Dang. Hot Forge.

Nothin' like a double chamber bellows, either hand of foot powered. With your leather working skills, ought to be a piece of cake!

Tom
 
Double chamber bellows are cool beans, and they sound neat when they are working. Kinda heavy breathing and two valves flapping. There used to be 2 giant ones that were at Garin regional park near where I grew up. I've never used them, but I do have hand cranked blowers. I have a small one for a portable forge, and a bigger Buffalo 200 that I loaned to a friend. You can find them reasonable still if you keep looking. You might contact your state blacksmith's association and see if you can hang out with them or go to there swap meets. Once you get to know some guys your chances of a good deal go up.
 
uh

rheostat?

uh


kill the heat element in hair dryer, use low/high?

uh

put a "Y" junction in with flap to allow air from leaf blower at one side and like an old computer fan at the other? just switch air access at junction?

uh

dunno


Heat's like anger, it can destroy things.
 
I used a hair dryer bought from a thrift store. Set it on "Cool" and "Low" and still had duct tape over most of the air inlet to resrict airflow.

Maybe add another lenght of pipe to back off the blower from the heat and resrict the airflow with tape.

Are you using briquets or actual charcoal?
Charcoal is much better ,tho it is more difficult to find.

Looks like you are having fun...keep it going!
 
Wow. Lots of suggestions. Cool.

Graver Tom, I've thought of a bellows, i'll have to check the plans. I'd rather just purchase something that'll work and won't slow down actually finishing a knife though... I'm getting frustrated with zero production.

Steveo, good thinking. I do need to contact that guild. I know there is one near here.

Kis. Good stuff. Esp the y junction. I was thinking of just cutting a flap out of the blower and opening and closing it like a vent.

Shappa, real hardwood charcoal.

I dunno guys. I burnt the motor out of a hair dryer in less than ten seconds. Maybe it was just that dryer's time, huh?
 
Hardwood charcoal is very cool. I got a lot of tiny burns on my arms though. The stuff sends all kind of sparks up into the air.

I used it in a small indoor forge when forging silver, and outdoors in a larger forge when doing iron work. Great times!

I even did a charcoal burn once. We played Risk all night, in between maintaining the fire mound.

A cool experience, but I wouldn't want to make charcoal for a living!

Tom
 
True. I get mine from walmart. I've used one bag so far. But, the first few times I started the fire up, I had to shut down immediately. So, I would have used less were it not for those days.
 
Tim Lively's site is where I got the idea for mine. I wanted to avoid a galvanized tub, so that forced me to make changes.
 
What about an aquarium air pump? You can buy them with different air volumes, they have a much lower output than a leaf blower, and they are made to run continuously for years on end.
 
OK here is an update, and a pic!!

attachment.php



What a wife I have. She let me work in the shop all weekend. Progress felt awesome!
 
More pics.

Two have osage handles. One from a plankish piece, and one from a small branch. The one from a plank I was able to quartersaw, so its rays really shine. I'd show you that, but alas, I'm no Tedwca.;)
 

Attachments

  • ff172.JPG
    ff172.JPG
    47.8 KB · Views: 9
  • ff174.jpg
    ff174.jpg
    87 KB · Views: 16
  • ff175.JPG
    ff175.JPG
    21.6 KB · Views: 8
  • ff177.JPG
    ff177.JPG
    21.2 KB · Views: 197
cool knives man...

I'm really jealous... cant wait till I get a place of my own and can make a forge and start trying to make knives...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top