Canedy Otto forge blower repair

Boston Gear lists a cotton phenolic gear to that spec. p/n QB40

I've worked at coal forges that use cheap Grainger shaded pole blowers controlled by a dimmer and toggle switch. They work OK once you get used to the slow response of the motor, especially at low settings.

Thanks Ned I priced that P/N and it was 57.00. I think I am going to go with the steel gear for half that price. As far as I can tell the fiber gear was to make this blower quiet as this was one of their selling points. I won't be running this forge on a daily basis so I can't imagine the noise to be that great. I ordered the gear though MSC and found both of the gals I spoke with to be real helpful and knowledgeable and I told them as much. Steve

Yup. A guy brought me one of those to repair once. He wanted THAT gear fixed. It looked as though years of soaking in oil had the paper "leaves" separating. I suggested he get a metal gear. I worked for a company that constantly designed gear trains with plastic gears to reduces noise. They ALWAYS failed. We ALWAYS replaced them with brass or steel.

There are a couple of inherent advantages to the hand cranked blower.

1. When you quit cranking, the fire goes down so you are a LOT less likely to burn up parts. Especially for folkd just starting out.
2. You may use a LOT less coal. Our guys estimate that training classes with electric blowers take twice as much coal in a day. A 3rd advantage is that, with the blower only working when you do, the fire pot may not get as hot as otherwise, reducing the likelyhood that overwatering the coal will crack the firepot.

There are plenty of hand cranked forge blowers that DO make a lot of noise. Back in the late 1970's, Alex Bealer, a writer and "reviver" of blacksmithing, held a sort of "blacksmithing conference" for a bunch of art students somewhere down south. They had the whole event filmed. Most of the audio on the film was those old blowers going whine-whine-whine-whine----- with every turn of the crank!

I'd think twice about electrically powering that blower. The bearing surfaces probably aren't up to it.

You might try posting this over on alt.crafts.blacksmithing, also.

If you are going to get into a little blacksmithing, go to

(the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America) and look around for your closest affiliate blacksmithing group. They are pretty nice folks to contact and get all sorts of help and info from. I belong to 4 of them.

in western Wisconsin, Pete Stanaitis

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Up North wrote:

I received the gear from MSC today and had to make some mods to it to make it work. At first I thought I should bore the .5 hole in the gear to match the .630 shaft but alas I don't have a boring bar that small and one I could borrow is 10 miles away. I decided instead to turn that portion of the shaft to .05. I accomplished that and then had to face the hub of the gear down to .775 so it would fit where the paper gear was. I then drilled and tapped a

1/4" hole for a set screw to fix the gear to the shaft. The old gear was held by a pin in a hole drilled diagonally through the shaft. I felt I would not be able to match the pin hole and it would be a pain to disassemble if need be. I don't have it completely together but the steel gear does make a singing sound when the gearbox is up to speed. I will keep you posted when I get the forge fired. Steve