Hand cranked blower set up...

[Michael]

OK so now I have a decent blower on a stand, and on most of the forges I've seen its set up the crank with the left hand for a right handed smith, of which I am one. i've been using a squirell cage blower for about 4 yrs now, it and its electric switch are on the right and the 2 inch tweer piping under the forge has pretty much rusted into a right sided configuration.

So, I can massively rearrange my forge set up, cut the drum out of its stand and reverse it, move the anvil to make space for the blower to use with my left hand and while I was pondering this the lovely wife pipes in with 'well, don't you use your left hand to hold the tongs?' She has a point, the right hand is tending the fire but the left is holding the tongs and a right side placement of the blower, would let me crank right handed and stop when its time to pick up the hammer.

So where's your blower, and how do you use it, lefty or righty?

Thanks,

Michael-frightening the neighbors since the year Four.

[Frosty]

I prefer it on my left but I really don't much care.

Looking at your pic I don't see why you can't just rotate your whole forge to change blower position. In addition to that, the flex pipe means you could hang the blower from the rafters if you wanted to get . . . creative.

Frosty

Edited August 13, 2008 by Frosty

[Glenn]

You were not born with a hammer in your hand, you taught your self to hold, control, and use the hammer with the first hand handy (pun intended). Now is the time to teach your off hand to be useful. Crank right, hammer left. Feels awkward at first but so does grabbing hold of a piece of hot metal. Just takes a little practice to get it to work.

[Michael]

I was just going to turn the whole forge around but then the 3rd leg would stick out to where I'm usually standing. cutting the bolts holding it in the stand will give me a chance to drill a couple more holes in the rim so I can put some shelves out of rod on either side of the brake drum (next forge will absolutely have a table).

Hammer left huh? think I'll bring out the old pre anvil chunk of I beam while I learn a bit of southpaw hammer control.

Thanks for the responses.

Michael

[ThomasPowers]

I am right handed; I hammer with my right hand and drive the tongs with my left hand: I have always cranked with my right hand so I can maneuver the piece in the fire with the left hand *while* I am cranking. it is also a whole lot easier and faster to let go the crank and grab a hammer than to pick up the tongs and get them situated correctly on the work piece with my "off" hand while the "good" hand is doing nothing but holding a hammer handle.

With experience my left hand is a lot more useful than when I started smithing. Getting new students to be able to manipulate both hands differently at the same time has shown me that my ambidexterity has been greatly enhanced by smithing.

[HWooldridge]

The hammer arm gets a real workout with a lot of hammering so I believe a tradition developed to work the blast with the offside arm to give the other one a rest. If you worked at it steadily for 10-12 hour days, the difference would be noticeable.

[ThomasPowers]

HW; I've never read or heard of that anywhere; any cite as to that "tradition"?

Traditionally the smith's helper worked the blast and not the smith so I don't see how that would happen.

[HWooldridge]

TP; my primary source is personal experience in a one man shop plus I might also add that not every smith had a helper. It's much easier for me to crank with the left hand to rest the hammer arm and it has been my observation over the years that most other individual smiths do the same - but of course, it's personal preference and shops with multiple employees can/could do as they pleased. I have noted most of the shop setups in "Practical Blacksmithing" by Richardson and other sources show forge/blower on the left and anvil a quarter turn to the right, rather than the reverse. However, there is no written rule that I am aware of stating one way or the other is correct. IMHO, it just feels right to put the forge/blower to the left of a right handed smith but then, I also like blondes better than brunettes...

It's akin to the question of "why" of anvils have the horn pointing to the left for RH smiths. Some say that is the only way to do it and give their reasons - others say the reverse method is correct - the ongoing discussions make for an interesting life. BTW, I'm right handed and have the horn pointing to the right...:-)

[ThomasPowers]

Oh traditionally means during the last 100 years to you; it's the last 1000 years for me and having a one man smithy is just about as common as having a 1 person operating room in a modern hospital.

Many things changed as the cost of labour saving tooling went down and the cost of labour went up. Things were also different in "frontier" america vs "settled" europe with the frontier smith often doing a wide range of things that the european smiths had broken down into different guilds.

Very tricky word "traditionally" ask some people and they will tell you that traditionally the smith worked sitting on the ground with his wives as strikers. (never got my wife to buy into that one, either striking or having multiple wives...)

I'm going to look through some of my books and see if the pictures of medieval smiths show a hand preference. Unfortunaterly the smith is usually portrayed working at the anvil rather than using the bellows---of course their anvils don't have horns so that one is out. Modern european anvils often have a horn on both ends also making the horn direction moot.

[Finnr]

My blower is set up to turn with my left hand. No reason other than that's how I like to do it.
Finnr

[Frosty]

Modern european anvils often have a horn on both ends also making the horn direction moot.

And which direction should the . . . round horn point?

Some traditions are immortal.

Frosty

[Ferrous Beuler]

I use a hand crank blower and definitely prefer it to an electric blower. It is what I am used to and I like the control and the "glide" it has once I stop cranking. Also I like the fact that it glides to a stop and just stays stopped when I want it to.
As far as how I use it etc. I have it on the left side and am right handed. Usually that's how it goes, turn it with my left hand as the hammer lies on the anvil and my right hand tends the fire.
That is however not written in stone as I find I use both hands interchangably to turn the blower handle while taking a heat as other things are being done simultaneously. I have even turned it with my knee when both hands were busy! Whatever works. Dan:)

[Finnr]

Frosty!!! The round one goes due North. Well except on Thursdays and Saturdays when it should point to the nearest IHOP. Orrrrrrr?????????
Finnr

[JerryCarroll]

My shop forge air supply is electric. My farm forge has a pump handle on the left and the portable I'm working on has a canady otto hand crank that can be positioned either side. I like the pump handle better than the crank--probably cause that's what I grew up with.
One shop I worked (played) in had a bellows over head with a hanging rope that could be used either way.

[Dave Leppo]

But the discussion is regarding a hand-crank BLOWER, rather than other type bellows. the cranking motion is entirely different from pumping bellows. I believe that the hand-crank blower has a history of ~150 years max.

[Doug C]

I use mine on the left for a few reasons: That is how the forges I was taught on were setup, my forge was manufactured that way, I like to use my right hand when moving stuff around in the fire.

Seeing as how tradition is malleable why not change the way the thing is mounted. If there is no room for the stand on the floor could you mount it on the wall? You could mount it at forge height or shoulder height.

[ThomasPowers]

"What is the right way to do something in blacksmithing?---The way that works for *YOU*!"

""What is the wrong way to do something in blacksmithing?---The way that works for other smiths but not for *YOU*!"

My new koans!

[Frosty]

There's the military version of that.

To paraphrase: "If it works it ain't a stupid idea."

Frosty

[Michael]

Thanks for all the replies guys. I ended up getting the smithy area of the patio about half rearranged, and went with a left side placement of the blower just cause that was easier than unbolting the post vise and finding a new place for that. A stand for that is in the works too. The guy who fab'ed the stand for this blower was either much shorter than me or had much longer arms, have to adjust the handle a bit I think.

Hoping to get some smithing time this weekend so I can try the blower out.

[HWooldridge]

Oh traditionally means during the last 100 years to you; it's the last 1000 years for me and having a one man smithy is just about as common as having a 1 person operating room in a modern hospital.

Many things changed as the cost of labour saving tooling went down and the cost of labour went up. Things were also different in "frontier" america vs "settled" europe with the frontier smith often doing a wide range of things that the european smiths had broken down into different guilds.

Very tricky word "traditionally" ask some people and they will tell you that traditionally the smith worked sitting on the ground with his wives as strikers. (never got my wife to buy into that one, either striking or having multiple wives...)

I'm going to look through some of my books and see if the pictures of medieval smiths show a hand preference. Unfortunaterly the smith is usually portrayed working at the anvil rather than using the bellows---of course their anvils don't have horns so that one is out. Modern european anvils often have a horn on both ends also making the horn direction moot.

tra

[Makoz]

But the discussion is regarding a hand-crank BLOWER, rather than other type bellows. the cranking motion is entirely different from pumping bellows. I believe that the hand-crank blower has a history of ~150 years max.

I think Jerry was referrring to a blower (centrifugal, rotary) with a pump handle. That is a bellows style handle connected to a con rod on the shaft of the rotor. We had one on the farm I grew up on, and it wasn't a bad design at all.

Cheers,
Makoz