trinculo

I have a homemade "bull style" hammer with a 2.5" cylinder @ 110lbs. At the same air pressure it is considerably more sluggish than my 75 pound Iron kiss with a 3.5" cylinder. The Iron Kiss runs great down to 60lbs pressure. The 110lb doesn't come into it's own until >100 psi. fwiw I make brazil type hammers solo both slitting and upsetting into a rounding die under the iron kiss and I made a set of narrow fullers for cheeking on the home-brew hammer. I do agree that two hammers are great for setting up different tooling for using often times under the same heat. I still drift manually on the anvil using a set of"camelbacks". I am really impressed with the videos of KZ 150 and it's control. Ken told me it has something like 14" of stoke. If it is built anywhere near the robustness of John's hammers that's the way I would go. I've looked at the numbers for building my own hammer and just can't compete with what you can get from either John or Ken.

How big are the dies? Looks great! Congrats.

you have a gift. Thanks for sharing this. dw

I use a BMW motorcycle muffler. I have two power hammers y'd into it and it works great.

My humble recommendations are to go with <10 vertical offset and bolt it down. Expand the footprint by using the 1/2" plates for feet on the bottom to gain another 3 or 4" outside the legs. Please post pictures when your done.

Curious as to how this project is coming. Would love to see pictures.

Anvil is 6" solid round.

Here are some pictures of my home brew hammer. The frame is a reclaimed bull reject pulled from a scrap yard in Asheville. The rest is junkyard trail and error. The tup is about 110 lbs. I'm still working on the control mech although it can do single blow and cycles ~ 120 bpm. I can't claim all the work on this. I purchased it from another smith who had welded the head and tup up and had a not so functional control system throttling the intake air. I the replumbed and rebuilt the control system and added another 600lb or so to the base. I'm fortunate enough to have an Iron Kiss that is my main hammer, but it is very nice to have both hammers side by side with different dies. I often use both in the same heat. But make no mistake this frankenhammer is no match for the Iron Kiss in most regards.

Looks Good. What is the hammer weight going to be? From your description I'm not clear if it's going to reciprocate or not. I live just over the line in Asheville. If you want to come see my homebuilt hammer and the plumbing you are welcome to.

I have an iron kiss "75". The tup weighed in at 93 pounds w/o dies. John rates his hammers conservatively apparently. Also a bull inspired homemade 112 pound hammer Hope to get a larger mechanical at some point. Murray or Beaudry appeals to me although I don't have much experience with them.

wow. beautiful work. Thanks for sharing this.

Would love to see some pictures of the process.

Very cool. This is the kind of thing I wish I had more time to do.

Those are gorgeous pieces of steel. Someday I hope to make something that approches this level of beauty.

Very cool to see this. Looks like it scaled up nicely. Well done.

Beautiful pattern! Well done.

beautiful craftsmanship!! Well done.

Do you use a cupping tool on the PH as well? Do you have cheeking dies? I would love to see some pictures of your hammer making tooling for the Power hammer(s). Nice looking bunch of hammers you've made recently.

SInce Trip was gone, did you make it with your power hammer or did you have another striker?

For the first year of forging I used a straight hardy of excellent quality from OCP tool. It was shouldered and mostly flat on top. Since Brian taught me and helped me make a hardy of his design I haven't used the straight hardy again. I can cut thicker stock faster than I ever could before. It's amazing how tight the taper holds until you give it a sideways tap while hiding the other side and then it comes out very easily every time. Until forging with Brian for three days, I had no idea how much I didn't know. I am looking forward to the next time I can stand across the anvil from him.

Cool project Dave. Thanks for taking the time to keep us up to date.

How do you copyright a tool? Patent maybe, but copyright?

What is a strike line die? How is it diff than a center punch? Cool tool.

Stormcrow, I would love to see the process for the way you make the intergral handles, particularly how to center them to the blade. Always like to click on your latests works.

What was the dimension of the parent stock? Nice work as always stormcrow. I really like your style.