forge blower

[jdale]

I am using a 70 cfm bathroom fan on my welding forge, it seems to work as it does weld. My issue is with the amount of heat blowing out the front opening. I was thinking of getting a large cfm blower and running 2 air lines with valves, one to the forge, and one for an air curtain. Could one blower provide enough air flow to power both, if so how many cfm should the blower be?

[Naboyle]

Yep. I'm not sure of the cfm needed but I can tell you this. I use a blower from a kids bounce house(thanks Doug) and it has plenty of power. When I'm at welding heat my 2" valve is probably only 1/4 the way open if that mich. I ran a small line with a valve as an air curtain and it was the best thing I've done. Again I dunno the cfm but you can do it.

[Ray Rogers]

As Naboyle said, it can be done but a large cfm blower is not necessarily the answer. The 'standard' commercial blower we use on 'money is no object' forges is 160 cfm and it could be used to power the burner and the air curtain on most forges. But, like Naboyle's bounce house blower, it has more than just cfm, it also has static pressure of great than 32 ounces. Most simple 400 cfm squirrel cage blowers have much less pressure than that which is why they can't even make good burners blowers even though they have more than twice the required cfm.

If you have too much gas going out the front now, then turn the air supply down. That might mean putting a gate valve between the blower and the burner so that you can restrict the air flow. You should have a slight yellow glow in front of your forge door, not a hellish hurricane.

If you want an air curtain, get an additional blower. Most any blower will work well for that purpose ...