Helve hammer

[philip in china]

Can anybody give me some advice on a helve hammer? I want to make some sort of a power hammer and from the pics I have seen these seem the easiest.

[jeremy k]

In the Blue Prints - helve hammer by Jr Strasil

[philip in china]

I saw that. Does anybody have any tips on actually constructing the thing? What are the mistakes to avoid? The old water etc. powered ones seem to be a very simple machine. Can I just copy something like that?

[DonS]

There are actually two blueprints for the Jr Strasil helve hammer. I don't know if you found both of them. Try BP 63, which is the original hand drawn version, and BP 159 which shows the detailed photos. There are all sorts of gems of info in the BP 63sketches and in the BP 159 text.

I have a "Rusty" hammer, and it works quite well, but I would also like to build this helve hammer just to see how it compares to the Rusty. I have all the parts except for the large pulley and the 2-1/2 inch square tube for the post that holds the upper bearings.

The helve hammer shown in the blueprints is relatively light, possibly 10-15 lb hammer weight, but it is reported to work ok (because of the velocity of the blow since it is accellerated by the spring at the back). The helve hammers run by water power are raise up by a cam and then allowed to drop under gravity. They depend primarily on the mass of the hammer, which I assume would be hundred lbs plus at a relatively low velocity. The associated anvil would have to be correspondingly large for this to be efficient.

I really like the simplicity of the Strasil helve hammer. The only disadvantage I can see is that the die faces can't be parallel for all thicknesses of material being worked, so the faces are slightly curved. Looks great for drawing out and general work, but maybe not ideal if you want to use tooling.

You will need access to a decent size welder. A buzz box will do, and some new/dry 7018 AC rods if you are buiding it out of scrap that could include some alloy steel, as in my case. My proposed base is some sort of AR grader blade stock and I have no idea what the 5 inch dia anvil shaft is made of.

I can keep you posted on my progress, (which is usually slow). Good luck.