mudbugone

I haven't dismissed a tire hammer and like the tire drive system. I just happened to see some designs that don't have the tire spinning in your face that I like also. Nothing is set in concrete for now and a lot will depend on materials available . I'm leaning toward some sort of helve hammer design actually.... fashioned after some of the smaller antique machines with some more modern refinements incorporated into the unit. Not trying to re-invent the wheel,just trying to build my own wheel with what I can find to do it.

I'm still developing some building ideas on some sort of homebuilt power hammer design. In this process I know some sort of eccentric is going to be required to make the hammer go up & down... So I went looking for some method or some machine part to re-purpose for this use. Take a look at these.. http://victorylibrary.com/graphics/T&O-XL.jpg Each half is about 10# with counterweights already included .They are about 8" in diameter. The center hole is 1" and the outer hole is slightly larger with a 2" offset which would translate to a 4" total stroke. They may be used as a single eccentric (20#) if placed together or as 2 eccentrics (10# ea.) maybe. Any thoughts about this or thinking about the weight required for an eccentric ? For anyone unfamiliar with the photo that is a Sportster flywheel assembly.....I happened to get a good deal on them. If they won't work for this application I can always get my money back as Harley parts....LOL

That pretty much sums up things.... No matter how much virtual information is shared be it in words or photos unless it is transferred then into actual usage then it's much like reading an encyclopedia or textbook. You might learn it ,but it's unlikely you'll be able to put it to use without that hands on reality. Anytime someone asks a question and gets answers it generates discussion... The original asker may not utilize the supplied information ,but the community as a whole can then draw from that knowledge and instead of one person learning something dozens & dozens of visitors & members do learn and use the knowledge. It isn't necessary that the original poster utilize the information only that they generate the discussion.That process generates more questions as well as more in depth thinking on whatever is presented. In the end there will be someone that does take that information and use it & be thankful it was provided. I've seen things posted that were totally unrelated to something I was doing ,but caused me to think and apply some portion of the discussion to whatever I was working on... No questions...No discussion... No reason for the forum in the first place.

So that's what happens when you combine a cowboy,a biker,an artist,and a blacksmith... Slick. Love those handlebars

There have been 463 views since 6:00 AM and 14 posts.... Lots of visits..Few comments.

Ric.. I think you are confusing general knowledge with special knowledge as it relates to somethig as specialized as creating a specific blade or something similar... I would never advocate tossing special and proprietary specifics upon the open forum...those secrets were hard won and should remain the possession of those that worked for them. I thought this conversation related to general overall knowledge and the sharing of such basic information... How to make a specific blade or any other product is absolutely a thing that should be shared on an individual basis with those the owner cares to share such things with. If I gave the impression I advocated 'giving away the bank' so to speak...I certainly did not mean to include such specialized knowledge as what you are referring to. Such knowledge isn't quite the same as the length of a spring on a tire hammer or the correct size of a coal forge... The specifics on making a blade would surely be considered a private knowledge should the owner so desire. I doubt anyone would argue that point...or at least they shouldn't.

According to the charts the Stoody 1105 rods are a build-up electrode .... If I'm following your comment correctly you're saying the Stoody 1105 rod is a good choice but don't use the HF top coat Stoody 2110 rods ? It's been suggested to use 7018 by many that have used it to repair anvils...although I think that's because it's acceptable in light of the extreme cost of Stoody rods. I have access to some 10018 (or maybe 11018 ) since you have some expertise in this perhaps you could provide some thinking on those rods. Thanks for weighing in on this discussion your knowledge is appreciated.

StS...Your responses to questions reflect that attitude and speak volumes about your character as well. You are a positive asset to this forum as well as comments on other forums I've noticed your name attached to. Those that seem to be the most knowledgable also seem to be the least bothered by things... like yourself being secure in ones abilities generally breeds civility and a comfort zone some lack.

Is that the gentleman that fixes his anvil and then dunks it in the lake by attaching it to a boom mounted into his receiver hitch ? LOL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i2fYo9zF_g&list=FL5YW2dmKsRRevdup2xsZMMA&index=25&feature=plpp_video I doubt I'd have tried that considering the quality of the anvil he was working with and the fact it seemed perfectly usable not only after he repaired the face and edge ,but even before he touched it at all.. I think if you watch again you'll hear that he did weld that damaged edge before grinding it off flush which is probably why he decided to harden it in video #2. It's difficult to understand him since he sounds like Antonio Banderas when talking and looks like him too,but I'm almost positive he welded on the edge to build up the missing portion of the face. If I thought I could pull that off I'd be in with both feet...LOL. Here's another video with a repair that most people might find necessary... He's not the only weldor that has suggested using 7018 rods...I think it may cosmetically re-face the anvil,but long term I have to question the suitability of this repair. It's probably acceptable on the small spots he's fixing though.... Thanks for thinking about me... much appreciated.

If you are talking about the Cushman frame. Please explain how making the measurements of a machine built by a company that is now defunct available to others is an infringement on anything. That design hasn't been made in 50 years by Cushman. I know of at least 2 companies in the last few years actually building clones of that machine and marketed right here in the USA. Now they may or may not have infringed on Cushman,which is highly doubtful considering the extinct company and the time frame involved. I'm fairly sure my making available to public use a measured drawing of an obsolete machines frame dimensions couldn't be construed as a copyright infringement. Under current US law, the term of patent is 20 years from the earliest claimed filing date (which can be extended via Patent Term Adjustment and Patent Term Extension). For applications filed before June 8, 1995, the term is 17 years from the issue date or 20 years from the earliest claimed domestic priority date, the longer term applying. Your situation is different I'm sure since it involves your ability to build & make money from your idea... I neither profited from or took from anyone alive with any legal connection to that style scooter.I simply made available information that anyone could find by taking a scooter and putting a tape measure to it... A 65 year old scooter isn't rocket science and there are other similar build plans readily available online. I was attempting to build a scooter to the correct scale so that aftermarket parts could be utilized to fabricate an entire replica scooter. With that thinking most every hammer,tong,forge,or even fabricated machines are an infringement on some patent right from the past .....although I doubt anyone building a tire hammer gives that any consideration.... I find no difference in a hundred year old toggle assembly on a Little Giant and the assembly on most every tire hammer built . Is that infringement? Doubtful. Is stealing your copyrighted design infringement ? Absolutely. I can understand how some may feel protective of methods of doing certain things related to this and their ability to do something a little different or better from knowledge they may have learned... Which is a totally understandable position and only a fool would think otherwise,but to keep common knowledge information like a hoarder I surely don't understand. We all have learned what we know from the efforts of someone else there is very little "new" being thought up..and to imagine things associated with one of the oldest crafts on the planet are either private or can't be found threw other avenues is a bit nearsighted. Something like Andrews situation is indeed robbing from him,but once anything is posted anywhere online it is officially in the public domain and subject to use and knowledge by the entire planet now.The only way around that isn't very attractive. It involves hiding in a cave and having No interaction with others...of course then you face the matter of being cut off from learning from others that know something you didn't and never will. I'm an old guy and time is limited and if I ever expect to enjoy those things in life that have always facinated me wasting precious moments of that time fighting for inconsequential bits of knowledge when the knowledge is freely available seems counter productive. I allocated 6 months for learning to weld to build things I needed I spent 2 years..That was necessary for other goals.. Blacksmithing is something I want to learn...not in the next month..It'll take several months to just gather the tools and knowledge to even get into the shallow end of the pool. Nothing comes easy,but there honestly is no reason that I can imagine to try to make the journey a nightmare for anyone.What I know about welding ain't much...Weldors are pretty tight fisted on their knowledge too....but I have the tools and enough knowledge to do what I need and that was the goal. I may have asked a hundred stupid questions in the last few years,but I'd like to think I turned around and answered a 1000 questions. When someone asked a question I didn't know...I looked for the answer. We both learned and I'm sure there were dozens of others with the same question (that were afraid to ask it) that learned from our conversations. Everyone on the planet knows "knowledge" is power in whatever little form it manifests itself.Holding that power over others isn't in my makeup. I'm the sort that has no trouble sharing what little I may know with someone that asks. I can't take it with me and it serves no purpose at all not being used. I'm not saying everyone should share their personal little tricks online about doing anything special,but how to make something or build something or how to start a coal fire??? I'm not sure what got this thread started,but it seems to be drawing a lot of attention considering the number of hits it's taking in a few days online. A lot more hits than comments that's for sure. Wonder why that is?

Of all the comments on this thread this is probably the most notable and the most insightful. Thank You John--- I saved that jewel just so I never forget it ! I would like to think most of us live by that thought. I'm new to this sandbox and I may have "stepped" on toes with some of my questions while attempting to learn and apply that knowledge to setting up something to work with. I'm fairly sure nothing I asked could remotely be considered as proprietary knowledge considering this forum and most of the internet is open to inspection. It's just a matter of access or where to find the answers..Any questions that weren't answered I subsequently found by simply searching the internet. It was time consuming,but worked to great advantage with exposure to more ideas and other sites to explore. I've seen these same discussions on chopper sites...welding sites...woodworking sites...in general on any site. If information isn't desired to be shared that's perfectly fine...It's almost always freely shared elsewhere. I researched building a Cushman scooter last year and tried to find the frame measurements on numerous sites. You would have thought I was looking for design info on a nuclear submarine. Long story short... I bought a Cushman scooter took it apart measured the frame and drew up those measurements and posted them online. There are now archival answers to the question about those measurements.It cost me a lot of cash to do it,but is that information mine ? Not to my way of thinking..it was just my way of answering not only my question,but anyone elses that might be interested. I hope everyone posting comments understands this is not a closed site and while non-members may not be able to comment here to some responses the entire world has access to read how everyone feels about these things. I'm an old fart and while some things may get under my skin for the most part I take things with a grain of salt.... There are a lot of potential members that may not care for the tone exhibited in this thread. I know there are some that feel that is perfectly fine. I'm old enough to know I don't know everything ,but I have my points of knowledge and have no issue sharing anything I might have learned at any time without reservation... I've always wondered at the responses like "search for it" mostly I wonder "Why" bother posting at all if you don't care to converse or educate... Just leave it alone and go about your business and leave the responses to those that feel differently. I do agree with those that commend the administrators with their endless efforts to provide this forum for discussion & knowledge. Most of us have little knowledge about the amount of time & energy this can take.... Thank You Gentlemen-- Most of us appreciate your efforts even though we may not express it.

Thank You John..She was in intensive care in a coma for a week & a half and intensive care for 3 weeks and back 2 weeks later for surgery and 3 more days in ICU,but she's home now just very weak and requiring constant attention..Your prayers are appreciated.. I think the most critical issue would be operating on a level surface to start with. A cart/table with leg adjusters for instance to remove any surface twist. The grinder (either style) will be self adjusting once it's in place since the contact area is so small. As long as the platform is level and little 'flex' in the carriage it should work fine. As far as shims go... I'm thinking pieces of sheet metal in various thicknesses for various heights since we aren't talking taking off a 1/2" total thickness just thin passes.

My original thinking on this was to use one of several "jackshaft" grinder arrangements that I've collected over the years. Just mounted to a carriage in some way upside down so it could be passed over the stationary anvil. Since I have the big cup grinders though and a big side grinder I may assemble some sort of carriage that holds the side grinder level & stationary on a cart type assembly with casters maybe. If the carriage is tall enough then you can shim the anvil "up" and then pass the carriage "over" the anvil. As long as you're operating on a level surface either design should be able to gradually take down the surface. The weight of the jackshaft w/motor or the side grinder should be enough weight to hold things down... The secret would be to take very thin passes over the anvil...If you attempt to take thick cuts I could see things grabbing and tossing the carriage assembly over and really making a mess... Taking continuous thin cuts and then re-shimming for another cut might be tedious work,but safer and the finished result should be acceptable. I could see this being far easier than using a heavy side grinder and attempting to have a flat surface... It'll take far less time to fabricate a carriage to do this than to attempt it freehand. I'm not sure why this popped into my thinking,but since I don't have access to a mill or an actual surface grinder I'm hoping this might work for at least this project. As far as the end mill .... don't think that would work well. A mill has a lot of mass to fight the friction involved.... so much mass that things don't move when contact is made. What I'm talking about is pretty light weight and using an end mill even with a tiny cut would immediately grab and cause lateral movement. I'm not even positive my idea would work well,but at least by taking a thin cut it could "ride up" instead of biteing and shooting off in an uncontrolled manner (think drill press). I know that hardfacing rod would destroy an end mill even on a proper mill...I think it requires special tooling. A grindstone pretty much eats anything...LOL I will take photos when I get around to this. I'd have already built this,but I've only spent a total of 2 hours at my shop since Christmas. I'm not generally so "slow" getting something done,but my 80 YO Mother has been having some serious health issues and watching her 24/7 has become a more important priority for now. Playing at the shop will have to wait. This is one reason I'm spending so much time online researching and thinking out loud... therapy...

This might be a suitable source for a 36" piece of rough sawn 2x4 hard maple http://smith-lumber....products_id=139 should be clear grained. Considering the quality of most lumber now days I still think the parallam manufactured strand beam would furnish a better alternative (especially in larger sized helve beams)... the strength and stability of the product far exceeds most as harvested lumber. A hundred years ago things were quite different. I'd almost prefer a beam that I'd built myself by laminating it up from thinner pieces to make a suitable helve. The link above though is probably suitable material for this size helve considering it's hand selected for a specific use. That's IF a 36" piece will work on this machine which seems to be shorter than that.

After searching the internet pretty hard... In addition to finding the video of the DePew helve I finally found the instructions for building the above homemade helve copy... http://www.iforgeiron.com/page/index.html/_/blueprints/100-series/bp0159-helve-hammer-r390 Not sure why this can't be accessed thru the forum,but I was able to circumvent the problems and found it.... Perhaps someone can use it or hopefully it can be restored so it's where others could find it without such BS... I had no idea it was so small... the helve beam is a 2x4... somehow that just does not seem heavy enough. I'm more than a little familiar with wood and a modern 2x4 is a POS wood...Maybe something hand hewn in those dimensions would be a more substantial helve over a store bought 2x4...or one of the manufactured stranded pieces of lumber. I just keep getting the image of a splintered helve using such light duty lumber. A "parallam beam/post" cut to size would hold up better be safer and stay straight.

I found an ad picture with some info on it for your hammer ...It clearly shows how the "adjustment" is configured for the Hathorn Helve.

I think that hammer has had a replacement helve arm added to it Jake. I thought you might like these patent drawings and descriptions..might come in handy when you get around to restoring it. http://www.google.com/patents?id=E_9iAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA1&dq=Hathorn+power+hammer&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=onepage&q=Hathorn%20power%20hammer&f=false Super little hammer BTW. If you get a chance to photograph the spring mounting on the helve arm I'd be interested in seeing some details.I can't tell how the spring ends are attached to the top bracket. Good Luck fixing things up !

I really like the guy now ! After visiting his various sites it seems he built a Reverse Trike almost exactly like the one I'm collecting parts & pieces for to build... Anyone that can appreciate anything that off the wall gets my vote...LOL Those hammers are huge,,,,, 6" plate steel body ...don't suppose there is much flex.

Stormcrow... Try this link http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/?action=view&current=depewaction.mp4 If that doesn't work just shout. I found it saved on another forum and then opened it up so I could post the video directly instead of doing something unacceptable by listing another forum here.

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Glad it wasn't worse... but I hate injured fingers/hands makes work after that a pain...until it heals. I love my wire wheel for cleaning things up,but only smooth things without hooks... clamping odd shaped pieces to a workbench and hitting it with a side grinder equiped with a wire wheel is usually safer (though not always practiced)

Odd you should post this..only yesterday I was reading on another forum about this hammer and how & why the company had progressed thru some rough times as the owner responded to an attack on his company and his product...He did so in a very straightforward manner and laid out several issues I doubt I would have shared with the world... I tried to find his listed website without success and then noticed the thread was from 2008 I think... I assumed the company had ceased to operate... It's good to know that isn't the case... Thanks for the link.. I thought his response in that post was polite and precise... I wish him well.

Since I posted the original questions... I managed to search the www and found the video of the Depew hammer in operation...just not at any of the links in any of the various threads I viewed. It's pretty obvious that some time ago the forum lost a lot of information that was never saved or restored. From several threads with comments about the homebuilt version of the Depew and the plans in the blueprint area it's obvious those blueprints as well as others were also lost... I was thinking someone might read this thread that had saved the plans... I do this a lot and have plans dating back more than a couple of years ago. If no one saved them that's fine... I'm pretty sure I'm bright enough to wing it with the pics and the patent drawings of the original Depew hammer I found and then saved.

I looked at the Depew original the homemade one replicates and even if the main body is cast the anvil resembles a T-beam connected to the rear portion of the frame.....Your point is well taken and a solid anvil should improve it's working ability.. I finally found the video of the original Depew ,but it seems the plans of the homebuilt copy have been lost in cyber-space...Too bad nice hammer design.. and nice execution of the plans by coolhand...

Well I tried to access the video from several avenues and ran up blind alley's looking for the supposed plans for the copy listed on IFI threads and www links.... but they no longer seem to exist anywhere... I'm guessing something happened to the site that erased information at some point in time... Anyone have details on that homebuilt Depew Copy ? It looks to be about 40" tall as near as I can tell. Thanks...