to-year'.
Twee-air: "One, two, twee-air 'bout as high as I can count."
Tweer: "Tweer" goin' to the picture show if yont-to-go."

[HWooldridge]

I say "two-air" - I also hear some folks say "tweer" but I personally never cared for that pronunciation.

[matt87]

My archaeometallurgy tutor pronounces it 'twee-eeairrrr', but she has a fairly strong Sri Lankan accent. I pronounce it 'twee-air', but I've heard 'tweer' and 'tue'.

[John B]

I believe the word tuyere is of French origin and means a pipe through which air is blown into a furnace or hearth

Pronounce it as you like, but if its a doo-hickey under my firepot, I know it as an ash dump, and on my other forge, the doo-hickey is at the back

[larrynjr]

I'm glad I use a gasser and don't have to worry about it, I probably would have pronounced it tire, as in auto or bicycle.:p

[racer3j]

"tyou-yay"[that first "y" is very soft]- I try not to say it. Bit of a Francophobe-Maternal grandfather was infantry in WWI.

Edited May 23, 2008 by racer3j

[markb]

Not exactly right but made me think of the song "I'm an Old Cowhand"
Yippy ki yi, yippy yippy, ti yippy .... Ti yA

[irnsrgn]

Just so you will know!

The arrow in the picture points to what an original tuyere was on a Side Blast Forge.

A tuyere (Tweer- Tw-ear) is a tube, nozzle or pipe through which air is blown into a furnace or hearth.

The name was carried over to the Bottom Blast to avoid confusion in terminology.

You will also notice that a side blast Tuyere, has no need of an airgate, ash shaker that has become known as a Clinker Breaker, but in reality is not long enough to extend into the base of the fire to actually break up a clinker unless it has formed in a pool over the air gate sufficient enough to impede the movement of air up thru the fire. More often than not the restriction is caused by ash and small impurities covering the air gate which is what it was designed to remove by moving it back and forth to more or less filter out the impurities and ash without dumping the whole of the fire into the recepticle under it.

If you look closely at the so called Clinker Breaker and read the instructions that came with old forges, it states that the air gate can be used to limit the amount of air that is allowed into the fire by positioning it in different locations and a lot of the airgates will do this while some are only designed to move up thru small slots to break up the ash and impurities accumulated above them.

Air (or oxygen) is injected into a hearth under pressure from bellows or a blast engine or other devices. This causes the fire to be hotter in front of the blast than it would otherwise have been, enabling metals to be smelted or melted or made hot enough to be worked in a forge. This applies to any process where a blast is delivered under pressure to make a fire hotter.

The term (like many technical terms relating to ironmaking) was introduced to England with the new technology of the blast furnace and finery forge in around 1500, and was sometimes anglicised as tu-iron.

Edited May 24, 2008 by irnsrgn

[Sam Salvati]

For as any different designs of the tuyere (too-yare) there are as many different pronuciations hehe.

[irnsrgn]

french (tuyere) translates to (conduit) in english

[Ian]

I've heard it pronounced "To" and in 'touch' and "Yair" as in 'lair', and thats how I pronounce it.
That being said in England I've heard Tue ( as in teusday ) iron as well.

This is all with regards to side blasts though, for bottom blast forges it's not so clear to me what everythings supposed to be called. The blast goes through the same pipe the ash is dumped from, so technically only the part above the T junction at best could be called a Tuyere, but then it doesn't extend through the air grate into the firepot like a true Tuyere on a sideblast does. Everything below the T (on a bottom blast) would be classed as part of the Ash Dump to me.
How about some answers from the text books?

Edited May 24, 2008 by Ian

[DRSJP]

I am an amateur blacksmith, but a linguist by love of languages... and speak French, which is what language this word for "grate" came from. The correct pronunciation is TOO-yair.

DRSJP

[stonetrooper]

TOO-shay DRSJP. If I did not know any better that is the way I would pronounce. Thanks to everybody for trying to clear this up for me.