Blacksmith's Blower Provides Simple Flow Control and Quiet Running

You can’t say a blacksmith’s forge is quiet but noise coming from a fan aspirating the smithy’s fire does not add to the ambience! Certainly that was true for blacksmith Bradley Harris, but his working environment has been improved significantly since installing a 9MS8 Multi-Stage blower from ACI.

The fan is used to raise the temperature of the coals in the forge up to 2000oC. Previously, Bradley had improvised and used a grain drying fan, which he found particularly noisy and had to be turned off when air was not needed.

“It’s so quiet,” says Bradley, “and it delivers air on demand. I can control the air flow with a simple butterfly valve and there is no risk of burning the motor out on total shut down - it’s brilliant!”

This simple airflow shut-off feature is unique to ACI’s Multi-Stage blowers. With side-channel blowers an additional pressure-relief valve would be required in order to avoid motor burn out.

The 9MS8 used by Bradley is from ACI’s direct drive Multi-Blower range, which offers options for up to 9 impellers mounted on a single shaft.