Looking for Fairbanks hammer operating manual...

As always, thanks for the info Mike. As soon as I have everything mounted in place, I will need to find a belt. I have no particular need to keep a leather belt, although I just like the way they look.

I picked up the shaft and crank pressed back together today. I installed them with the sleeve and drive pulley, just to make sure everything fits fine. All looked well. However, I had forgotten how heavy these things are. I had to have help lifting them in place and inserting the shaft with the crank mounted on it. We took them back out, so I could paint the crank, drive pulley and sleeve. I still need to drill the bushings as well. Then it will be time to install the whole top end for good! I have waited on finishing the motor mount table, until I get the drive pulley permanently installed, so I know the alignment.
 
Here's a couple of links. I may have put the paper-pulley outfit up before but don't remember and didn't find it (getting to where finding info in the thread is difficult... should-a took notes.)

Paper Pulleys
http://www.paperpulleys.com/pages/home.html
Rubber/Canvas Belts
http://www.westernbelting.com/

You will need to call the belting outfit... the web site won't get you much for info or ways to go. If I'm remembering right, they have 3 and 4 ply and 4 ply would work on our 4" pulley... that is, not too much bend for the thickness. I felt, whether correctly or not, when talking with Western Belting, they might not be the manufacturer. If any of you come across a rubber/canvas manufacturer, I'd like to hear about it. So you know, the prices from Western Belting were extremely reasonable.

Mike
 
I'd like to readdress part of this discussion. I've got a memory of questions/answers on lubricants for the main shaft and bronze bushings and I'm not finding it.

It was something about using oil, or NOT using grease, in steel with bronze sliding applications. I'd like to re-hear that with references for the info.

If I remember (got a note but that may not help much), I'll yap with Sid about it when I hear from him on the belt supplier.

Mike
 
The machinist who made my shaft and bushings and who works on quite a bit of old machines, including his own, told me that oil should be used with bronze. He said it with conviction. As I remember it, his reasoning was that grease traps the grit and would be abrasive to the bronze, since it is a softer material than the steel shaft, but oil would help flush out the grit. I am not sure if that is just opinion or if he had a real knowledge of something.

After looking inside the depths of one of these machines, I would be willing to bet that the oil that is put down the oil holes in the main bushings goes immediately to the bottom of the bushing right around the oil hole. The galleys that were cut into the side of the bushings to allow the oil to travel sideways in the bushing are bound to quickly get impacted with grit and become useless. Hopefully, the shaft picks up the oil in the bottom of the bushing and it gets spread some.

This leads me to a point that I forgot to make in earlier posts. I believe that it is very important for your hammers to sit level, as measured at the shaft, so that the oil that is put down the oil holes has a chance to migrate to each end of the bushing. If the hammer is tilted front to back or back to front, there is a very good chance that you are not getting much oil toward the higher end of the bushing. This comes from my observations after removing the shaft. If the oil just sinks down to the bottom of the bushing and gets picked up from there, as I believe it does, it must have a chance to spread out laterally in both directions.

Mike, thanks for the belt info.
 
You're welcome, Robert.

Sid didn't get to me today and he is going to be out of town for the next 10 so whatever he hears from his belt supplier won't get here for awhile.

One of the things I know for sure is, when lapping, the lapping compound is put on something softer than the object to be lapped. The grit sticks into the softer surface more readily.

I'm using grease. I think the hammers had grease cups on them and I don't know if there was ever such a thing as oil cups. Bruce is going to know.

My theory on grease is, put it in and the machine moves the excess to the ends where it piles up, effectively preventing grit from getting into the joint. But we all know that "in theory" means "not really". I suppose I should look around and see if I can find any info, one way or the other.

Mike
 
A lot of the old machines had oilers which pumped a bit of oil with every revolution. You've seen these, they were sometimes glass or brass and sat atop the shafts.
Don't believe I've seen any pictures with them on a hammer. Or grease cups for that matter.
I think I'd have to go with the oil theory of Robert's. Back then they always had a youngster , on bigger machines anyhow, that did the oiling. He scurried around with an oil can keeping all the points full.
 
Remember though, the main bushings are not bronze in many of these machines, like mine originally. They apparently are cast iron bored out to accept the shaft that is mild steel. I would assume these are of similar hardness, and grease may be just as good or better in that circumstance. It make sense to me that grease would spread out more uniformly and stick around the shaft much more efficiently that oil would. That is why I was questioning why these machines are not greased rather than oiled.

Bronze was apparently added later. I believe bronze was referred to in some of the later literature. Maybe it was the Barbour Stockwell stuff. You guys will have to determine if your machines have bronze, based on the date of manufacture.
 
I'll try to remember to file the patina off a little spot the next time I'm at the forge shop.

Didn't hear from Sid yesterday so it's going to be another 10+ days.

Mike
 
birdog4 said:
A lot of the old machines had oilers which pumped a bit of oil with every revolution. You've seen these, they were sometimes glass or brass and sat atop the shafts.
Don't believe I've seen any pictures with them on a hammer. Or grease cups for that matter.
I think I'd have to go with the oil theory of Robert's. Back then they always had a youngster , on bigger machines anyhow, that did the oiling. He scurried around with an oil can keeping all the points full.
Click to expand...

So what do you figure fit in the holes for lubricating the shaft if it wasn't grease cups or oilers?

Mike
 
Bruce, you are a man of few words. I agree with Bruce. The hole is for some guy to stand there with his oil can and pour or squirt some in every now and then. My holes are not in the top center of the yoke. They are down the sides some. I would guess that if a reservoir was going to be attached, that the holes would have been up on the top.

I painted a bunch of parts today, including the crank, drive pulley, etc., to get ready to reassemble.
 
The holes on our hammer are on the top and they are threaded... so what's the answer to that? I think you're both wrong... dang bunch of reactionary curmudgeons!!!

Mike

PS - Curmudgeon:
n : a crusty irascible cantankerous old person full of stubborn
ideas
 
well, in that case ther emay have been some type of oiler/ grease cup . (BOG)
I have 2 old time drill presses here that are set up opposite what you would think. The newer Turner Turret , mebee 20's or 30's, has old style grease cups. The older Cincinatti circa 1900, is equipped with zerks. Go figger. I'm sure parts have been replaced on it. There are also oil holes in strategic places And the configuration is very similar to our Fairbanks on both.
 
My Fairbanks has two threaded holes and two that are not threaded. The threaded holes were for set screws to keep the bushings from rotating in the yoke, although they inexplicably go all the way through to the shaft. The unthreaded holes are obviously for oil to the shaft. Mike, stick a light in there and see if the threaded ones are threaded all the way through the bushing or if the threads stop short of the bushing.

Maybe your machine has the really desirable option of threaded oil holes, which would make it quite valuable to a threaded-oil-hole collector.
 
Mike Krall said:
The holes on our hammer are on the top and they are threaded... so what's the answer to that? I think you're both wrong... dang bunch of reactionary curmudgeons!!!

Mike

PS - Curmudgeon:
n : a crusty irascible cantankerous old person full of stubborn
ideas
Click to expand...

The holes on my hammer's shaft are about 45 degrees from the top and were not threaded until I tapped them. All the other holes were also not threaded until I tapped them for zerk fittings. On four of them I had to drill them out to accept a standard zerk fitting and the two on the ram were way off size for a standard zerk fitting. Maybe my hammer is older? :confused:

Gear oil caused problems for my belt and when I grease the hammer I know its well lubricated, so I prefer grease for mine.
 
Any idea when they changed over from cups to zerks??? I'll have to look ion some old machinists handbooks and see if there is anything there.
 
I have discovered that many of the square-headed set screws on my hammer have very specific places that they are installed on the hammer. There are a number of different lengths of set screws and two different diameters. One size is 5/8"-11 thread. The other size is 9/16"-12 thread.

The 9/16"-12 set screws go on the drive pulley, but it appears that all four of them are different lengths and go in specific holes. It must not have been possible to have just one length for some reason. That is so because the drive pulley hub is 1/2" larger in diameter on the side opposite the brake ring. The set screw on each side of the pulley that contacts the key that goes into the slot on the shaft is shorter than the set screw that contacts the shaft directly and will not contact the shaft at all, if you try to put it into the hole for the screw that contacts the shaft. Also, if you try to use the set screws from the smaller hub diameter side of the drive pulley on the larger hub diameter side of the pulley, they will be too short to contact the shaft and possibly even the key. I say "possibly," because two of mine are missing. One was broken off on the top,and I had to remove it with an easy-out, and the other one is simply the wrong diameter to work at all.

You want the longest 9/16"-12 set screw in the hole that directly contacts the shaft on the side opposite the brake. You want the shortest one in the hole that contacts the key on the side of the brake. I will have to do some measuring concerning the other two, to see if they can be interchanged.

The 5/8"-11 set screws are another story, and I will deal with them in another post.
 
Good ol' Good-Ol'-Days... =] A place for everything and everything in it's place.

It's one of my favorite aspects of dealing with our hammer. When the light went on fairly early on that there was NOT going to be ANY single aspect of the entire thing that did not make absolute sense and every aspect was going to be as simple AND functional as possible, I got a great big grin on my face and it's still there.

My number one, is coming to understand the logic of the sow block dovetail and double wedge system, and how it was built through a simple machining step... =]

Mike
 
Remember, I am talking about my "Fairbanks" Model B 75# hammer here. Your hammer may differ some, but the information should be useful to you.

The 5/8"-11 square-headed set screws are used in various places on the hammer, including, the main shaft bushings, holding the pitman onto the crank, and holding the pin in the rear yoke that the treadle spring attaches to. The shortest one belongs in the rear yoke to hold the treadle return spring pin.

The next shortest ones, which are a pair, go in the yokes to stop the main bushings from rotating. These two are quite interesting. They screw into the threaded holes down at about a 45 degree angle on the yokes. As expected, at some point, they get tight. As I have discovered, they get tight just a couple of turns into the threaded holes in the bushings. The reason for this is that the bushings are actually threaded with 9/16"-12 threads - that's right - the same thread as the set screws for the drive pulley. This is close enough to 5/8"-11 thread that the 5/8"-11 set screw engages and actually screws into the bushing a little - enough to hold the bushing - but there is no way that the set screw could go all the way through the bushing and hit the shaft. (Mike will definitely like that one.) As a further safety check, the 9/16"-12 set screws for the drive pulley feel way to loose in the holes in the yoke, so there is not way you would put them in there by accident and screw one all the way down into the shaft.

The 5/8"-11 set screw that penetrates the crank must not be tightened to the extent that the set screw sticks out the back of the crank or a loud noise will be heard from the crank grinding the set screw down on the front yoke.

On my hammer, a previous owner had tried to screw one of the 5/8"-11 set screws into the drive pulley. They messed up the threads, and the set screw did not penetrate enough to do anything other than fill the very outside of the hole. They will just start in those holes. I guess they thought they were accomplishing something. If you have the correct set screw, they will screw down into the holes quite a ways.
 
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