Beaudry Hammer pictures

[Ed Thomas]

Hollis asked me to post evidence when I finally got the #7 Beaudry hammer running. Here's the proof.

Beaudry Full View
Beaudry Black & White
Beaudry Closer View

The #7 is the 200 pound hammer. It is remarkably well-behaved and smooth, as a good Beaudry always is. The piece being forged is a large truck leaf spring that was just a tad too wide to use as the tool bracket. It was quicker and easier to forge it down to the right height than to machine it. The bracket is now made and is used to hold tooling, either by clamping or with a hardie shank ala Clifton Ralph.

The dies were the last major part of the rebuild. A previous owner had run it without a bottom die, right into the sow block. I should have taken pictures of how mangled it was. That repair was very tedious, involving many, many hours of grinding, filing and fitting. The dies have a 4.5" x 8" face and are made of S-7. The bottom die is slightly taller than upper die to compensate for the lost metal of the sow block and probably weighs about 40 pounds.

[HWooldridge]

Hey Ed,

What a nice hammer! You sure did a good job. I also like your drive setup - could you post a complete pic of that?

Now the fun starts...you get to use this pretty lady.

[Ed Thomas]

Hmmm... somebody has been playing with my post... and brought my pictures to the gallery. Thanks, Glenn.

Hollis, this hammer is SO graceful compared to my other one, which needs a serious overhaul. Despite being twice the weight, it is far easier to use tooling under it, and its responsiveness is really impressive. Having a good brake helps a lot. I'll have to climb up to the "power plant" to take pictures sometime. I'm using a 7.5 hp single phase motor. A 5 hp would be more than sufficient, but the extra hp means it doesn't bog down at all when engaging the belt.

Once again, thanks for your help over the years in learning the Beaudry and figuring out how to repair and set this one up.

Right now, I'm starting on some bolt on dies. You can't see them in the pictures, but I put 1/2" bolt holes in the dies. Now I wish I'd gone larger, but too late now. The classic clamp arrangement works fine for bottom tooling, but is impractical for a top tool. So I'm going to try a pair of bolt-on combination dies.

[Jmercier]

Looks gorgeous! As someone just starting to contemplate building my own small power hammer for forge welding damascus and other work (I like hammers more than presses, I know if I were just doing damascus that a press would be sufficient) I can only drool upon seeing those pictures.

[Glenn]

Ed, Just followed your link, reworked the images a bit so I could see better and then included them into your post. Figured that if I needed a little more light on the subject, others could use the same light to see better too.

Nice hammer!!

[Ted T]

Ed,
You have arrived! WOW!

[HWooldridge]

Ed,

Maybe you could do a little YouTube video or something similar so we can see some hammerin' - just a suggestion.

[plain ol Bill]

Ed that is a truly nice looking hammer. It will give you many years of pleasure. Keep on hammerin'.

[Ed Thomas]

Glenn: Thanks. The pictures were actually much darker in the original. I'd already cleaned them up a good bit. My son is experimenting with his new camera, so was having trouble with lighting. By the time I got these pictures in my computer, he had already gone back home so I couldn't get him to take more.

Hollis: I dunno bout movies. I have a hard enough time taking regular pitchers.

Jmercier: Hammers and presses do different things. I think that a hammer is more useful most of the time. This Beaudry is my second (functioning) hammer. You will really enjoy having one once you build or buy a power hammer. Good luck.

Ted: Don't I know it! I can't get over how nice this machine is finally.

Bill: Thanks. Now that the hammer is finally running, I can get BACK to hammering.

[djhammerd]

Congratulations Ed!