Looking for Fairbanks hammer operating manual...

Bruce, are you saying the same Fairbanks company made motors? That would be a nice addition, if so.

I found another way to look at motor, pulley and belt sizes. Mike, you will like this. Bruce and I earlier discussed articles on flat belts and two were from Gas Engine Magazine. These were Part l and Part ll of "Power Transmission By Belt" and were written by George B. Loughery. Now, he is really talking about larger farm machinery, but I don't see why things would be much different for us. There are a number of interesting points and "rules" in the articles, and he sets out 18 "considerations" in Part l. He talks about how flat belt speed is important and should be in the 3,000 - 4,000 foot-per-minute range (FPM) and should certainly be below 5,000 FPM with cast iron pulleys. FPM is calculated as (Belt speed in FPM = pulley rpm x pulley diameter in feet x 3.14.) This could be a good cross-check of the bpm calculations for our hammers.

He has a rule-of-thumb for belt width as compared to HP. He also says that a minimum pulley diameter is 3-1/2 inches and never below 3 inches unless it is a very low-power situation.

He states that the width of the pulley "should be at least 1-inch wider than the belt, 2 inches is better, more if possible for large-diameter pulleys."

He believes crowned pulleys are "virtually necessary," and that "about 1/16-inch for small pulleys and 1/4-inch for large will usually suffice." This is measured in diameter difference. He advocates more for low speed and less for low-stretch belts.

He says idlers are used on the slack side of the belt and are always applied closer to the driven pulley. The idler provides some slack-side tension and improves the angle of contact providing more wrap on the driven pulley. The idler should not be crowned.

In Part ll he talks mostly about V belts, but he gives an in-depth example of the calculation of a real-world installation considering HP, RPM, belt width, belt speed, etc.

All-in-all, this is not easy information to find, and it is useful to us still today.
 
I don't know that Fairbanks Hammers and Fairbanks engine swere produced by the same company. Not outside the realm of possibility. Look at LG and all the other stuff they made.
 
Oh you antique guys... modern just to fit well, do it? =]

Would you be running the motor to run a shaft?

Mike
 
Line shafts Mike, tho I imagine direct drive would work well also.
I have an Amish friend who runs a complete harness shop off line shaft powered by diesel engine. A lot of the machines are ancient and several of the stitchers are recent manufacture. Pretty neat operation.
 
Bruce, I like the idea of an entire shop run off of a line shaft. I had a welder tell me about a machine shop in Kansas that he was hired to dismantle. He said the line shaft was so large and built in so well that they essentially had to tear the building down to get it out.

I have always wanted to find a water-powered mill used as a shop with line-driven equipment. That would be the ultimate shop for me.

Speaking of Amish guys, I was at a sale in Ohio, and Amish guys were buying all of the old hand saws and other hand tools from this old farmer who had died. My brother, who has many Amish friends, was joking about how the next weekend those tools would be at a sale bringing big money because they were "Amish owned."
 
Your bro. is prolly right(BOG)
There are 2 local ( within 175 miles) shops set up as working museums run off lineshafts. RiceLanding I haven't been to yet, is a working machine shop that was turned over to a group for preservation. They say it looks the same as the last day of active work.
The other is a shop moved to the grounds of the Northwest power Museum(Portersville)
It's a line shaft setup run by a steam engine.
Pretty neat stuff!
 
I picked up the bronze bushings today and the new shaft. The machine shop wants me to put the bushings in and try the shaft to make sure everything fits. They are concerned about whether the yokes were line-bored and then the bushings were installed or if the bushings were installed solid and the entire assembly line bored.

I pressed in the front bushing with the same setup I used to take it out. The front bushing is not tapered, so I need to correct what I said before about them both being tapered. However, the rear bushing is tapered on the outside. I pressed it in as far as I could get, but it stopped moving with about 1/4 inch left to go. I heated the yoke and tried some more, but it refused to budge. I am going to call the machine shop tomorrow and see what they suggest. They had hand-tapered the outside of the bushing, and they apparently needed just a little more. I could try beating on it with a sledge and a wood block, but I decided to wait and ask.

There is absolutely no way that the set screw holes for the set screws that hold the bushings in place could be drilled and tapped in the bushings before installing the bushings. The bushings turn a little as they are pressed in, and the alignment would be impossible to get correct. I am going to drill and tap them after finishing installing them. The machine shop had drilled the oil holes in the bushings, and I kept one of them pretty much right on, but the other one is off a little. I will drill it out a little when I drill for the set screws.
 
Bruce, the bushings take quite a bit of force to get them in and out. The press fit and the one set screw are what keeps them from rotating and blocking the oil hole and just spinning freely in the yoke. I needed a 1/2" impact wrench, 180 lbs of air and 3/4 all-thread to get them out the first time. 1/2" all-thread wasn't enough, because things kept bending.

The machine shop told me the only thing to do was take the stuck bushing back out and take it back to them for some more tapering. I pulled it last night with the same setup I used before. I'll take it back to them today.

The links, side arms, cross head, new spring and 6 new pins arrived back from Sid yesterday. Things look fine at first glance. The links were welded and re-bored on both ends. The upper holes of the side arms were welded and re-bored and had brass bushings installed. The lower ends of the side arms were welded and re-bored. I'll need to bore for oil holes or grease fittings when I decide which to do. Sid sends this stuff out to a local machine shop that he uses, but he has the knowledge of what works and what doesn't. The total bill was just about $600.00.

I am getting anxious to get the hammer back together, but there is still more fabrication to do. I am in the process of constructing a new motor and jack shaft mount table to install on the back of the hammer. I am going to attach two pieces of 1/2" x 4" flat bar on edge on the sides of the hammer sticking out the back as supports for the mounting table. The mounting table will be a piece of 3/8" plate attached to the flat bar by some channel with a slot for in-and-out adjustment. The plate will have slots for side-to-side adjustment of the motor.
 
Closer ya get the more exciting it is (BOG)
I was out in the shop this morning and see that the floor has been heaved by frost again so I'm out of action for awhile. 2nd yr in a row with this problem.
Global warming???? horseshit!!
 
I should be OK for awhile. Took inventory this week and found prit near 40 forged blades. That should keep me busy till the thaw.
I thought closing in the shop this fall would prevent that but it didn't. Ohwell.
 
Do you know about "Shallow Frost-Proof Foundation" system? It's in code books and came out of Sweden/Finland/Norway over 50 years ago. Uses "blue board" to pull earth's embodied heat up to the board level, thereby disallowing freezing of surrounding soil. I've got a book on it if you want info.

Mike
 
I picked up the rear bushing today and pressed it back in. It went in just fine. It had enough tension to be a good press fit, but not too loose. I also got a reamer from the machine shop and reamed out the front bushing a little, so the shaft would go through it after it was completely pressed in. The new shaft is 1-15/16".

I then tried the next big step which is putting the main shaft through both bushings. Unfortunately, there is a slight alignment problem. The shaft goes through the front bushing, but just hangs up on the front edge of the back bushing. The machine shop was afraid of this happening, but I think they kind of expected it. Now, I will have to wait until Monday for them to decide what to do. I was really hoping to get lucky and have the two holes align perfectly, but it wasn't to be.

The guys at the welding shop next door cut my 1/2" x 4" flat plate that I am putting on the sides of the hammer to use as part of the motor mount. They have a Piranha hydraulic shear. It cut that 1/2" plate like it was a little stick. Those machines are amazing. I drilled 4 mounting holes in the plate for each side, and now I need to drill and tap the base of the hammer. I ran across the fact that nothing is square or level on the casting. I am not sure if I should make these supports level as they protrude from the back of the hammer or make them square with the edges of the hammer. I can't do both. At some point, the pulley on the jack shaft sitting on the motor mount will have to be in plane with the drive pulley. I don't want to have to do a bunch of shimming later, but I have to start somewhere to construct the thing. I may try to match the exact angle of the rear bushing sticking out from the hammer, since that will be the exact angle I will have to match later.
 
Yes, match the shaft angle.
The problem I'm having with my hammer heaving is relative to what you are saying. With the motor mounted in the rafters, and the building relatively stable, the hammer moves out of alignment. i don't think these castings were quiter a work of art Robert. I have the faceplate off mine right now to clean up one of the bolt holes . They had to have bent the bolt to get it in. I wonder if that contributed to the cracked faceplate?
Ya Mike I would like to read that. Thanks
 
Yeah, Bruce, I think I will match the shaft angle. That is really what counts in the end. The castings were clearly not perfect. That is really the problem with my main shaft bushings now as well. At some point, they line-bored to get the two main bushing holes to line up. They either line-bored the bushing holes in the yokes and then made the bushing holes straight or they installed blank bushings in the yoke holes and then line-bored the entire setup. Unfortunately, I do not have the equipment to do that now, so I have slightly misaligned holes. One more thing to figure out.

I have two bolt holes on one side of my front plate that are off some as well. They just had to bend the heads a little to make things fit, though. Those two holes got a little too close to the hammer frame on the back side, so they couldn't get the head of the bolt in without bending them out a little. Your problem sounds much worse.
 
Bruce, I have thought about your frost heaving problem. It sounds as if you either need to effectively tie the motor and hammer together or get a foundation under the hammer that is below the frost line. Timbers on end dug down below the frost line would work, although that would take a pretty big hole. Four of those heavy cardboard tubes used for footers filled with concrete down below the frost line may be an alternative, if you have a way to get a tractor in there with a post hole digger on it.

It would be tough to actually mount the motor to the hammer, without the modifications I am going through, although it may be possible to construct something tied to the base of the hammer that arches up over the hammer. I suppose you already have the rafters to bear the weight of the motor, so what you would really need is a way to attach something between the motor and the hammer that maintains your alignment. Maybe some 1/2" bar tied to the base of the motor and the top of the hammer somehow?
 
It would be interesting to see where a good straight-edge landed when layed in the bushing holes. Either layed through both holes at the same time (at the four 90's) and looking to see where the gaps are... or layed in each bushing hole at the four 90's, looking to see where the straight-edge end lands. What you should find is "same-ness".

It's likely all the precision work on the hammers was done in jigs. It's about the only way to take a rough casting and get a number of things to line up. In that the shaft holes are misaligned, I'd wait on a solution to use the shaft as the x,y,z line. One reality is, the pending shaft solution may not be x,y,z with the existing hammer guides.

Mike
 
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