homemade air hammer caution !!!!

[jeremy k]

This is a caution for those building their own air hammers. - I started to hammer texture some 1-1/2" solid bar today for a handrailing job, and found a flaw in my hammer design. This has not been a problem since I built it 5 yrs ago. The issue of the problem lies in the placement of the inline air/water trap filter. When I built the hammer I put the filter in a handy place(hand hight) and also this is where the air hose quick coupler is, although today I found that was in the wrong place. I've forged many hundreds of feet of stock but not any large round bar as today with this hammer. The residual heat from the larger bar was to close to the acrylic filter housing and luckily while forging I happened to see the potential explosion before it happened. The heat softened the acrylic and started to blow the side out under 120psi of working pressure while using the hammer. Here are a couple pics to show the wrong placement and the damage to the acrylic bowl. So I was lucky to happen the see it before anything major happened. My advice to everyone is: while forging - watch your surroundings and what your doing at the same time as much as possible so you can catch problems before they get out of hand. Like I said I've never had an issue with this before until the larger stock size. I could turn the dies around and forge the other way to solve the problem but I will relocate it higher up and away from the heat. Just a thought to keep in the back of everyones mind closer to the front. JK

[keykeeper]

Whoa! Good thing you saw what was going on, Jeremy.

Glad there was no injury this time. Maybe this post will get everyone thinking about placement of lines, filters etc. out of the way, therey avoiding potentially dangerous consequences.

I wonder how many others have a set up like this on their home-built air hammers?

[Ted T]

I am glad your OK Jeremy.
I think it is just about a humane reqirement to pass along issues about safety.
This post has made me re-think about some of the stuff I have created in the past.
In the future I will do a little more pondering up front about some of the things I am going to create with a ("Lets see" what could go wrong with this?) attitude!
Thank You for the heads up!
Be safe!
Old Rusty Ted

[Dodge]

Thanks for the heads-up, Jeremy, and glad to hear no one was hurt.