nonjic

An excellent book, documenting in detail lots of historical blades is 'Swords of the Viking Age' , by Ian Peirce. I put a subtle distal taper in the one I made, the weight and balance is very different with it in. Lots of very knowledgable guys on Don Foggs Blade forum for historically accurate stuff, (sorry to 'cross forum' post, but it is a very specialist area, and Dons site is the best resource ive found)

thats pretty well what im seeing when I look at the sketchs! What the point of this design? is it to accelerate the ram faster than the maximum cylinder speed?

I think you will get a much higher % of 'guided area to mass' with a hollow section. Think if I was going with this design of hammer I would have a very solid plug that consisted of about 50% of the total ram weight firmly secured in the end of tube section. Be interested to see some vids of this type of hammer running, my brain isnt really 'seeing' the angle that the cylinder / spring etc are operating at throughout its motion range., to many mince pies and brandys ??? :D

Got this one finished up yesterday Blade is about 10" long, full distal taper and sharp enough to push cut a cig paper! Blades forged from 15n20, 20c & pure nickel, the handle is ebony and brass, The handle had a final polish to bring up the shine after the photos were taken.

Hi guys, just a couple of thoughts... The valve portions need to be able to spin on the spindle (not locked up solid) if they are solid the hammer can go 'lumpy' The top of the valve tube is stamped (either '0' or a + / - figure.) this is the height of the top of the valve in the 'full work' position. I think I sent you the full valve setting manual John, so dont know how much more I can add than is written in there. Check the valve springs are the correct weight (ill look up the spec for you), and the valve discs are flat, crack free and seating properly.

With the induction forge I use the 20 seconds waving my arm around to stop it aching :)

Great videos James ! Nice to get them moving some proper metal I demoed a 25 kg (55lb) at a conference a couple of years back, and a guy had a go on it, he seemed a bit so so about it and said it wasnt much more powerful than his turkish hammer, he looked a bit gobsmacked when I told him it was a 25, and it turned out his was a 40 kg machine :lol:

That massey is one weird ass looking thing, never seen one like it. It looks like a 'clear space' but with the ram from a 'Rigby' hammer in it. Ill have my first guess that its a special 'long stroke' self contained hammer. (the serial number is an oddball aswell..) I will look it up from the serial number next week, then all its secrets will be revealed :)

I think the only phrase is 'lol' I love it, that kinda thing pays my mortgage!!!!

The dies on the Anyang hammers are not made from a plain .4 carbon steel. They are die steeel. I am waiting to get confirmation from the factory on the exact composition and heat treat specifications. I have never had a problem with premature die wear on a hammer. The top die key is fitted with a slide accross catch that prevents any posibility of it ever catching on the stuffing box gland. It is also a safety feature that the die can never work loose. Ill post up the spec of the die steel as soon as I receive it.

Ive welded a fair bit of bandsaw blade and enjoy its superbright pattern, Ive done a bit of reading up online and found that the backing steel used for bi-metal blades can contain upto 4% chrome, which explains its reluctance to weld sometimes! :blink:

Hey Nuge, The striker hammers are pretty similar to the Anyangs, I fit a good quality non return valve on each of the oil lines on the hammers I sell, I guess the striker would benefit from the same treatment (the Non return valves in the cylinder connectors tend to stick open, leading to irratic and over oiling) By drive ropes I mean the 'v' belts that connect the motor pully to the flywheel on the back of the hammer. Carb cleaner will work nicely! Im not sure of exact torque figures for the fastners, Tighten them untill they shear, then back them off half a turn :lol:

Asuming it does not need any new parts (piston rings etc), like james says there is not much to tune! Try and get the valves to the factory setting (the length of the link), Replace any blowing gaskets, torque everything up, clean any 'varnish' from the oil off the control valves and bottom valves 'one way check valve' , check the drive ropes are tensioned correctly, a shot of grease and your good to go :)

It would be worth considering the anyang 88# hammer as a 'self contained' option, or John Larsons 'ironkiss' for a utility hammer (seems to pack a lot more punch than the other utility options) Both vendors (James Johnson is the Anyang distributor) are members of this site, might be worth contacting them both? ;)

Hi Dave, the Massey is a 'wet sump' hammer (not sure how this compares to your Nazel?), We use a 100 viscosity, low zinc 'slideways' type oil, If you are interested PM me your email address and I will send you the spec sheet through.

For the industrial stuff grainflow is marked on the pre-ht stock we machine them from. (but I cant remember off the top of my head which way it sposed to go ) TBH I dont think it will make any noticeable difference in a hammer that is in 'light duty' - ie a few hours a day maximum use. Its not really in the spirit of making your own hammer but it might be worth (ie cheaper!) buying a set of dies from one of the hammer vendors. I think (citation needed) that John Larson buys his dies in from one of the turkish hammer vendors? I know James Johnson carries a large stock of dies for the Anyang hammers, and Jock Dempsey on Anvilfire mentioned the other day that he has bought in the dies for his homebuilt hammer project from Big Blu! Whatever you decide I would err on the side of softer dies than hard, its a lot easier to reface them than to have a fractured lump of die removed from yourself (im not scaremongering, it does happen!)

Glad you like it! the problem is I could write a book on the things! In a nutshell you just have to make em 'tight -n- right' any specific questions fire away and ill try and answer them! as to maintenance, oil oil oil. If their lubed right most machines will last a very long time I make quite a bit of my money from people that neglect the oiling, and large companies that think making the 'grease monkey' or whatever you call the guy that checks these things every week redundant, to 'save' a few thousand $ a year !! :blink:

Thought you guys n gals might be interested in this! We have set up a youtube account, and hope to put up some cool stuff as and when! This first clip is a 10 cwt (550kg) Massey 'Clear Space' hammer that we have just rebuilt. You can see the perfect single blow control I have mentioned before. The hammer is not mounted over an anvil so no proper 'bumping' - we use a lump of steel wedged into the anvil recess, good enough to tell us what we need to know about the control, Love to hear your thoughts

Plus Two ! What a lovely, original, well cared for looking machine

The machines make the machines most likely a die block for a big hammer !

Cool vid james, you really feel the big hammers running dont you They have got some very skilled drivers on the manipulators, we did a job in france once, one of our guys dropped his phone, and the manipulator driver picked it up and passed it back to him without damaging it with a similar sized set of jaws :blink:

Keep an eye on the temperature of the crank bearings. Ive rebuilt a few hammers that were shimmed to compensate for a bent crank. Put the bearings back to standard clearance and they run hot, pick up or whatever.

Small hammers are the way forward ! I sell loads more Anyang 33lb than the rest put together ! John L seems to sell plenty of his 50lb model (based on reding his blog), If you look at it long and hard, for most folks the benefits of small footprint, lower initial cost, lower power consumption, cheaper die blocks, lower transport costs for the machine far outweigh the ability to work big stock once in a blu(e) moon In some circumstances I think you can work faster on a smaller hammer than a bigger one (cue everyone telling me im wrong!) , but I think I can draw a nice taper on 20mm stock faster on a 33lb than a bigger machine.

Spot on Grant, No piston head, no piston rings, just a guide bar on the back of the ram! super simple and work very nicely. I was fixing up an Alldays and Onions yesterday (1 cwt) and its exactly the same. My only dislike on them (and its fairly minor) is that for very light work they 'bounce' on the rebound, so every other blow is slightly heavier (or misses the workpiece) Ive rebuilt 3 this year so far and they are all the same, so im guessing its not a valving issue.

Ive not seen many auld seax blades that have a defined ricasso area, when I sharpened this (after the pics were taken) I left about 1/2" of the blade not sharpened at the handle end, I was more worried about slicing myself than scratching it though ! (ive recently got the hang of making a knife sharp sharp, when you can push cut a cig paper you really need to mind your fingers ) :lol: