farmer12888

Dave, that is a sweet little hammer, and you use it skillfully. I have always wanted to see one run. If you ever think about selling it, I would sure be interested. I just wish I could have found it and rebuilt it myself. Congratulations.

Thanks for the tip Andrew T. I will look for a set screw and try loosening the set screw and pulling the flywheel/shaft assembly out the front. I sure hope it is that simple. I'll find a way to secure the drive pulley, if things start moving. My bushings have more play than I want, so this is necessary. I am also thinking about having a longer shaft made, so I can hang the motor down low on the back of the machine, rather than high up off the side.

I am totally taking apart my Fairbanks 75# hammer, and I need to know how to take out the main shaft. Everything is off the front, and now I see the end of the shaft with a key in it and the flywheel. The key is totally flush with the flywheel and the main shaft. It was suggested to me that a gib puller could be used, but there is nothing to grab onto. I am starting to think that maybe the flywheel stays on the main shaft and the shaft pulls out the front with the flywheel attached. That possibility is supported by an exploded parts picture in Freund's book under Fairbanks hammers that lists the shaft and the flywheel as one part. If it does come out the front, how do I free the shaft from whatever else holds it?

I use a Mac, so I will need to find something that allows me to make the images lower resolution. I am sure something is out there. After looking at the hammer a bunch more, it is quite possible this was a line-driven hammer at one time. My drive pulley is inside the frame. In Freund's book (page 274), the only hammer pictured driven directly by an electric motor has the drive pulley on an extended main shaft and outside the back of the frame. That is a large hammer with a big motor. It would be great to know if the smaller motor-driven hammers were configured the same way. Does anyone know or have a picture? The line-driven hammers that used a countershaft, which allowed the hammer to be installed in places like battleships where the ceiling height was limited, according to Freund, also had the pulley off the back of the hammer (page 276). I bought an air needle scaler yesterday and started removing the paint from the hammer, in preparation of painting it. I was going to wait to do it, but I just went for it yesterday. If you have ever thought about painting your hammer, that tool is an absolute must. The machinery broker that I bought the hammer from suggested it, and man that thing works. Somewhat-flexible heavy wires stick out the end and are moved back and forth by air which seems to pulverize the paint, and it comes jumping off the hammer in flakes. It took me about 4 hours of hard work to remove the paint from 80% of the hammer, and I mean it is nearly completely clean metal. I had already degreased the hammer. The scaler works best on hard, stable surfaces, which makes it ideal for a heavy hammer. I left everything assembled, in order to have the most stable work surface I could have, but after I get all of the paint off that I can, I will disassemble the hammer and finish the paint stripping. I bought an Ingersol Rand 125 scaler for $165.00.

Fairbanks hammers could be bought either for line shaft or for electric motor. I believe mine is for the electric motor.

I said I would post pictures of the project, and I took some, but I am unable to reduce them to the low resolution that the site requires. I can only get to 419KB, and they must be no more than 244KB I believe. Sorry.

What is the opinion as to the worth of the hammer. It says "closed auction." I guess that means you get one chance?

Just got in from finishing on the hammer for the day. I tried to mount the motor with the help of an engine hoist. Took a long time to find places to lift to balance the large 3HP motor and the cobbled-up bracket that it and the belt pulley sit on. The previous owner torched one of the supports they had made at some point. They may have done it to allow the motor bracket to flex down to put some tension on the belt! There is so much slack in the belt, when the motor bracket is held level, that it is 4 or 5 inches from touching the pulley at all with the pedal up. That setup will have to be changed. I don't know how Fairbanks mounted the motor initially, but this bracket is not it. It does appear that the motor has to be mounted very high-nearly 5 and 1/2 feet high, in order for the belt not to rub the machine frame. With the length of the belt, the motor has to sit quite a ways away from the frame and then the belt pulley sits inside of that. The motor is probably 3 feet out from the frame. It is out there so far and so heavy that it almost seems that legs down to the floor and braces over to the frame are worth considering. I cleaned out all of the oil holes with a piece of wire as someone suggested. I then squirted penetrating oil down the holes trying to clean them out better. It is odd but the left-sided arm that attaches to the ram does not appear to have oil holes in the top of it like the right side. I dug and dug, and I just think it does not have any. I think I found all of the holes, including both in top of the ram that are kind of hidden, but I am not sure I found one in the idler. I will make a note to look. Any suggestions on a motor and pulley mounting bracket? How much contact/tension should there be between the belt and the pulleys when the pedal is up? How tight should the belt be when the pedal is pushed down? I have to have some knowledge of this as a starting point to fabricate a motor and pulley mounting bracket. I will build in some adjustment in both the motor mount and the pulley mount.

I have been working on the hammer more this morning. My clutch does appear to work by slack/tension on the belt, but there is also a mechanism inside the pulley/flywheel that is applying tension by some type of shoes or something expanding and contracting in there. Should this be disassembled and checked? All of the lubrication sites on the hammer appear to be oil holes. There are often two at each location. There are two grease fittings on the motor shaft bearings, but that is it for grease fittings. I have taken a bunch of pictures, and I will try to figure out how to post some of them this evening.

More good info guys. Yes, that hammer is actually my hammer now. The flat belt leather appears to be in decent shape. It is quite old, however. I was thinking about the clutch in my mind, and of course you are correct. It works by creating slack on the belt. Is this setup good or not great? The motor and bracket were taken off for shipping, so I need to figure out how they had it mounted tomorrow, and that is why the clutch setup didn't immediately click to me. How did you chase the oil passages, and can you describe exactly where they are?

Thanks for the info. It sounds as if I have some real looking over the machine to do, once I get it cleaned up a bit.

The link that Unicorn posted to with the pictures is the hammer that I now own. I am not sure of the clutch design, but I think it is supposed to be superior to the Little Giant type. I need to learn all of these things about the machine. I will look for oil holes, but as you can see from the pictures in the link, the hammer is pretty greasy, so finding them will be a challenge until I can get it cleaned. The bushings for the shaft are bronze I believe. It just seems like they would have put grease fittings on there somewhere, but maybe everything that I think is grease on the machine may just be years of oil being squirted around. Do you mean chainsaw bar oil?

Any idea where the lubrication points should be?

I will ask the seller/shipper if they removed them, but it does not look like anything was recently removed.

Just to finish the thread about moving the hammer. I got lucky, and a friend offered to let me put my hammer and other blacksmithing stuff in a warehouse of his to use. Thankfully, it has a very thick slab. The hammer was delivered there with a local freight truck/trailer with a lift gate. It easily cleared the door there, and we wheeled it in on the pallet with a pallet jack. It is sitting on the pallet, while I clean it. I still have to figure out how to get it off the pallet safely.