Peter Wright anvil Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 I got this forge at an Auction. Thing I found neat is the tin work still being on it. However looks like someone had an electric motor on the . My question is what was the original drive for the blower? And rough age. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnut Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 Nice little rivet forge you have there. Remember to clay the pan. Pnut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 We need to see the blower set up in better pictures; how it was rigged might tell us more. The tinwork was added by a previous owner and looks to be a nice addition. You may want to go through some of the on-line Sears Roebuck catalogs to see if you see something similar; I'd start with the 1905 one and work both ways. Normally I'd ask if you had taken it to an ABANA Affiliate meeting and asked around there; there were at least 3? in Ohio that I recall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kozzy Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 Do NOT let pnut's comment about claying this forge slip through the cracks. I recently saw a post from a guy elsewhere who did his first firing without claying and almost immediately heard "boink"--put a huge crack across his similar forge. That hood has a super cool factor. Just keep your fire well controlled as it appears to be galvanized sheet in the photos. Age is a tough one as the years of riveted structures were quite long so people were still using them well into times when welding was more common. Yea, photo of the blower section would help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave in pa. Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 I have had (and used) one like that for about 15 years. I think you'll find that the blower has a flat pulley for a leather belt about 1 inch wide. It had a wooden handle, flywheel, and one way ratchet on the side that the hood is attached to now. With all that is missing, I think it would be a lot easier and cheaper to fit an electric motor and speed control to it. Rough age? Champion made them around the turn of the 1900's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welshj Posted April 2, 2020 Share Posted April 2, 2020 13 hours ago, Kozzy said: Do NOT let pnut's comment about claying this forge slip through the cracks. I recently saw a post from a guy elsewhere who did his first firing without claying and almost immediately heard "boink"--put a huge crack across his similar forge. Yup, that'd be me... just awhile before finding this forumn. Smh. From the looks of it- close to the same forge! My brother's lent to me. That I now have to repair. The original blower on it had the original leather belt still on it. It had been converted to an electric motor drive by adding pulleys and shafts of different sizes to "under drive" the blower. I removed all that for safe keeping, and converted to a straight squirrel cage blower. Worked great for an hour or so before... uh.... parting ways? I made a flat plate from mild steel. (1/4") and drilled two holes in it to match up with the bolts holding the grate in. To that, I welded a pipe and sliced and drew it in to reduce diameter until I met my 2" air pipe diameter. To that, I welded on an angled pipe to mount the blower on- after cutting a hole in the side of the original pipe for air. I left the bottom open, with a cap... to clear ash and crud from the grate. Forgive the rough looking welds- 110v flux core wire on old rusty pipe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Wright anvil Posted April 2, 2020 Author Share Posted April 2, 2020 (edited) On 4/1/2020 at 9:40 AM, pnut said: Remember to clay the pan. Thanks. I knew it needs to be lined, just wasn't sure what to use yet. What exactly do you recommend and how thick? On 4/1/2020 at 10:02 AM, ThomasPowers said: We need to see the blower set up in better pictures; how it was rigged might tell us more. It is over at my storage unit at the moment. I will try to get more/better pictures soon as I can get back over there? Curious on ballpark value? Pretty sure I got it cheap. Thanks 9 hours ago, Welshj said: I removed all that for safe keeping, and converted to a straight squirrel cage blower. Worked great for an hour or so before... uh.... parting ways? Blow setup looks like it would work great. Sucks about the crack in base pan... Edited April 2, 2020 by Mod34 Excessive quoting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted April 2, 2020 Share Posted April 2, 2020 Got access to a good clay bed in a local creek? Creek clay, sand and sifted wood ashes makes a nice lining. Try an inch and work on creating a bowl for the fire. When I lived in Columbus OH there was a nice bed of clay in a creek just off 104/Frank road, used to be a closed HD there I could park at. (Of course that was 16+ years ago, anyway Ohio has a lot of good clay deposits; they made a lot of bricks in places!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted April 2, 2020 Share Posted April 2, 2020 You really need to start doing a little reading here. If you do a search like this there are a ton of threads about claying a forge pan. Don't use the search box on the forum but use your favorite search engine like Google and search like this without the quotes. "clay forge pan site:www.iforgeiron.com" I got 599 results but you don't have to read them all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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