Power hammers

So I take it a strap type Bradley would move metal faster for a given weight than the earlier unguided wooden helve style? It was one of those in 200# I was looking at
 
It will be interesting to see how the 165 Say Mak performs when it comes out in a year or two. I remember someone doing a multi-hammer test a few years back the Say Mak came in second among the self contained and utility hammers one spot behind a "small" Nazel as far a hating power. I think that it was a 2B.
 
Salem Straub said:
What did he want for that 200# Bradley? It's a heck of a hammer...
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About $6000, but it needed some work (new beam at minimum, possibly other issues). It was really a full rebuild candidate. I'd be stripping it down, sandblasting everything, repouring the babbitts, and pretty well making it into a new machine if I ended up with it. If I could get that down to $5000 or so I might start actually considering it.

I'd also want to at least hear from someone who has ran an early unguided Bradley before. The only video I've been able to find of that style helve hammer was extremely underwhelming, but it didn't list what size it was, and seemed to be hooked up to a really underpowered motor that struggled to even get it moving.

I don't really have that much interest in forging beyond making Damascus, so I'd be more concerned about drawing speed than controllability
 
I agree. Needing that much work, it's worth scrap price basically, and if it needs new cushions, will be an expensive repair. If you could get it for scrap, I'd take it, but i wouldn't pay much more. I got mine for less than that, and it came with literally over a ton (2000lbs) of dies. Had been stored inside, and needed minimal work to get running. It needs some things of course, they all do, but with a new starter, the motor cranked right up, and started pounding.

Also, any of the guided helve models, are much better for controlled work, and i think after a while, they stopped making unguided ones. Wooden helve is fine, as long as it has a guided tup. I know a guy that has a 400lber and it's pretty impressive. I'd say a strap is the best, guided wood helve and the compacts, being a little less good. I've heard mixed things about the compacts, which are more of a traditional style mechanical like the Beaudry's, but i think that's only a critique in comparison to the various uprights (helves, strap or beam), which are well loved.

Personally I'd be really particular about buying a large hammer of any type. Even if you have the means to fabricate parts and move them around by yourself as I do, no repair is cheap. There aren't any parts available, and the ones that have to be made, are all large.

I'm going to replace my eccentric with solid bronze. Think about the cost of purchasing 8" diameter solid bronze through normal channels, let alone the cost of having it machined? If I purchased non-surplus material and had a machine shop do the work, it would cost me at least a couple thousand. Fortunately, I've tracked down some surplus material, and can do the machining myself. Even still, it'll be a multi-day project doing this one off, making sure i quadruple check everything and get it right. If i factor my time, it'll still cost me $1,000, half of it being material, and i get one shot to get it right.
 
Thanks, it seemed optimistic. Rebuilding a hammer is well within my abilities, but that one seems like one to pass up.
I've looked at several hammers, the Bradley, a couple big Niles bements and beches, and the new anyangs. At least a year left until I really need it, so I've got plenty of time to find something
 
A little giant and a "well tuned" little giant are two different animals..Ive seen a 50 pounder that could not move 1" square, then Ive seen 25 pounders that would destroy it in one heat easily..
Ill be the first to admit that a LG is not a beaudry but a well tuned LG with a nice brake can do a whole lot of good work.
 
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Starting to work through a possible alternative idea in my head... Would anyone have an idea of ratio of flywheel weight to hammer weight on a little giant style of hammer?
 
javand said:
I've heard mixed things about the compacts, which are more of a traditional style mechanical like the Beaudry's, but i think that's only a critique in comparison to the various uprights (helves, strap or beam), which are well loved.
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I agree with most of your remarks Javan... however the Beaudry has its own unique design. The "traditional style mechanical" that you compare the Bradley Compacts to would be more a Little Giant or Fairbanks/DuPont or Champion type configuration, with rotational force acting side/side rather than front/back.
I find it odd sometimes how some claim that the compact was Bradley's most advanced design, when it's more or less a slightly better LG with cushions rather than springs.
But yeah, needing a helve and babbitt should bring that hammer way down in price. Plus, I don't much care for the non-parallel action of those archaic wood helve types...
 
I've pretty well killed the idea of that hammer now. The helve was rotten, and even if the babbitts were okay I'd still be repouring them. More worrying than the babbitts, the cushions were pretty dry and cracked. Babbitt bearings I can pour and scrape, synthetic materials forget it.
Purely out if curiosity I did a bit of pricing on building a hammer. In terms of steel cost (keeping in mind I've got a big parts pile on hand and a full machine shop at my disposal) I'd be able to build a 350# upright style hammer for about what he wanted for that heap of a Bradley.... I'd probably sooner do that than rebuild a heap. I've spent enough time restoring old machinery and equipment at the museum to know starting from scratch is usually faster and easier
 
Salem Straub said:
I agree with most of your remarks Javan... however the Beaudry has its own unique design. The "traditional style mechanical" that you compare the Bradley Compacts to would be more a Little Giant or Fairbanks/DuPont or Champion type configuration, with rotational force acting side/side rather than front/back.
I find it odd sometimes how some claim that the compact was Bradley's most advanced design, when it's more or less a slightly better LG with cushions rather than springs.
But yeah, needing a helve and babbitt should bring that hammer way down in price. Plus, I don't much care for the non-parallel action of those archaic wood helve types...
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Yeah, the Beaudry has some pretty unique features, I almost bought one myself a few years ago, and would have if i could of swung it.

I don't care for the Bradley Compact either, the Upright Strap and Guided Helves IMO were the best design by far. I think the compact was really about competing with cheaper, smaller footprint hammers on the market at the time. I've always heard they don't work nearly as hard. Of vertically oriented mechanical hammers, the Beaudry seems the best to me by far. I wasn't trying to lump them all in the same 'performance' class, just format/orientation.
 
Have any of you guys ever used the 1B "baby" Nazel? I understand that they are kind of rare and that the 2B is the most desirable for our purposes because installation is not so tough as a 3B or 4B and you can actually find one on occasion.
 
I've only heard of a couple of them, they're rarer than hell. If I recall correctly Jim Batson had one back in the day, sold it quite a while back.

I've pretty well given up on having a Nazel, they've reached mythical status. I've never spent enough time on one to really get to know if the rep is well deserved or not, but at this point, I'm pretty sure i could fly to Europe, buy a nice Massey, ship it back, and have it installed all for less than i could get a Nazel that needs lots of attention.

I'd still like to have a nice self contained, i still kick myself in the ass for not buying a 165lb Striker years ago for a song, back when hammers were hitting the market frequently and I didn't know how good the deal was. Honestly, the new longer stroke Anyangs are awfully appealing for the price, especially with how consistent and well supported they've been here in the US. Unless i find a screaming deal on a Chambersburg or similar, that's what I'll get.
 
Is part of the magic of the Nazels their mass compared to say a modern self contained hammer? I may have this wrong, but from what little info I have found, the Nazei 1B is in the same tup weight class as an 88 Anyang yet it weighs like 1600-1700 lbs more. I don't know what the actual tup weight is on a 2B is but it seems to weigh at least 1000 pounds more than a 165 Anyang and about the same as their 242 lb model and the bigger Anyangs look pretty burly.
 
The Nazels were built in a golden age of manual machinery building, when hugely thick castings were pretty routine for industrial machines. These days iron costs more, and thinking is different in ways, but in big lathes and mills and particularly hammers, "there ain't no replacement for displacement." Also the quality of the cast was normally higher than that found in large asian castings today, and the inner workings were built to be very durable and high quality.

Dave Lisch has a 1 piece Nazel 1B, that I saw upon visiting his shop. It wasn't installed and running at the time.
You guys ever hear that there was a Nazel 7B? Absolutely huge. I saw a video of one cycling... just stupefying. Also there was the Nazel "S" series of hammers, which were designed to have an additional single blow mode, analogous to the Massey Clearspace hammers. They had a number designation system that went up to 14S, which was a bigger hammer yet than a 7B. We're talking 75,000 lbs and a 75 Hp 440V motor! Mauldin machine has one for sale, also there's a junkyard in New Mexico that has a 13S. Of course Chambersburg made bigger hammers yet, up to 2000 lbs. tup weight or possibly larger, and the largest Massey Clearspace was 40CWT or over two tons tup weight. Apparently larger than that, the mechanics of self-contained pneumatic hammers begin not to work well.
 
One guy up here has a 6b Nazel for sale, he wants something like $45,000 if I remember right.
I saw a video of a 1500# Chambersburg that was rather impressive.
Much beyond 1000# seems to be the realm of steam hammers. I saw a video of a 10 ton Niles bement a while back, that was something
 
Yeah, it's interesting. Like the occasional 400-1000lb steam hammers you can find for cheap that have been "converted to air", except the only air source that'll run them are diesel powered units for running teams of jackhammers, or mandate a large amperage 3 phase service.

I'm always tempted to use one as an excuse to build a big steam generator though, be boss as hell to have a steam hammer running on a wood fired boiler, or whatever the correct nomenclature is.
 
May as well go full historical and run a coal fired boiler.
I'd probably go for a couple 10-15hp electric piston compressors plumbed together if I was to try running one. Big old Kellogg's and such can be found surprisingly cheap at times.
I've always had a soft spot for steam hammers, the bements in particular. Just not cost effective compared to the alternatives....
 
Figure I'll throw this out there, see if all of you think I'm crazy. I've been designing in my mind and pricing out some materials, and thinking of a fabricated steel mechanical hammer. I've seen it done with tire hammer size things, any reason it couldn't be scaled up a ways to something in the 3-400# range?
If I was to do it, the anvil would be about 4000#, and the whole frame a combination of real heavy wall 8x8 box and 2" plate. A 24" long chunk of 8" round stock would be around 350#, thinking of something along those lines for the hammer. I'd probably pour Babbitt for all the metal on metal moving parts.
Am I completely insane?
 
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