The Big Bellows Project!
Dai has always wanted a large set of double acting bellows. These are used in the medieval times and are the shape that most people recognise as bellows as opposed to our Iron Age cylinder bellows. But Dai wanted big, so last winter this became The Big Bellows Project.
The starting point, once the design stage was over, was woodworking, this is not Dai’s forte but he did the best he could and a reasonable job was turned out. First of all was the cutting and assembly of the pear shaped lungs and then making the metal tuyere (the metal pipe bit on the front that pokes into the firebox). After that was the making of the stand and the assembly and fitting of the valves. The valves are the critical item on bellows, without them bellows do not work. With the main body of the bellows together, the leather was attached to make an air tight seal and then it was the moment of truth.
The first use of the bellows proved that things were pretty much right but a bit of tweaking was necessary. We currently have only 70% capacity but this is still more than enough to allow us to get a fire hot enough to burn steel. All that is needed now is a bit of fiddling about to get the valves settled down and working perfectly and everything will be spot on. But the main thing as far as we are concerned is that even operating at 70% efficiency, the amount of effort required to get the fire up to temperature is a whole lot less than the cylinder bellows - yippee!
