Lee recently said:
> This brings up an interesting point. I had asked this group a few months ago
> if anyone had any information on the various blowing rates of different
> human powered blowing devices. I never got an answer, so I figured no one
> here had any numbers. Let's try again- anyone out there know? Maybe some of
> the African folks have measured air rates of bag bellows?
> I asked this question of Peter Ross at Williamsburg, and he said (with
> wooden bellows) you could get pretty much any sort of blast you need by
> building bigger bellows.
> What is the date for the first evidence for use of wooden bellows?
>
Apologies for not contributing to this first time round but...
We have measured the rate of supply from our board bellows. We
get around 200 & 600 l/min from our small and large double-action
(twin chamber) smith's bellows respectively. Personally, I don't like
these since they provide a reasonably constant air flow.
We can get well in excess of 600 l/min (we haven't pushed them to
see what we can get...) from our large single action bellows
(boards approx 1m long). Since the air flow is not continuous, there
is a much higher peak flow from these bellows, compared with the
smith's bellows - and so we get much greater penetration of blast
across the furnace.
We haven't had the chance yet to really get to grips with the
diference, but it is clear that continuous and pulsating flow will
produce different penetration, hot zone size and position and
reducing characteristics.
Both types of bellows we use are described in Agricola.
hope this helps
Tim
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Dr Tim Young
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.geoarch.demon.co.uk/
Phone: 029 2074 7480
Fax: 08700 547366
Mobile: 07802 413704
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