Hello, I am looking to build a leather air bellows for re-enacting. Any idea where to find construction plans. Not looking for a large size. Doesn't have to be a double bellows. Just enough to power a box forge.

 

Thanks for your help in advance.

Did looking through the 7,300 post in the bellows section of IForgeIron not provide an answer?

You may want to look at circular and box type bellows to see if they suit your needs.

Might help to know where you are located and what type of re-enacting you are going to do. U.S. Civil war blacksmiths and early English blacksmiths along with Japanese blacksmiths used very different types of bellows.

Most likely the appropriate bellows would be a two chambered bellows for reenacting living history for U.S. history.  That said, different designs in Europe and elsewhere in the world depending on the time period of the living history event.  Here is a mid-1800s U.S. Army diagram that I modified to try to recreate a mid-1800s naval forge. It is a two chambered forge, both the top and bottom boards are hinged. .... Again, bellows during U.S. history varied in size, larger in shops, smaller in military use, but mostly the same type (except for wheeled "Traveling Forges" which were very different. 

 

I tried sending you an email with information, but the email address you provided does not seem to work. 

On 11/20/2021 at 12:40 PM, Glenn said:

Did looking through the 7,300 post in the bellows section of IForgeIron not provide an answer?

You may want to look at circular and box type bellows to see if they suit your needs.

Hello Glenn,

I did not find a Bellows section in the forum. I must of missed it.Thank you for your reply.

Since you must be doing Northern European Y1K re-enactment like I do; you will want to base your twin single action bellows on things like the Hylestad  stave church carvings.  Or other archeological finds of smithing equipment.

Mr. T. P., 

Do you have a refence for pictures/illustrations of said Hylestad stave church?

I would love to consult and study same.

Thank you 'en avance'.

SLAG.

Try page 192 in "The Viking"; Crescent Books, AKA "the prune people viking book"

Note I have a good half dozen other books with pretty much the same name so be careful to get the correct one.

Or you can just google Hylestad Stave Church to find a lot of webpages on it.  In particular I was thinking of:

1 hour ago, David Einhorn said:

I tried sending you an email with information, but the email address you provided does not seem to work. 

Hello David,

Emails did work. Thank you very much for the information. I am re-enacting War of 1812 time period in the Missouri Territory. I already have a blower and portable forge I currently use for demonstrations. Since crank blowers and steel forges were not used on the frontier (that I have found documentation on), I am looking into a clay lined box forge using a bellow air source.

 

Thank you again,

 

Bob T.

Have you looked through Diderot's Encyclopedia and Moxon's Mechanicks Exercises?   On the frontier you will probably have a much simpler kit than a "town set up"

What was that Canadian source of fur trade equipment?  Note that a simple block anvil was still in use places where they had to move their equipment around.  Are you traveling or in a settlement?

I have a small light postvise that Frank Turley dated to pre-1800; Picked it up at Quad-State one year for US$20.  So if you were in a settlement it would be a possibility.

Since your time period is about 80 years too early for a cranked blower you would b e more authentic with a JABOD and either a great bellows or a 2 single bellows linked to give a constant blast.  Also, you should probably be using charcoal for fuel.  If you can lay hands on it, most of your material should be wrought iron with a bit of steel.

On the other hand, how many folk would be able to say that a hand cranked blower properly dates to the late 19th century or that coal as forge fuel came in later?  I lean towards rigorous authenticity when historical re-enacting but have been known to fudge a bit on the theory that the actual process of hitting hot metal to deform it is unchanged for thousands of years.  Better to use a slightly anachronistic tool than not to demonstrate/educate at all.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

 

Thomas and George you make great points.

What I would really like for a set up I found in Paw Paw Wilson's book "The Revolutionary Blacksmith". Time to reread the book. But, I would have to more research to verify.

Radnor Bellows Plans

http://warehamforgeblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/bead-bellows-reconstruction.html?m=1
 

one of several posts buy Markewitz he dose work for parks Canada among others. 

Darrel does a LOT of Viking stuff and is quite knowledgeable in that time frame; a great resource and a nice guy too!

For revolutionary war period I'd suggest digging into all you can find about the Williamsburg blacksmiths.  Diderot is probably too "citified" for what you want.

I sure miss PawPaw; I gave the parting toast for him at Quad-State that year and I remember him writing that story.

Thank you for the edit, y’all are to good to us!

T.P.,

Thank you for the response and information.

You are a gentleman, sir.

SLAG.

Dave Einhorn nails it. 

For a nice look at someone forging a low carbon real wrought iron sword using tools and equipment appropriate for the early Iron Age; may I commend to your attention:

Link removed due to advertising

(This includes a nice charcoal forge blown by two single action bellows and a cube anvil.)

Thanks for the link Thomas. It's not only an informative video it's entertaining, I liked the song they sang together to help time the hammering. I may have to watch more of their videos.

Frosty The Lucky.

It turned up on my wife's FB feed for an unknown reason and she told me I had to watch it!  Now to get a hammer for her! (And to be very very careful to not nod my head!)

There's no rhyme nor reason to why things show up on FB. One person in the club posts something and the next thing I know I'm getting randumb FB posts from everybody in their contact list and the contact lists of those. It's an exponential PITA!

Truth is Thomas you don't need to nod your head to get it whacked. Or so we gather. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Cant beat double lung bellows I gues they were fro 14  century available !

only better thing if one cant make double lung bellows is this setup

 

I cant find better solution for tow bellows. Dobule lung bellows next to it is this.