[TheForge] side draft hoods

[David E. Smucker]

We first published information on Lester's  Side Draft Hood back in 2003 in 
the AACB Newsletter.  I coined the term "Super Sucker" after seeing pictures 
of Lester's unit.  Here is what he wrote me about it.  The drawing is 
reproduce on Anvilfire.

Dave Smucker

Before the Holidays last year Lester Beckman sent me some photos of his new 
free standing side draft hood.  I was really impressed with how well the 
hood drafted and quickly had some questions for Lester.  Lester replied with 
some more information and then a detailed drawing of the hood.  You will 
find Lester's drawing on the next page.

One of my prime questions for Lester was whether this unit had some form of 
induced draft to draw as well as it did.  Well here is Lester's answer.



Hi Dave,



The secret to this hood is to have a reduced size opening at the inlet 
because this increases the velocity of the exhaust, which in turn increases 
the capture range of the hood.  By adding a flange around the face of the 
hood it increases it even more. There is no induced draft, just the natural 
draw of the stack, the stack dia. must be about 12 inches and 13 feet or 
more long, depending on the roof slope, opening in the hood should be 
approx. 10 inches  X 10 inches. The flange around the face of the hood 
should extend out approx. 3 inches. This hood has been tested by me and does 
a better job than any other type of hood that I have seen or used. I will 
send you a sketch and instructions in a few days,



Lester,





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Hirst" <saltydog335 at aol.com>
To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 6:46 PM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] side draft hoods


> Thanks for the tip on the Anvilfire drawings.
>
> Interesting that the notes for Lester's Supersucker are identical to those 
> for the big  side draft units.  Lester's makes more sense to me than the 
> bigger units, especially if you ignore the notes.  Seems to me one of the 
> big advantages of Lester's is that it eliminates the "expansion chamber", 
> which is something I don't understand anyway.  What exactly is supposedly 
> "expanding", anyway?  Seems more like it would serve as a cooling and 
> contracting chamber, and work counter to the stack effect.  Lester's, on 
> the other hand appears to concentrate the stack effect right at the fire. 
> Best side draft unit I ever saw in operation was just a 12x12 opening in 
> the side of a 12" clay tile flue in a  brick chimney. No chamber, no smoke 
> shelf, nothin but an opening.  The bottom edge was about 6" above and 6" 
> to the side of the top lip of the firepot. smoke and flame blew flat 
> horizontal into the bottom 4" or so of the opening.
>
> Lester's Supersucker is the closest thing I've seen to that brick chimney 
> flue, and  I've aleady started drawings to adapt it to my forge, which 
> currently has a big old wide hood that draws lousy.
>
> PGH
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David E. Smucker" <davesmucker at hotmail.com>
> To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 12:40 PM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] side draft hoods
>
>
>> Allen,
>>
>> Check out the Anvilfire website.  Page down to the Master Plan File. 
>> Side draft plans are shown there.  Give serious consideration to Lester 
>> Beckman's Super Sucker Plans.  A number of folks have build Lester's plan 
>> (he sells them too) and they really work well.  It is a lot lower cost to 
>> build that a side draft unit.  Lester is retired from the sheet metal 
>> business and knows what he is doing.  (Son in law, still runs the 
>> business.)
>>
>> Dave
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "john ortery" <bluestoneforge at gmail.com>
>> To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
>> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 12:06 PM
>> Subject: [TheForge] side draft hoods
>>
>>
>>> Does anyone have plans for building a side draft hood? I really liked
>>> the way the ones at the John C. Campbell Folk School worked but can
>>> not seam to find plans. And the schools blacksmith can't find the
>>> plans. so if anyone has plans for one  that I can get a copy of I
>>> would be thankful.
>>> Allen Ortery
>>> bluestoneforge at gmail.com
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>>
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>
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