Champion 400, Blower & Forge Co., Lancaster, PA, USA

I had some fun firing up an old hand-crank forge blower. You’d be a little more modern than a bellows driven forge with this device, although, since it is cast iron, it would have to be shipped in from a shop that could do iron casting, in this case, Lancaster, PA. This hand-crank forge predates the wide spread electrification of America. As a hand-crank blower, it really blows hard. A bellows driven forge could be made from local material such as leather and wood so that would be an advantage over this cast iron beast. A fair number of small blacksmith shops used these to forge iron into tailor shaped horse-shoes and the like. I used a broquet grill to do a test fire to show the principle of operation. The neighbor wasn't around so I grabbed his broquet grill. It was handy. I suppose if you got this thing hot enough it would start melting the steel grill walls and seriously flame your hot-dog wieners if you used it for expresso type grilling. In this video : The Champion 400 Blower & Forge Co. Lancaster, PA, USA model. By the patent dates you can see it is very old. My guess is that it is a 100 plus years. It works just fine. The coal bed was likely lined with sand or some other refractory material so as not to melt the bottom out of your coal pan thingy. I hope you enjoy the video.

Channel: YouTube Video Length: 3m 22s Date Found: Sun, Aug 08 2010 1:47 AM Category: Technology Date Produced: Sat, Aug 07 2010 9:29 PM View Count: 3