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I Forge Iron

Getiing rid of the Dragons Breath


Ranchmanben

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I got this idea from a friend who had gone to a damascus making clinic at Jim Poor’s shop. Putting a fairly strong fan below your forge and blowing the dragons breath upwards. My set up still need a bit of work to optimize performance but this has been a game changer. This might be a well known trick and covered here many times but it’s new to me and thought others might benefit as well. 

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I can run my hand within 5 or 6 inches of the port in the door with the fan going. With the door open it’s not quite as good but I no longer have to wear a glove on my tong hand to get material out.

 

Thomas, my forge has very little risk of that but but I’m curious of why that would be so detrimental. 

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Ranchmanben, good tip.

I’m guessing TP’s thought is the exhaust could reduce available oxygen feeding your burners, changing the fuel/air ratio and thus flame characteristics. Your forge good run rich and create more carbon monoxide, etc. BUT I am guessing and don’t intend to speak for him..

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When you run air through a burner, N2 + O2, most if not all of the Oxygen is used making either CO or CO2.  If you run a mixture of air and exhaust through a burner you have less O2 in the mix and so get more CO produced (plus the CO already in the mix).  CO is a sneaky cumulative toxin.  I've know a number of folks who have had close shaves with it and you read about deaths every winter from it.    As I've done some bladesmithing and pattern welding I often de-tune my burners to run rich and so knowingly produce more CO and KNOWINGLY deal with it: 10' walls, open gables and two 10'x10' roll up doors on opposite walls along the prevailing wind direction that I don't close until the wind is strong enough to start blowing over anvils....

Experienced smiths know the danger; but we get a LOT of new folks here who do not and so we tend to over emphasize safety aspects. (I bought a house once from the widow of a fellow who did something stupid he knew better than to do; I don't need any smithing equipment from an estate sale where the smith was not "rich in years and ready!")

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Is the Vent-A-Fume hood related to Vent-A-Kiln hoods? I've seen those used over pottery kilns. They use a counterweight and pulley to help raise and lower the hood. I also ran across a slightly different approach to raising and lowering a hood in an old Buffalo Forge catalog. It also uses a pulley-and-counterweight system, but with a ring-shaped counterweight around the flue.

https://archive.org/stream/BuffaloForgeCoCatalogNo801/Buffalo Forge Co Catalog No 801#page/n17

Al (Steamboat)

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