Unknown forge | Problem Solving | Forum

I have a similar forge. The arm with the ball on it has a belt that wraps around the ratchet pawl that drives the big wheel. It attaches to the other arm on that lever. A connector rod goes up to a lever that you pump with your hand to raise the weighted arm, which winds the belt on the pawl. As the weight of the arm decends, it causes the wheel to spin.

  The spinning wheel has a belt traveling to the pully on the blower to blow the air into the tee, mounted under the tuire (sp?, french is not a language I'm friendly with).  The tee should be bolted with the middle leg facing the blower, the bottom leg catches the ash and clinkers, and should have an ash dump on it, I'll look at your pics again.

This system on my forge did not work well for a lefty. I ended up removing it and going with a simple crank blower, you may have better luck with yours. If you have questions, or if something doesn't work on your system, feel free to ask. I'll probably sell the old blower and ratcheting drive system, since the setup I use now works much better for a lefty.

It looks like your forge is missing the bracket for the lever you pump. It would've been about where the hole is broken out in the rim of your forge. It's just a U shape bracket mounted on a swivel that a wood lever sets in. You press down on the lever, which pivots on the U shape bracket, with a bolt through the U to act as a fulcrum point. The far end of the lever  raises as you press on it, raising the arm below through the connecting rod from the eyebolt still on the arm, up to the wooden lever. The blower should also bolt to the bottom of the forge. I'm sure you'll find holes in the pan where it was bolted to it.

The bracket should be something you could cobble together. You might google riveting forges and find a pic of the same model.