Old french tuyere: How to use it ?

[JeremyPharma]

Hi guys !

Been lurking on this forum for a while and learned a lot thanks to you all. 
I'm trying to upgrade my forge a little bit since I think it consumes a lot of coal. In my opinion, my firepot is way too big and way too deep for what I'm doing with it.
A month ago, I stumbled upon a post on the "french craigslist" (Yeah I'm a frenchie). Someone was selling an old tuyere with its manual blower for real cheap and I bought it.

My main question is, how do you use this kind of tuyere ?

You will find attached to this post some pictures of the exact same tuyere/blower as mine and a schematics with dimensions of the tuyere, the forge "casing" that I plan on using (different than the one in the pictures), and a firepot that I designed based on some maths (thanks trigonometry) I did looking at a couple of commercial firepots adapted to the "casing" dimensions.

I'm open to all insight you might have and if there is a way to combine both the tuyere and the firepot (maybe as a way to contain the hearth to consume less fuel) I'm in !

Thank you in advance !

 

Forge Blueprint.pdf

[ausfire]

That's a nice antique. I haven't seen a blower like that before.

I'm not sure about how it's used and will stand corrected, but if it were mine I would probably build up the tray with clay, sloping down to the level of the grate. I couldn't see an ash dump there anywhere but guess that underneath the tray is some way of releasing ash build up.

Anyway, just fire it up and see how it goes. Bonne chance!

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I tend to agree with ausfire about the hearth being built up with clay and the firepot crafted out of the clay.

[ThomasPowers]

Ditto 3; You could place a layer of firebrick on their larger sides in it and cly atop of that; but unless you have free access to bricks clay would be cheaper.  Think of it as a JABOD; but missing the dirt. 

[Frosty]

I make 4 on the fill it with clayey soil, tamp it hard and make whatever you wish for a fire pot by scraping it in the soil. I have a similar if home made forge I used a cereal bowl to ram the soil around for the fire pot. I ended up changing it a bunch of times before settling on what I liked. That's down the road for you though.

3 hours ago, JeremyPharma said:

(Yeah I'm a frenchie).

That explains why your location in the header reads "Arles, France"! 

We may not be French but we DO notice the obvious now and then.  Yeah yeah guys you don't need to tell me not everybody who lives in France is French. No just let me have a little fun with the new guy will ya?

Welcome aboard Jeremy, glad to have you. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[JeremyPharma]

Thanks a lot for your replies,

I'll follow your advice and I'll try to clay it then. 

I'll come back to y'all when it will be done. 

And yes there is a hole on the underside of the tuyere with a little "flap" to block the airflow and to release the accumulated ash.

Do I need a special kind of clay or will some clay from the riverbank do ? If so, I'll search a little bit on the forum for a formula.

Thanks a lot for the warm welcome guys !

[ausfire]

Yes, riverbank clay will do the job. Here is Australia we like to use termite mound. very similar consistency to clay when wet.

Your English is excellent. Even a little American influence there?

[pnut]

Follow the jabod method of forge lining and building.

That's basically what you have is A bottom blast jabod. The best thing is you can reshape the firepot as the need arises.

Good luck

   Pnut (Mike)

[Frosty]

Don't make the clay into mud, just enough water so it'll ram hard. If it's too wet it takes forever to dry and shrink checks (cracks) as it does.

Don't over think it you're basically making a hole in the dirt at a convenient work height.

Frosty The Lucky.

[JNewman]

Try contacting Mathieu  at Les Forges de Montreal.  He was asking me about making them for him about a week ago.  I think that is what he was used to using in France.