What kind of blower am I looking for in a solid fuel forge?

I use the fan from a central heating furnace on my coal forge. Even with an open motor which catches tons of coal dust it still chugs along...

Looks something like this:
8115036.jpg
 
I built one using the 12v. heater fan from a scrapped car.
But I suggest getting a handcranker. It allows instant feedback & correction of air demands.
 
The blower your considering is WAY under powered for just about anything. 68L/M is 2.4cfm. Most forges use any where from 50-150cfm but the blowers can push higher then that. One blower I use puts out 300cfm and I just choke it down to control the air to give me what I need. Here is a good blower that is designed for forges.
http://www.blacksmithsdepot.com/forge-blower-4.html
 
For a solid fuel forge, get the proper type forge blower. Places like Centaur Forge sell them, as well as on eBay. The crank type will be the best choice. They also come with electric motors that can be controlled by a blower speed control knob. These work sort of OK, but are nothing as good as using a crank blower.

Check the eBay offers for them:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?http...TRC0.H0.TRS0&_nkw=crank+forge+blower&_sacat=0

I suppose if your are building the forge, you could use a small electric blower that would provide the "idle" flow of air, and have a crank blower for revving the heat up in a forging heat. It should be pretty simple to have both feed the tuyere.
 
Okay thanks for the reply guys, I think I will go with a hand cranked blower and build myself a box bellow later in life, but since I plan to run coke in my forge primarily I think I need a weak but just cheap and dependable air supply, I have a old CPU fan I can attach through a tee pipe fitting or something, would this work fine?
 
The problem with thoes type of fans is thy are not designed for back pressure. Thy supply the CFM but once pressure builds up thy don't move air. I had an extremely large computer type fan that I tryied to use when I built my first forge And it did not work at all. It straight up move some serious air but once fastened to a pipe and down the burner tube there was not much pressure/CFM. Honestly if your on the cheep then just get a hair dryer and jamb the end into a pipe and turn the switch to cool/cold.
 
As JT said, the CPU fans won't work.
At the minimum, you want a small to mid size Dayton squirrel cage blower for the electric fan. They can be controlled by a light dimmer switch or a fan speed controller.
 
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