Unstable bellows

[natkova]

Hi i  have one litle problem with my bellows and forge setup.

My tuyere is somehow moving around and i think there is issue with hoe bellows are mounted, when I pump bellows they are moving back and  forth a litle bit abd even on sides and that make horrible air flow and to notice tuyere mess up my bricks and all fuel goes around when tuyere moving around  push bricks and fuel to floor.

I hanged bellows under ceiling , I used two threaded rod and fastened.that with nuts, but I can feel that they (bellows) sre moving too much while working.

I dont know why, I think I would make bellows stand on floor (but that would take space)  but I think I cant fix this problem on other way.

It is not rigid as it should be.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

A picture of how the bellows is mounted will help. Probably needs cross bracing.

[natkova]

Here it is, ( it is night so excuse if photo is unclear)

i was thinking this might give me headache too i it is loose

If thread (bolt) is issue changing bellows post wont change much. i know they are too much unstable i was thinking to fasten somehow tuyere but that is not helpfull too becasue bellows are moing around, it is not problem when they move that much, issue is when tuyere push bricks since i didn't  used mortar .

Even if i screwed somehow tuyere there will be some moing between nozzle and tuyere.

 

[ThomasPowers]

My bellows had sort of a W shaped bracket fastened to the base of the nozzle to keep it from going side to side.  The axle on the middle board was also bolted down so it didn't move. I never had a problem. 

As a quick and dirty fix you could use a flexible hose from the bellows to the tuyere so the bellows could move but not transfer any movement to the tuyere.  For proof of concept you might use a section of inner tube.  Cut it and clamp the ends to the bellows nozzle and the tue pipe. (Tue pipe has to be long enough it doesn't get too hot at the clamp zone.)

[natkova]

You can see in picture (black around nozzle) that i tried with tube but no help, notice one thing to,  my big beam that suport two pieces of brackets (wooden) is moving, even that is not stable,  i might put this on floor i will se if i can't mke it this way i will try that.

 

[ThomasPowers]

Mine was mounted into a free standing floor frame that I could load in my pickup truck and take it to demos.  Took up most of the space in my little 4 cylinder imported pickup. I learned to pack stuff around the frame and under the bellows.

[Frosty]

What jumps out at me is a complete lack of diagonals in the two support boards. If you move the pump arm to the outside of the support members you can nail or screw lighter boards in an X across the two vertical support members. 

As it is the to supports can pivot both top and bottom so they act like a hinge and the bellows WILL swing side to side. A diagonal cross member makes it impossible to move without breaking something. 

Once you have a diagonal cross component then two more light boards, one from the the roof where the tue end is hanging down to the center of the diagonal cross. and another fro the same joist the main supports hang down to the tue support. 

Stand behind it and there's a big X, stand to the side and there's a big X. It won't move anywhere when you pump the bellows. None of the diagonals need to be thick, 20mm x 100mm would work fine though a little heavier won't hurt. Use what you have, Yes?

Bridges and buildings are made of Triangles, not squares, every square shape has at least ONE diagonal tying the corners together to prevent it from hinging and collapsing. 

Make sense?

 Frosty The Lucky.

[natkova]

It does make sense but i think i will need to drill new holes so bellows can go lower than this , Why?

Because i tried one to put one piece and i noticed top chamber is too wide, it can't open when i nail wood on it.

I will lower bellows for 4 inches or five so that i can put X beam maybe i will put lever inside that X shape  so it won't need to hanging on cable.

 

[Frosty]

The diagonals don't have to go all the way to the connection points. Attach them to the vertical members above where the bellows are, when all the way up. The diagonals don't have to be the same length or make an even X either, just make triangles.

You can prop the Bellows at the top, lightly screw one diagonal to the top so it'll swing and move it up and down on the far side till it clears the bellows and screw it to the vertical member.  Then tighten the other end of course. Repeat for the other diagonal.

If you have spare lumber laying around you don't need to measure anything so long as it's long enough to reach. This is strictly eyeball engineering. Easy as Pie. 

 Frosty The Lucky.

[natkova]

Here it is , I must admit it shake a litle bit, but it don't shake as it used to

[Frosty]

It's going to shake a little, that's the nature of a bellows but Is it steady enough? 

 Frosty The Lucky.

[natkova]

Yes it is bricks are not pushed aeay thank you, one question, is lignite coal good for forging.

I cant get yellow collor only red cherry or orange , however much I pump air.

[Frosty]

You're very welcome, it's my pleasure. It makes me feel good to help folks. 

Lignite  will work but isn't the easiest nor best coal. Bituminous works much better.  What size pieces are you burning? If they're too large air will blow through and past without burning the coal. This is bad for a couple reasons: first is the excess oxygen contacting the hot iron/steel making excessive scale and burning out more carbon from steel. Then it can blow the heat itself right through and out of the fire.

Try breaking it up into smaller pieces. The smaller a piece the more surface area it has for the total weight of the piece. Yes? This means that more coal per kilo is burning at one time the smaller the pieces. Make sense? Also, smaller pieces have smaller spaces between pieces so air has more trouble getting through the pile without coming on contact with coal so it is consumed. 

It's just like lighting a camp fire, you need to start with kindling, wood split very small so it catches fire easily. Yes? If you try starting a fire with logs you'll be there forever before it gets burning. No?  The same chemical process applies to heat output. If you heat with wood you'll know you build the fire in the morning with small wood so it gets hot fast. Later when everything is warmed up you use larger wood that burns slow and steady. Right before bed you bank the fire with the largest wood so it stays burning all night, not much heat but it'll be ready to stir in the morning for a fast hot fire.

Does that make sense? 

Coal, charcoal, dry poop, propane, fuel oil, etc. all work the same way, Small pieces burn hotter and faster. Making the particles smaller varies with the fuel of course so don't be confused trying to figure out the detail differences between solid and liquid or gas fuels. It's just an example.

 Frosty The Lucky.

 

[natkova]

8 hours ago, Frosty said:

It's going to shake a little, that's the nature of a bellows but Is it steady enough? 

https://streamable.com/24cqev

Here is how bellows work and I think you can see coal burning too.

I was heating knife maybe 1-2 inches pwr square.

It took me too much and coal were always red orangish color.

 

[Frosty]

Oh yeah, your coal is WAY too large. Break it up into pieces between thumbnail and pinky finger, nail size. You'll get much more heat where you need it for the fuel and air.

The powder and fines can be wetted down not into mud and packed around the sides of the mound. This will help contain the heat and pyrolize the coal more quickly. Whether your coal will coke properly or not I don't know. The anthracite available coal available locally cokes fine, depending on the seam you collect from, same for the bituminous coal from the next mine over. Some is better than others. All coal WILL pyrolize, burn out the impurities: oils, tar, sulfur, phosphorous, etc. leaving relatively pure carbon. Just like wood turns to charcoal. It may not qualify as coke but it'll be close. Remember dirt, rocks, etc. can't burn out so don't be surprised if you have to scrape it out of your air grate. 

Almost all coal makes plenty of heat to forge and weld but it's all different, some of the guys up here are using dirty sub bituminous for good results. You must be able to adjust your fire management to suit what you get every single new ungraded batch. I have to dig my own so I do the grading and I'm pretty iffy, I mostly use propane though.

 Frosty The Lucky.

[natkova]

This is some leftover from coal lignite that we mix with wood (using in wood stove) so I want to use ehat I have (recycling) it would be throwed aeay and iqm using it so I wil try to make it smaller, I hope it wouldn't act dusty.

 And choke fire.

Good tips so smaller (like I see coals on youtoube bigger than beans smaller than eggs.

[anvil]

A few observations.

First, as I remember my two chambered bellows, you are working too hard.  I think it needs a "tune up". I'm going from my known 2  chamber to your multi chambered bellows. So I will describe my setup and perhaps it will help.

I has a rope hanging from the lever at my end. I balanced the bellows by adding and subtracting horse shoes. When I pulled down the bottom leaf rose to the top. When I let go, I always did it when it was fully up. When the air goes from the bellows thru the narrow outlet, there is resistance. I added horse shoes so that the free "drop" took about as much time as It did when I pulled it down manually. It was also set up so that the "go down" time manually or by gravity equalled the "go up" time with no work from me. This gave me a constant draft and no gusts. Thus I could do a slow steady pull down, and get an equal volume of air going into my fire pot on either stroke. The slow steady pull meant minimal work and if I needed more air, I could get it by pulling down a bit faster.

I believe you need to work with your bellows enough to at least get the gusts out of your fire pot.

 

[Frosty]

Bigger than beans WAY smaller than eggs, small radish or raspberry size maybe. 

 Frosty The Lucky.

[natkova]

1 hour ago, anvil said:

I believe you need to work with your bellows enough to at least get the gusts out of your fire pot.

I must admit that i have shoulder pain now  from pumping bellows    i think lever is too high so  i drilled it and tied  some rope and drilled another handle and tied that rope to that handle.

My bellows are 2 chambered like yours is, i thought if i pump more mora air will go, i lost patience because metal was red it wasn't hot yellow so i wanted faster to get that which i did not and bellows are small like 3 foot by 1 foot. So i pumped them that fast for that reason.

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

Bigger than beans WAY smaller than eggs, small radish or raspberry size maybe. 

I will give a try, i hope i won't blow away coal. I had one solution i cut 2 inches wide pipe and 3 inches long and i fit that like opposite reduction, so instead blowing narrow strong air it was blowing wider steadier air.

 

[anvil]

14 hours ago, natkova said:

, i thought if i pump more mora air will go

No matter your air source, you want volume not velocity. The harder you pump, the faster the air moves thru your fire pot. This creates an oxidizing fire. This means too much oxygen. This tends to burn your steel. 

Perhaps your bellows are too small. My leaves were made from a 4'x8' piece of plywood and we're at least 3'x5', if not a bit bigger.

[natkova]

I boght some charcoal will give it a try

[Frosty]

I agree your bellows are deflating too quickly, try restricting the outlet so they take a few seconds to exhale. There's no reason to have the pump handle any higher than necessary to be out of your way. It could even move horizontally at belt or shirt pocket height. It connects with cord now, cord will pull around corners easily all it needs is a roller or pully if you want to be fancy. 

You'd be much happier with larger bellows, the ones I've used I liked best were about the size anvil describes, two strokes on the lever and it blew for a good 30 seconds and better still it had a simple slide valve to control the air blast. 

Charcoal only wants a BREATH of air, nothing like what your bellows is putting out, it's too fast and high pressure for charcoal. 

 Frosty The Lucky.

[natkova]

I have some hide  I can make one quickly this time I will stich hide glue, bellows well are not problem to madw building is problem I now take one quarter space with bellows and forge other wall are workbench  machinist vise, and stump in middle with sledgehammer as anvil, thats my setup for starters.

[Frosty]

You don't need to have the bellows even with the tue, it only needs just enough space it doesn't hit the rafters. Move it higher it can be over a work bench you aren't using while forging. put a loop or knot in the cord used to pump it so you can lift the bottom leaf so you don't bang your head. 

Make it square and put it in a corner if that works best. The bellows doesn't need to be at the forge, that's what air ducting is for. 

 Frosty The Lucky.

[natkova]

Maybe I would build bigger bellows in future when I gather lumber I have hide, they are easy to make but it does take time it would distract me from smithing.