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Hot take: saw an old shop in Jerome AZ still running a hand crank blower and now I'm second guessing my electric setup
Went up to Jerome, Arizona two weekends ago with my wife, just walking around, and I ducked into this tiny forge that's been there since the 1890s. The guy running it, probably 70 something, had a hand crank blower on his coal forge and was just cruising along, no motor, no noise, nothing. I stood there for like 20 minutes watching him work and he told me he's never burned out a single motor because there isn't one. Meanwhile I've replaced two blower motors on my setup in the past 18 months, and those ran me about $180 each. So now I'm stuck on whether I'm overcomplicating this whole thing. Part of me thinks the hand crank forces you to slow down and actually watch your fire, which would probably help my heat control. But the other part of me remembers I've got a bad shoulder from moving furniture for 12 years and cranking for 6 hours straight sounds miserable. I keep going back and forth on it. Has anyone here actually switched from electric back to hand crank, or the other way, and did it change how you work?
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