Depew in Action

[irnsrgn]

Helves are different than in line power hammers like the air hammers, little giants and such. Helves get their ability to move metal not by increasing the Top or Hammer part weight, but by their speed and fast action. Increasing the top or hammer weight in fact reduces their efficiency because they have to be slowed down due to the increased forces the weight puts on the structural parts. The size and weight of the Anvil have a very large determination on the ability to hit harder. Planishing hammers do their jobs by lightly hitting the cold metal to stretch it and thus are not as heavily constructed as a helve for hot forging. By the time one would disect a planishing hammer and reconstruct heavier, one would be much farther ahead to start from scratch and build a designated helve hammer for the purpose of forging hot metal. It doesn't take that long to fabricate a decent helve if the needed parts are available. The main critical parts are an Anvil heavy enough to counter the action of the helve hammer, a base heavy enough to keep the Hammer from moving around, a decent piece of wood for the shock absorbing characteristics of the speed needed to move metal, and having the pitman attached as close to the helve pivot as possible to make it fast and the die opening larger.

The eccentric that operates the wooden helve on my Depew only moves the back of the Helve an inch to make the helve do its work.

[Bentiron1946]

So basically what you're saying is that the I Forge Iron helve hammer is a good design as it has a heavy anvil, wooden beam and a properly located pitman arm. Is that right?

[irnsrgn]

almost, I have since moved the pitman arms on both machines closer to the helve pivot point

[coolhand]

I have built the baby helve from Jrs plans and i am thrilled with it....i followed the BPs from this site and also took jrs recomendations to move the pitman pivot as close to the arm as possible and i also used a 9 inch flywheel run by a 3/4 hp motor. i think it hits very fast i think about 270x a minute. this hammer will knock the stuffing out of a 3/4 bar without even thinking about it. I have also drawn down 1/4 x2 up on edge no problem. I will take some photos and will post them soon. this baby helve is great. i spent a little under 300 bucks getting all the materials and took about 3 weeks planning (daydreaming) and 3 days to build. perfect hammer for hobbiests, beginners and limited space shops. I also have 2 sets of dies one drawing and one flat. the flat ones work good but only on material up to about 5/8 thick but you could make angled flat dies for larger material.

[WagonMaster]

thanks for sharing with us, Yep that hammer was a getting it...LOL

[coolhand]

my jyard depew

[Bentiron1946]

Nice job building that hammer. It looks real compact.

[Ted T]

Coolhand,
Very nice!!!
Ted

[coolhand]

thanks! im gonna put on the flat dies and try that 1" sq test one of these days.