E.F. Thumann

Sounds sweet, any pics John?

Ken, Thanks for posting all of the pics. P.s what material belt are you running?

Manders, Sorry to leave you hanging all day, I just got in from the shop. I actually didn't mean your type of bearings, I was talking about "captive" bearings that are bored/pressed into a hammer frame like the fairbanks. But wear (and the issues that that entails for maintaining a good oil film on a shaft) applies to the cap-bearing style hammers too. The difference is, that with the caps you can adjust out the wear by cutting the top cap down a bit in a mill. Eventually if It gets horrid, you will have to rough it out and pour babbit. What viscosity oil are you using in SSU/ISO? (people tend to get confused b/c people keep refering to oil in SAE, when talking machine oil it should be refered to in ISO). Did you media/sand blast the caps to clean out the holes in the caps that the oil passes through? How big are the holes? If they are an "open reservoir", meaning just a depression in the casting, you should either tap the holes for a grease fitting/oil cup (make sure it is a wicked cup), or machine a brass plug that has a center hole tapped in it, that you can gently seat into the hole if you don't feel like tapping the iron itself. It's normal that the front cap would drain, and the back cap drains much slower, b/c on these hammers, the front bushing takes the majority of the radial load (same reason why lathes have larger/stronger bearings right behind the chuck vs. their rear bearings). P.S. use a dedicated oil or grease for the task that it's meant for. Literally millions of man-hours over the last century have been spent tailoring lubricants to specific tasks, take advantage of it. I tell all of my guys in the shop: oil is cheap, machines are expensive, use more than you think the machine needs. P.s. Phil, upsetting keyssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I missed the forest for the trees when I was spotting my keys in, I will be trying the upset method this weekend:)

I rebuilt my Fairbanks, except for the main shaft (I didn't want the trouble of line-boring the head), and as such, want to make sure the hammer stays in a tip-top condition. The one thing you have to remember about older hammers (that don't have adjustable babbit caps) is that when you have a significant amount of wear around the main shaft, that free-play between the shaft and the bearing doesn't let a dynamic oil film stay on the shaft. Common shaft-to-bearing fits range from approx. .001-.0015, that's what you want for a proper oil film, my hammer probably has about .015 play in the main shaft, so I replaced the oil fittings with grease, and it runs perfectly fine. If I recall, Dan Seaver did the same thing on his Fairbanks. That being said, I would NEVER run grease on my ways, as that is the part of hammer that is exposed to scale and grease tends to collect little bits etc. I run machine way oil (vactra #2) on the slides/ways, and oil the hell out of it. I think Grant mentioned a while ago that grease doesn't shear like oil does, which is completely true, the viscosity will slow down the hammer. Fact. It will do so for all machine tools in a grease vs. oil scenario. As an aside, Grant also said in one of his last posts about Tim Miller's custom dies "grease and scale make a wonderful grinding paste." Think about that, because it comes from a man who spent his life doing industrial forging (RIP Sarver).

Ken, Please don't forget to take a few closer pics of the brake setup you are running (with how you arranged the spring, and the custom brake arm). My brake is has been driving me nuts the last few months, and I'm ready to throw it under the hammer as soon as I can B)

Ken, Could you post more pics (lots) of the brake mod/head setup that you have now, as well as approx dimensions on the pieces that you used for the toggles (as well as what material/heat treat you used)? I have a 125lb fairbanks model D, and if your changes really upgrade the hammer in a big way, then count me in:) Thanks in advance:) -Andrew

Phil, What amount of step-over are you using per stroke? Just looking at that makes me wince. Try using a much larger nose radius on the HSS bit in the lantern-style holder, i.e. .100" radius. (or just get a bigger piece of HSS with a correspondingly larger holder that will fit your lantern), and increase the step-over 300-400%, that will reduce your time drastically when facing. Also, a trick I just learned is to get rid of the lantern type holder, and get a solid block of steel drilled with two holes and then reamed (square) to fit whatever size HSS you want to use, and mount a double set of HSS bits in the block. One to rough, and the second to finish (typically with a larger nose radius). That way with every stroke you are doing double work. BTW I'm only mentioning this all to help out, b/c I just spend about 21 hours this weekend milling aluminum for a bar twisting machine i'm making, and anything to speeeeeeddddddddddd up machine tools is worth spreading around. Nice work Phil, keep it up:)

Stunned. I was just on the phone with him a few weeks ago with questions on his induction forge, and using his tongs over the holiday weekend, admiring the little round boss on the end of the ring tongs................thinking what a craftsman he is to put in such a small little detail...........Your sage advice, and playful manner in which you gave it, will be missed by us all. THANK YOU GRANT and God speed.

+1 on the "larger drive pulley at slower rpm with jackshaft vs. high speed smaller pulley". I started out with a high speed 4" pulley on my 125lb fairbanks slack belt, and the response/control was aweful. Switched up to a jackshaft with a 16" drive wheel for the flat belt side (motor side of jackshaft is triple v-belt), and the control is butter smooth. For belting, don't bother with real leather, it is nothing short of aweful (wasted 300 on a belt, and after cutting it 4 times to get the ever-longer-stretch out, I went to SBR rubber belting from mcmaster). I'm running a 7.5 hp motor, and the mcmaster number for the belting is 5753k432 for 3" belt, you will need larger most likely. They sell up to 6" wide. Cheap and it works great, don't forget to buy the alligator clips.

Thanks for the info Ptree, it's good to hear from the guys who ran the big steam boys back when steam was king:) You should be very proud:)

What's weird about that article is that alcoa uses (if I remember correctly) a 35k steam hammer to forge out aluminum propeller blades for the c-130....Grant/John/Patrick, people have mentioned to me that if there is a bunch of condensate pooled in a big hammer when it gets hit by the first bunch of steam during a shift, that it can flash and damage the hammer. True?

Old n rusty: no never had any leaks on the piranha, or had to repack the cylinder/rebuild the pump.

Ps, lest you think I'm just pontificating on how great piranha is: I bought one of there press brakes new, and I hate it. They have since stopped making brakes. Some things they get right: ironworkers, some things they get wrong: brakes.

Yes, I definitely like the piranha across the board. All of the pieces/support tables/knife holders all attach to the main body plate with large socket head cap screws, so it's easy on/easy off, no messing with eight million covers/cables/etc to get access. Any machine will break if it's abused. Period. If material is put into the center shear and doesn't contact the hold-down, the material will tilt, and shatter the knives, simple physics, not a design flaw ( same with all heavy cuts in ironworkers). If you have people on the machine who don't know how to use it, it won't last (reference the votech kids). We literally make hundreds of cuts a day, and I wouldn't be with out it, it's too much of a money maker. Only complaint I have? The motor isn't mounted on studs inside the machine, so you have to lift the machine to get the mounting bolts out. But how often are you taking the motor out? If that's my one complaint, it says something about the machine.

I have direct experience with both (Piranha and Edwards). I have a Piranha P-50 in my shop, we've had it for about four years now, and one of our subsidiary companies has an edwards. The two don't compare. If you ever go out to a big metalworking trade show, you will see the differences in the ironworkers currently offered new from manufacturers (ps Fabtech is by far the best show for shopping for metalfab equipment, i've been an exhibitor there the last few years, and no, I don't sell ironworkers lol, rest easy). The pro's of the Piranha are big, monolithic flame-cut pieces, no badly-cast crap from china, made in the usa (yes, still matters to many of us), and ALL THE PARTS ARE EASILY TAKEN ON AND OFF IF SOMETHING BREAKS. I cannot stress how important that is in a running shop. Over the past four years we have had to re-wind the motor(power surge), do regular maintenance with oil replacement, and switch out the knives on the shear twice (once was because someone came in on a weekend un-authorized and tried to "sneak" a piece in and had no clue what they were doing). When we got the machine it was about 14k new, I believe its about 17k new now. A company called "Cayman" is making a perfect dupe as far as I know, but I have no clue as to the quality. I encourage all of you guys that are looking to buy new equipment to come to Fabtech (btw I'm in heat treating, so I have nothing to gain from you coming, etc), I've bought most of my new stuff there in the past four years. Hope that helps? Oh ps, we've cut probably around 100k pieces of all sorts in the P-50 in four years, including 1" holes in 1/4" stainless, the slugs come out so hard they spall the concrete floor, and the machine doesn't flinch.

Lasco, ceco/ajax, and others still build what we would call "monsters". Btw most of the manufacturers are avoiding air, they are using high speed hydraulic hammers on things above 2k head weight (mostly). There are still very, very large tup weight air hammer that are used in production (ie think 10 k and up tups), but they are older ceco's n chambersburgs. If you have a giant piece that needs forging, say 40" cross section, they move toward presses vs hammers now.

Lufkin, in fact, still does make tape measures. They are available through Grainger ( as well as other supply hoses I'm sure), and are complete/utter garbage. The wonder of what $7 will buy you when you are purchasing from a catalogue. When guys in the factory who don't-know-which-line-is-a-1/16th, need a new one they get a lufkin. All of my men in the metal shop get Stanley leverlocks. Most guys who work alone would be very very surprised to know the level of non-conformity in the reading of different brands of tape measures at say, anything over four feet. When you are in a shop/on a crew, first rule is, everyone uses the same brand/same model tape measure. That rules OUT a bunch of problems. Yes, I love puns;)

Welcome to the forum from a fellow Fairbanks owner! I have a 125lb Model D. What exactly happened when the spring became loose? Did you check the tightness of the bolts in the upper toggle arms of the Dupont linkage that retain the spring? Did you loose on of the "plugs" that sit inside the ends of the spring while forging? Did you recently adjust the collar on your pitman arm? Did you check the integral brake on the drive pulley to see that nothing shifted on the brake/idler pulley arm? The thing with mech hammers is that all of the pieces work in harmony, and when one goes wrong it can throw the others off. Some things to think about: is there enough oil on the ways? Do you have a chip caught in the ways? Is the brake out of alignment and grabbing? Is the pitman adjusted too high (this is the big one) for the size work you are doing? When it's too high it makes the hammer skip/ hit erratically. Most guys have them adjusted WAY too high out of fear of shattering the toggle arms on the frame if they come down too low with adjustments. The pitman can't be in the same place to get full power out of the hammer when forging 2.5" stock vs 1/2" stock. If you have the hammer adjusted to work larger stock, and go down to small stuff, it will do the weird skip/erratic stuff This also includes breaking down large stock down to a small section. It will make you miss the sweet spot of the hammers power if you don't adjust the pitman accordingly. Hope that helps, n keep us all informed!

The Nimba Gladiator rings like a church bell when its on a pallet, don't ask me how I know The stand is a 7" thick x 18" diameter solid round drop from an O/A slab cutting table. Tubing legss are 3"x1/4" wall, and the anvil is bedded in silicone. 2 grade 8 bolts welded to the slab hold the anvil down with the help of the little straps I forged. Now the anvil just "TINK"s when it's struck.

I headed over to my blanchard-grinding friend's scrapyard for a big piece of stock this morning to mount my new anvil on, and was walking around a bend, and came upon these. I asked if they were what I thought they were:) He's doing a re-grind for a forge shop, the dies have been re-paired by flood-welding and peening (the standard practice in large press forging die repairs these days). Dimensions are approx. 18" deep, 24"wide, 60" long. SOLID WASPALLOY!! Cool stuff . Check the left side of the die on the right, and look toward the bottom, yup, it's a full key:) The pair costs 120K .

Mike, It's weird that you mention guys comparing similar make/model hammers to see if they are tuned correctly, because I just did the power hammer test with my newly re-built Fairbanks Model D, 125 head. I got : 5 Blows: .605" 10 Blows: .328" I duped the tests three times, and the numbers came out ballpark the same. That's at a dull/dirty yellow color. I noticed that when the bars are at mid-orange temp that the results were about .410 for 10 blows, n .605" for 5 blows, so the guys who have hotter forges can def. skew the results a bit (i.e. my forge can't reach blinding yellow/white temp). The hammer has a re-machined pitman bearing, been cleaned, gib/face plate machined to tighten it up, etc. Just to mess around I put a piece of 1x3.5 inchx 10" long in the forge and broke it down on edge to about four ft long 3/4x3/4 in two heats. Is that good? I have nothing to compare it to, since this is my first hammer. Before I get down from my soap box, I'd like to mention that I've noticed a few things about the mech hammers: 1) Most guys who are running mech hammers of a larger size (100lbs and up), seem to be running them incredibly slow for the model/size they have, i.e. it looks like the front drive plate is stirring taffy when they are running them full out. My hammer is currently running 260 BPM, anyone else who has a model D running that fast/(slow?)? 2) The height on the pitman is incredibly important, the sweet spot on this hammer is approx. 3/4" of range to get full-on, scary dumptruck hits. Beyond that range, either bigger or smaller stock, you have to adjust it, or you can't get the last 25% of force out of the hammer (I'm saying that in reference to the full-out hammer test). For working regular stuff, the pitman really doesn't have to be messed with. 3) A bunch of guys on the forum have mentioned that if you have a mech hammmer, that is should hit with the toggles dead level when it impacts the material (in reference to hammers that have dupont-style linkages). Hmmm........how do I say that I that's completely, utterly wrong without being offensive? Guess I just did I've noticed on my hammer that if the toggles are dead level on impact, the hammer is only giving about a 30% strength blow. I think the reason for that is that the toggles should be bowed down when the material is impacted, as this stores energy in the spring to rebound the hammer forcefully to aid in lifting it, as well as setting up a fast ocillation/harmonic in the spring. Makes it snap hard, and messing around with the pitman has proved this out on my hammer. Didn't mean turn this into a fairbanks thread, just wanted to let people know of my particular setup, and ask if people could dupe my results with their model D's, or get way better, n make me look like a horse's rear end P.S. the crank disk pin/pitman pin was only out 70% of the way when I ran the test, I guess I could push it to the outer edge for full power, and do a re-run.

Thanks Peacock. I'm planning on matching my drive pulley (15.5") with one having the same diameter on a jackshaft. Did you custom make your 18" flat belt pulley? I've been debating turning off the ridges on an old agricultural v-belt pulley on my lathe to make it run a belt........or machining a new one from scratch (PITA). What's the company name that you get your belts from?

I agree completely dave...........unless your shop happens to look like mine when you turn your eyes upwards;) I think I just found a reason NOT to have a big shop, lol. P.s. I've been messing around with a 3/32" leather belt that is "alligator" clipped together (the kind you beat on with a hammer, and slide a pin through), and the leather is stretching to no end. How thick are the belts you run on your hammers Dave?

Where do you get your 4XXX stock Larry? Nice work, p.s. if you end up giving those hammer class on a regular basis, I hear the Pacific Nothwest isn't a bad place to be for a weekend.......... B)

Those pics are of my Fairbanks D that I'm at the tail-end of restoring (posted the full account of that on one of the other Fairbanks threads, its long be careful ). The frame is approx 28"x40" cross section, all 2" square, .120" wall mild steel. Don't pay attention to the motor pulley setup, that was just to test the hammer to see if everything was in working order, I'm going to reverse it 180 and run a jackshaft back with a larger front pulley (so it clutches correctly). I put in the curved tong rack (god bless Ercolina), and also the lower tong rack to organize stuff. Its very, very solid (I like to triangulate stuff that tall/narrow). Oh, the protection cage is 1" .120 wall tube (thanks to ercolina #2 ), with 1/2" round bar tigged for the verticals, very heavy, but I figure safer is better. The strange loops up top on the cage are so that the pitman cant come around and crush my skull if the collar slips off (happened once in the history of the hammer b/f I owned it). I'm 6'4" in my work boots for size reference. K, I will zip my lips. Oh, ps, there are two small arms/tabs that come off the center of the curved tong rack, that sit on either side of the hammer. They have 5/8 nuts welded to them, and I threaded bolts through to "cinch" the hammer to the frame (1/4" thick leather between bolts and hammer). I'm very very averse to drilling into the hammer, after it has remained untouched from butchery for 100 years.