Canedy Otto forge blower repair

>> I have finally decided to set up my old forge. I have a Canedy Otto
>> Manufacturing, Model H Western King hand crank blower that came with this
>> shop built forge. The blower seemed pretty stiff to turn so I
>> disassembled it expecting to wire brush and lube the gears inside the
>> case. To my surprise one of the gears was made from fiber and I think it
>> is paper. I did a little measuring and found the gear to be 1" wide, 40
>> tooth, 16 pitch and I think 14 1/2 pitch angle. I think this gear is
>> paper to reduce noise but a plastic gear might serve the same purpose. To
>> repair this old blower would be my first choice. I have looked at a few
>> gear vendor sites but haven't found this gear but I did find this 1/2"
>> wide, steel gear that looks to be the right dimensions otherwise.
>>
>> McMaster Carr 6325K19
>> Steel Plain Bore 14-1/2 Deg Spur Gear 16 Pitch, 40 Teeth, 2.5"
>> Pitch Diameter, 1/2" Bore
>> In stock at $29.22 Each
>>
>>
>> I have also been thinking of mounting a 1800 rpm motor on the blower and
>> scrap the hand crank gearbox. The other option would be to find a
>> suitable blower with an electric motor already mounted. Ideas? comments?

> Yup. A guy brought me one of those to repair once. He wanted THAT gear
> fixed. It looked as though years of soaking in oil had the paper "leaves"
> separating. I suggested he get a metal gear.
> I worked for a company that constantly designed gear trains with plastic
> gears to reduces noise. They ALWAYS failed. We ALWAYS replaced them with
> brass or steel.
>
> There are a couple of inherent advantages to the hand cranked blower.
> 1. When you quit cranking, the fire goes down so you are a LOT less
> likely to burn up parts. Especially for folkd just starting out.
> 2. You may use a LOT less coal. Our guys estimate that training classes
> with electric blowers take twice as much coal in a day.
> A 3rd advantage is that, with the blower only working when you do, the
> fire pot may not get as hot as otherwise, reducing the likelyhood that
> overwatering the coal will crack the firepot.
>
> There are plenty of hand cranked forge blowers that DO make a lot of
> noise. Back in the late 1970's, Alex Bealer, a writer and "reviver" of
> blacksmithing, held a sort of "blacksmithing conference" for a bunch of
> art students somewhere down south. They had the whole event filmed. Most
> of the audio on the film was those old blowers going
> whine-whine-whine-whine----- with every turn of the crank!
>
> I'd think twice about electrically powering that blower. The bearing
> surfaces probably aren't up to it.
>
> You might try posting this over on alt.crafts.blacksmithing, also.
>
> If you are going to get into a little blacksmithing, go to www.abana.org
> (the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America) and look around for
> your closest affiliate blacksmithing group. They are pretty nice folks to
> contact and get all sorts of help and info from. I belong to 4 of them.
>
> in western Wisconsin,
> Pete Stanaitis
> ---------------------------