Rusty Appalachian hammer build along

Tightened up a few more things after this, but I was able to forge a tapered socket mandrel from a piece of 1.25” round in about 5 heats.

 
Ran it hard for three days with no major malfunctions. The way I had the dies set up to be interchangeable isn't going to work. It also hit much harder with a bit less space between the dies, but I was out of adjustment range, so I added a block of steel under the bottom die plate. I'll eventually need to lengthen the push arm to make up the adjustment. The weld between the bottom die and die plate cracked a little, and the bolt between the hammer shaft and top dies showed some pretty good wear. Looks like for the short term I'll have to weld up the interchangeable die parts to something more permanent, or at least change how the dies interchange. No structural failures or damage.
 
Nice! Looks like you got a pretty good hammer there. How much was your final cost?
Looks like you could use some bracing, the main support looks like it’s moving around pretty good...
 
Yeah, it's not near as wobbly once I tightened everything up. The bolts between the anvil and the main upright were loose in the video.

Total cost, maybe $250 cash, and most of that was the motor. Labor, probably 40-50 hours. Had the advantage of a great scrap pile to work from.

Labor-wise, it wasn't cheap. For me though, I had time, not money, so it worked out well.
 
Nice!!!
A good cheap build is awesome!
I like building stuff, but for some reason it never really ends up being that much cheaper than just buying it would have been. Well other than the economy of buying things slowly.

I’m in the process of building a vertical forge, and I found that buying a blower kit was actually cheaper than buying the the dang parts!

The body has been cheaper, but it kinda blew me away about the blower kit...
 
Update. Installed a stiffer spring on the spring pack, and lengthened the push arm. In this video I was forging some 3/8” square down a little further on the tail end of a blacksmith knife. Hammer was hitting so hard I had to slip the clutch a little. Was too smashy :)




Here’s what I ended up with.

d0c7d36ded6e0fee363ddd4a3fbebf12.jpg
 
Hey Jason, now that you’ve had a couple months to break it, how’s your hammer holding up?
 
So far, so good. I had a couple of tack welds come loose, but nothing critical. I've used probably 15 hours so far, and it's been great! I have discovered that it likes fresh grease on the hammer guides every session.
 
Update, I'm continuing to have problems with the way the upper die is fastened to the ram. Originally I had in mind to be able to change out that top die, but ended up welding it on the ram b/c of breakage. Even so, those welds keep breaking as well. Going to re-design and reinforce. I'll post up a pic when I get the work done.
 
Awesome, is like to see what you come up with. This is one of those projects that I'm sure I'll end up building one day.

I did watch a video the other day on "dirty Smith's" YouTube channel where they were building a bunch of tire hammers.

Any reason you weren't with the rocker arm type instead of the more "direct drive" sorta model?
 
A.McPherson said:
Any reason you weren't with the rocker arm type instead of the more "direct drive" sorta model?
Click to expand...

Because I understood the physics and mechanics of the rocker arm design better. Since I was building without plans, I built what I could properly conceive in my head :)
 
Jason Fry said:
Because I understood the physics and mechanics of the rocker arm design better. Since I was building without plans, I built what I could properly conceive in my head :)
Click to expand...

Fair enough! The tire style hammers do seem to have a more complex motion. I think the only real advantage is size really...

Of course I've never run any kind of power hammer so I really don't know. All conjecture from me!!
 
That was my thought as well. The mechanics of the tire are more complex, more dimension sensitive as well. I also had no mechanical hammer experience, although I'd used a few air hammers. Footprint is smaller, but I had the space, so I just went for the spring helve.
 
I think I'm going to give making one a go at some point, but it's gonna have to be a tire hammer, cause space is much more of an issue for me.

How do you figure how much motor you need? Is there a formula for hp to hammer weight?
 
I found a chart online somewhere that had the motor HP for several brands of factory built hammers. I bought a 1.5, but I'm only running it on 110v and it's not tripping the breaker. Figured if it started tripping, I'd rewire it for 220, but I haven't had to.
 
Made some revisions to the die attachment. Welds kept breaking loose, and eventually the angle iron failed as well. Replaced the angled brackets, and added some bracing to stiffen it up as well. So far, so good. Been running some pretty big billets, 2x2 at least, without any trouble. Can draw out the tang on a hunter in one heat.
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Last weekend my tire suddenly got crazy wobbly. Had to take off the flywheel and then take the tire off. Turns out the nut holding the wheel bearing had loosened up. Re-packed the bearings, put it all back together, still going. I've been running the hammer pretty hard the last few months, trying to make as much Damascus as I can before it gets too hot. Been doing some large billets as well as some canisters.
 
So I couldn't tell from the picture, but do you have interchangeable dies on there?
 
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