KjZitur

And remember that if you have to lay the acetylene tank down to stand it upright for an equal length of time before using it!

I didn't say that it stunk, the shop just smelled like diesel fuel, not that that's a bad thing just not as pleasant as the smell of a coal fire.

DD, you mentioned oil burners in your steam hammer thread. We ran oil forges and a large furnace on oil in the blacksmith shop at the Burlington Northern Car Shops. They switched from coal sometime after WWII. Made myself an oil burner forge back in the early '80's when coal around here was hard to come by. Was just a modified fuel oil furnace burner. Took out the diffuser and drilled out the tip so that it shot a fine stream of oil. I could not get enough heat if the oil was a mist. Oil makes a soft heat a lot like coal and it was great for forge welding. With the price of fuel oil these days I am not sure how cheap it is to run. I did use drain oil for a while but the collecting of it got to be a PITA. The other draw back is the smoke and smell. You need a well drafting stack on your forge and your shop will smell more like a diesel garage than a blacksmith shop!

Here are a couple of links of the 2012 ABANA conference on the local Rapid City TV station......... http://www.blackhillsfox.com/2012/07/19/Blacksmiths-gather-for-ABANA-conference http://www.newscenter1.tv/stories/12108.aspx

Great video Danger!! Maybe this winter when the snowballs are hitting me in the hind end you'll let me come down and play.

I would like to offer my opinion on this subject of anvil/tup ratio based on over 38 years as a blacksmith. Generally, bigger is better and one should build his/her anvil to fit the intended work of the hammer and what one can afford to spend on an anvil. I would agree with John that 10:1 may not be “near top of the hill” but a 10 to 1 or 15 to 1 is certainly acceptable as an anvil/tup ratio. I think that how/where the anvil mass is positioned is just as important. I fail to see how adding weight laterally to the hammer design makes the anvil more effective, the anvil mass needs to be directly under the dies. On my hammers the anvil is placed on one end of a base plate that weighs about 340lbs. I feel I am using only about 1/3 of that mass (100 plus pounds) for my anvil, the rest of the weight just helps to stabilize the hammer. It is like comparing hand forging in the center of your anvil or on the heel of the anvil. In regards to hammer foundations and the effectiveness of concrete as an anvil mass I will say that every hammer that I have bolted to a solid foundation just seemed to work better. I think a hammer sitting on 3 to 4 inches of concrete which has probably been poured over tamped sand, even with a high anvil/tup ratio, is going to flex that concrete and tamp the sand even more. I feel that the aforementioned 10 pound sledge hammer on a 100 pound anvil would work better with the anvil bolted solidly to a yard of concrete.

Interesting clutch/brake set-up on this Fairbanks hammer. Usually the drive belt is around the center pulley. Makes one wonder about the controllability of the clutch and brake. Another hammer I will be looking forward to seeing up and running!!

Looking good Danger!! How long before your up and running??

My linkage set-up is more of a balancing act between the treadle and the tup than the treadle setting a target and the tup going to that point. As you step on the treadle the motion valve spool begins to move forcing the tup downward. As soon as the tup moves downward the connecting rod (the rod that connects the tup to the linkage) moves the linkage which is connected to the motion valve spool and moves it in the the opposite direction which moves the tup upward. It's this move and counter move thing that lets you bring the tup down slow or fast or hard or soft. John is correct in that I have fixed settings for my incoming air. A low and a high setting. I do adjust the air pressure also. Danger, as far running your hammer with a treadle I would have to believe that you could set your hammer up pretty much the same way as mine although as it has been pointed out before most small steam hammers used the treadle to control the throttle. I can run mine that way but as Grant stated it's not a very good system most of the time.

Hey Danger, I to am looking forward to seeing the vid's of your hammer in action. Wish I could see them up close!! should be exciting.............

The hammer is set in the general forging mode with the air pressure at about 100psi and the throttle valve set at it's lower setting. Right now I have a 1-1/2" air cushion and it seems to work fine but it would not be to difficult to put an external bumper on this style of hammer.

I finally got some time to shoot some video of my KZ150...........

Hey Danger, I would think that there would be a way to control a steam hammer with a treadle, but for me having a treadle instead of a hammer driver would depend on the work to be done under the hammer. I think a treadle would work fine for smaller forgings or maybe some open die work but for larger stock I would much rather have a competent hammer operator so that I can keep both feet on the ground and underneath me.

Thanks Danger. The sword or wiper style has a few less parts. Both styles accomplish the same task. The system I am using is just more adaptable to my design of hammer frame. I also modified the linkage somewhat so that I could control the hammer with the treadle and eliminate the need for a hammer driver. P.S. Is anyone else having problems uploading pictures?? I keep getting an upload skipped(error403)

Here is the link http://www.kensiron.com/controlkit.html for the control setup.

No, the motion of the tup is controlled more by the linkage than the directional valve. As far as the throttle valve, I have two settings that I use, a low and a high. The low setting allows just enough air to lift the tup and the high setting is wide open. The regulator just gives you some control over the throttle valve. Yes, you could use the regulator in place of the throttle valve but I find a combination of the two a better set up. Most of the time I run the hammer with the throttle valve in the low setting and the regulator pressure is set as low as possible that will still actuate hammer.

Several years ago I built a pneumatic treadle hammer. Simple off the shelf cylinder and valve. Step on the treadle, the tup goes down; release the treadle, the tup goes up. It worked, but there was too much back pressure in the lines and the valve and the hammer was sluggish. So I installed quick exhausts to both ends of the cylinder. Doing that brought that hammer to life. Kind of works the same way with this system.

Let me start by saying “thank you” for the compliment, John. In regards to your first question about exhaust air plumbing. Most of the air is dumped at the cylinder and the rest goes out through the muffler. I am not controlling the exhaust air as this system does work that way. As for your fourth item in your last post I am a little confused as to what you are referring to. I have been trying to attach a picture but I can't seem to get it uploaded so I will try to explain this way. The throttle is the valve small butterfly valve on the top left of the hammer, the directional valve is the valve behind the mounting plate (it has the muffler attached to it) and the control linkage is a combination of all the levers. Your reference to the position of the manually adjustable pivot pin in the slot affecting the amount of spool movement is not quite correct. The adjusting screw(the knob with the handle) does not change the length of travel of the directional valve, it changes the ratio (how fast it travels) compared to the rest of the linkage. Thus by moving the adjusting screw farther from the pivot point the hammer hits harder and faster. If you move the adjusting screw all the way toward the pivot point the hammer will not reciprocate as easily, it will act more like a treadle hammer. My “sweet spot” is about in the middle. I don't recall saying I throttled the hammer by moving the adjusting screw as that is done with the throttle valve. I hope I have answered your questions.......ken

Dan.C., give me a call sometime if you have any questions or if you ever get up here in the north country, stop in at our shop and take a look up close and try out a KZ100 or KZ150 hammer! I will be getting some video out in the next week or two as time permits. Also, while I would have to agree that it takes a certain amount of air to move a cylinder up and down, I also believe that not all control systems are created equal. Some controls are just more efficient than others.

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. Macbruce, I believe my directional valve would handle the air needed for a 300lb hammer. And to pike3e, yes, my hammers are for sale (isn't everything for sale??)

I am really not sure just how large a hammer one could make. I have this system working on a 30lb hammer, a 100lb hammer and now a 150lb hammer. Both the 100 and 150 are running on a 5hp compressor with 17cfm. This is a very efficient system. I think my controls could easily handle a 250lb to 300lb hammer but you would need a slightly larger bore cylinder and you might need a little bigger compressor.

Yea, I have got to keep busy or I just might get into mischief!! ........The ram is 2" x 3" cold rolled (1018)..

I am using the same directional valve with the same linkage and same size air lines as on the KZ100. I just added 2" to the stroke of the cylinder to make it a 14" stroke hammer.

Here is a few pix of my KZ150 build. It is a 150 lb. hammer with a 14" stroke cylinder with 4" x 6" flat dies....

I have to say that I am proud to call myself a "blacksmith". I believe that blacksmiths helped shape this great country. They were then and they still are today innovators, inventors and do'ers. I think of the blacksmith as a self-reliant get’r done kind of person. The general public just needs to be educated about the history of the blacksmith and there importance to the early settlements and towns and industry………………just my 2 cents…………..ken