ajclay

The gauge needs to be shock mounted in some way. Not sure the best way to do it. Use a flexible hose to the gauge, and rubber mounts to decouple it from the frame.

The link below is one company making shock mounts. These are for weights similar to the gauge.

Richard

shock mounts

Here is an idea A.J.

A couple large O rings could suspend it.

Looking great MR. AJ!

I would be inclined to agree with Mr. Grant on the gauge. I'm not speaking from experience, that was just my first inclination when I saw that. Give it a try and see! LOL It'd be a shame not to use such a pretty mounting bracket!

I've really enjoyed seeing it come together. You'll have to send pics of the finished product to Mr. Ron Kinyon so he can use them on the front of the hammer plans. LOL Beats the tar out of any other one I've seen!

While my parts are on order, I'm kind of at a stand still. I had a pressure gauge that I picked up from a buddy, so I made a little bracket and tack welded it on the side of the hammer. Also made a mounting bracket to hold the big air dryer and mister. I kind of over did it on the bracket, ( to heavy ) but it will serve the purpose just fine. I've just got it propped up on the rear, I'm not going to mount things till the spool valve comes in and it's mounted. The spool valve needs to be mounted first and work down from there. Hopefully it will come in with in a week or so.

Later, Aj

I don't know about bright red but a deep red and black with some pin stripping would be cool, you could always class it up with a cream and brown classic look. That hammer is all class and puts style back into industrial design!

Don't forget a guard over the spring.
Ted

That is proubably the nicest self made hammer I have seen, in fact it is better than some production hammers I've seen.

Well this sure ain't that 40 hr build that other guy wanted to do. This is a great looking hammer and good pictures to follow the build, thanks.
I should have bought stock in Fastenall - that is a lot of hardware

Sure looks good AJ, almost ready for the red paint?

Just wondering if you have other work you would share, you seem to have a very smooth running shop.

Progress! I've got my second wind on the project. It's starting to look like an air hammer. Things went as planned pretty much.

I fudged on the squareness of the 8in vertical tubing to make the dies plates parallel. Not having the anvil faced off, just band saw cut, along with all the other irregularities that stack up along the way, it was off about 1/16. Now after all was welded it's about .015 out on parallel.

The temporary jack screws that were welded on helped big time to line up the anvil with the ram. I dropped a transfer punch down in the anvil bolt holes and lowered the ram down till it slid in the ram bolt holes. Moved the punch around in all the holes till I was satisfied on the alignment. It looked pretty good when it was all said and done.

I must say I've got my fill on welding for a few day. I used 7018, 1/8 and 5/32 rods to put the pieces together. I skipped around on the welding and even cooled it off a couple of times to keep the base plate from curling up. It's 1.5in thick but when metal get hot, welding will pull more than you think. Once it gets a little curl in there it no getting it out.

I had to put an air hose to the cylinder to see it move before I left today. I'll sleep good tonight to say the least.

The next step I'll have to purchase the spool valve and start fitting up those parts. I did find a air/water separator, oil mister, and regulator from a buddy. It has 1 inch pipe for the inlet and outlet so there won't be any problems with cfm there... The price was right..... free....

Thanks, Aj

Well, the work ran out and I'm back on my air hammer project.. I'll have some new photos tomorrow. I welded the main spine (vertical 8in square tubing) on the base plate today and located the anvil under the ram. Tack welded it in several places and tomorrow I'm going to put the weld on it.

The anvil was a problem to line up. I had to weld some temporary jack screws on the base plate to move it around accurately.

It all went together as it should. Now it's starting to look like an air hammer. Thanks, Aj

This is one of the jobs I finished the last week or so. It's slow going building parts this heavy. 1/2in thick 8in I beam, material rack for a fabrication shop of all places... They were to busy to build it. Wish I had those problems..!

AJ

I have a few general questions.

If you use a 2 inch cylinder, how large are the ports? Where can you buy cylinders with large ports? How much? I noticed that most 2 inch standard air cylinders have smallish ports, maybe 1/4 NPT. Sounds like cushions are a good idea for the cylinder, maybe even adjustable cushions.

If you go with two limit switches, do you then buy a three position valve? I think that you can buy two position valves with two pilots and no spring, or three position valves with two pilots and a spring center return. The three position valves might have all ports blocked in the center position, is that an advantage? Why? Would that conserve air? If you only had a two position valve, what is the advantage of the two pilots with two switches vs. a single switch and a spring return?

I can see that two limit switches provides a bit more flexibility. Having the limit switch position tied to the treadle in some way adds complexity, but some advantages as well.

No matter what arrangement you use, you might still need to manually adjust the limit switch position if you wanted to use taller tooling, at least if you wanted full power with taller tooling.

The advantage of the new Kinyon design is mostly lower height and fewer alignment problems with the cylinder, right? I know that the spring adds some "whip", but only if it is tuned correctly.

If you want to understand how to "tune" the spring of the hammer, take a look at this article, addresses mechanically driven helve hammers but applies to this design as well, due to the spring.

Hammer tuning

Richard

My guess is AJ got some of that nasty stuff we all find ourselves doing from time to time called " paying work" At least I hope that is what happened...

I've got a little more information on Norgren parts. The "super x" pilot valves. This seems to be a common pilot valve used on air hammers. Download the attached document and look on the bottom of page "val-7-3"

1/4in 3/2 mechanical valves.

"03 0611 22" seems to be the basic valve needed.

Later, AJ

Sec02SuperX - pilot valves.pdf

AJ, I'm a big fan of simplicity when it's appropriate. That's why I use a spring return shuttle valve. In my opinion it's more important to achieve overall good control than to have a lot of extra adjustments that need to be fiddled with or extra parts to add complications. (Again just my opinion, no intention of starting any arguments.) I think that one of the biggest control problems with most Kenyon's is the non linear performance of the ball valve and it's usual location way down the line from the shuttle and therefore the cylinder it's trying to control. Along with this is the fact that most hammers seem to be plumbed with air lines of too small a diameter leading to pressure and flow restrictions. All that leads to sluggish performance which costs both power and control. If you look at that PDF I posted you'll notice I suggest relatively large diameter lines (including the pilot valve line). A hammer with good flow and little restriction will be a "snappy" runner- it will accelerate the ram quickly and just as quickly try and turn it around. Any of you who have run one of John Larson's Iron Kiss hammers will recognize exactly what I am talking about. You don't need to do anything special to get a single blow out of those hammers- just stomp the treadle and quickly let off. One Bang; and variable in force once you get the hang of it. My Kinyon style works the same way and everybody elses can too with very simple upgrades to valving and plumbing. Of course like anything else you do develop a feeling for how you work the throttle or treadle for consistent control. Most of us aren't going to walk up to an unfamiliar hammer and get it perfect right off. Steve G

Here's a diagram for the simplest form of the Kinyon style hammer. The part numbers are immaterial but it is important to have as much air flow as possible through the valves so be sure whatever you use has the largest CV or flow rate you can find using your rources of supply. It does single blows reliably and runs fast also. Good luck with your project. Steve G

I've been meaning to post the information on Norgren spool valves I got the other day. On the very last page it has a part number brake down that will tell all about the Nugget 500 series spool valves.
Later, AJ

N-500 APC-102.pdf

I keep forgetting to put this attachment up. It's a document ".pdf booklet" from Norgren. I got it from one of their tech guys. On the vary last page it has a part number brake down that will tell you about the spool valves in the "Nugget 500" series.

The more we talk, and I mean guys on IFI, the easier things get.

later, AJ

N-500 APC-102.pdf

SGensh has some good points. I glad he mentioned about the butterfly valve. I attached another drawing I picked up here on IFI that's easy to follow. Just a hand drawn one. And another one that has a bunch of colors.... really wasn't much help to me.

Also, these are for the old style kinyon..

Take care, AJ

A follow up about spool valves, spring/pilot verses the pilot/pilot design. The smith I'm getting information from builds and sells simple hammers and holds classes on how to use them. So I'd say he knows about "his world" that's for sure.

Below was the second reply:


The first hammers I built had the spring return on the spool valve. In general this configuration is simple and works fairly well but...
I wore the spring out. The place where I buy the spool valve from said the spring was good for about a million hits. I figured that was about right and that was about 4 or 5 years in use of the machine. The second roller valve eliminates this problem, although replacing the spring was not a big job. (took much more time to travel to the store to get the new spring)

The biggest difference was being able to control not only the size of the cycle, but where the cycle bottoms out. That is to say I can adjust the roller valves so that the hammer will run but the two dies don't touch each other. This allows for a very light touch for specialized texturing, or for using short punches and chisels under the dies.

It really adds a level of versatility while prolonging the life of the internal parts. That is not to say that roller valves and spool valves won't need replacing at some point. I did find the spring gave out much sooner than any of the other parts.

So the spring return will work. I just found it did not last as long as the double pilot, and the double pilot was more versatile.

There you go.... Aj

Can someone help with a flow chart to set up the valving and switches for a kinyon style small air hammer

Below is an explanation a fellow sent me of how his hammer works with two pilot valves. It's an old style kinyon with the air cylinder mounted on top.

When adding air first from the air compressor. 0 psi to line pressure 130 psi
The hammer may cycle through up to 3 times as air pressure stabilizes on both sides of the cylinder. It will automatically trip the roller valves and the there fore the spool valve until there is equal pressure on both sides of the platen. Keep fingers out of the way. I also keep a small block of wood on the dies to prevent them from impacting cold.

It may stop at any point in the cycle.

As you release a bit of air with the foot peddle it will start to travel either up or down depending where in the cycle it is. (most often I find it starts to travel up)
Once it activates the roller switch in its travel (either up or down) it reverses its direction.

While running much the same happens. You take your foot off the peddle and it can stop anywhere in the cycle.
If you need it in the up position and it stops in the down position, I just tap the foot peddle once or twice. This exhausts just a bit of air and the hammer head rises. This takes a bit of practice but only a little bit.

If it consistently does a full cycle through when you tap the foot valve, I would tighten the guide bolts on the bearing nylon just a bit and it will slow it down a touch.

I hope this helps. In short yes you will have to give a short tap to exhaust a bit of air if it stops in the down position to raise the hammer head.

Yes that is all it controls, on-off, how fast. But it has nothing to do with stroke or force except that force is a function of the inertia of the ram so if you slow it down you get less force.

I hate to make this any more confusing than it already is.. But there is another "Bull" control system, that used on all the newer style hammers as well as the Phoenix hammers. None of those angle bits, all controlled on a single pivot point and a arm that attaches to the tup...