Side Blast Forges

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I think they are used for heating long sections of stock - swords come to mind.

with a water jacket the tuyere will not burn up in your or your childrens' lifetime and no clinker will stick to the bottom edge. The benefits of the sideblast forge is that you don't have to tear the fire down to clean it during the day because the clinker falls away from the air blast so no reduction in cfms. Most notable when using dirty coal/cheap coke. It is also easier to build different size/shape fires. Plus nobody else in my neighborhood has one.LOL

Due to the "green initiative," I only use "clean coal."

Mine is a Vaughan, bought it in England in 1975. The only maintaince was been to drain it and scrape the crud every couple of years

Anyone know what type of money those vauhans are these days?

built brick forge, the forge table is 1/4" steel plate covered with 1 1/2" hard fire brick, aligned tuyere to their specs

http://anvils.co.uk/products/view/173?cat=10

I think I paid about 100 pounds, no extra charge for shipping 'cause it was in the luggage

George, I switched over to coke about 6 yrs ago and have been selling L Brand forge coke for 3yrs now. No desire to EVER burn coal again. I will use hardwood charcoal for a demo now and again for the historical society; much more authentic

Here are some pictures of sideblast forges at Hereford School of Farriery when I was there. They use pretty much all side-blasts, and a few swan I think, propane burners.

Every morning soak down the bed, fill the water tank up to mark, dig out a hole to the end of the blast, pack it into a nice cup about the size of a volleyball, fill it up with some pre-lit coke, chuck on some fresh coke ontop, and gently open up the air flow. Get forging. The clinker needs forking out every hour or so. Great forge. Sword wise, I'd use a propane forge long box type of effort, and go for more burners.

I now use a bottom blast forge made from a cast iron block. Seems fine to work, no real noticeable difference, except with the side blast every now and then the thing would erupt if you left the air up too high when the coke was spent in the pot and/or the sand / coke & clinker waste pit was getting dried out at the end of a day. It's easier to get back to work with the cast iron fire pot. A fire just the same to manage, as per all coke fires.

There are plans on how to fabricate a side blast tuyere and quite a few blacksmith students were making them at the end of their courses. Maybe goto iforgeiron.com website. Fiddly bit of sheet iron work to make a tuyere (tweer), compared to the ease of just ordering a pre made fire pot.

Paddy Falvey CF