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I Forge Iron

peacock

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Everything posted by peacock

  1. I have one and they are good hammers. Be aware that NO Little Giant parts interchange with these hammers. You can buy new springs and dies from little giant, and if you custom make a few parts you can use all the dupout linkage from a LG but you must replace both arms and the springs and pins.
  2. Take off all the old pulley center it up in a lathe turn a shoulder to bolt a 2 groove v-belt pulley. I have fixed 2 this way it's a good fix
  3. Treadle stop won't come close as the temp. of the stock will change as you forge so the same treadle position will yield different thickness. I saw cymbals been made once. They casted, forged, then spin. Setting up a spinning lathe is not much trouble.
  4. Are you sure you are running the belts the right direction? Link belts have arrows on the back to show which way to run them. They don't grip well the wrong way.
  5. One of the biggest problems with the Little Giant Easy was the steel helve. They all broke. If there was something better than hard maple for a helve Bradley would have used it. We all learn from others mistakes and success.
  6. For these hammer to be effective they need to run fast 400 plus bpm it will need a lot more than a sledge hammer handle. my DePue helve is 4 inches wide. be safe guys
  7. I have one of those depue hammers 16# head at 525 bpm dose move some metal. Made to sharpen plow shares and they are good at it. If you want to draw steel pound for pound they are hard to beat.
  8. I poured my 40x42 ft. shop floor a full 6 inches thick with full length #6 rebar every 9 inches both ways 7 bag mix. That was 13 years ago. I have had several hammers set on 1/2 inch conveyor belt bolted down with epoxy anchors. No cracks at all. 125# Bradley , 55kg air hammer, 50# LG all in a 12 foot square area. The clay dirt under the slab was compacted to the point a 10,000 lb. sheep's foot made less than an inch. impression. This all may sound like over kill but I was pouring bridge decks at the time and had the equipment and crew. Sure is nice when I change hammers not to have to think about where is the base.
  9. Plumb your exhaust onto a 30 gal. drum with some lathe turning in it . put the pipe in the bottom the turnings on top of the end of pipe make a loose fitting cover. will be better if it is out side the shop. may have to clean it a time or two a year.
  10. That is the very short version. In real time this all played out over 6 or 7 years and several dozen hammers with 2 or 3 trips per year by Tom to Turkey.
  11. You will need to measure the hammer you are going to use. I know Tom had some trouble with the factory not getting the pattern the same on some of the early hammers.
  12. A point that I thought everyone knew but found out they did not. When you are trying to warm a hammer with external heat (heat lamp/blanket etc) only the ram cylinder needs heat any heat applied to the pump cylinder does very little good unless your motor is having trouble starting up. An electric blanket like you put on a bed draped over the ram does a pretty good job. A halogen shop light close to the ram is my latest favorite.
  13. That is a book binding stapler don't destroy it by trying to make something out of it that will break it. Get it working and sell it to make or buy what you want. Any thing it will forge you can do easier and faster with a hand hammer
  14. For me if you like to do flat die type stuff the guide system is a little loose. I will say when I said something about it to Josh he said they were designed mostly for drawing type work. With that in mind they do what they are designed to do well. If you like to work with more than 1 piece of stock in the fire be sure to get a big compressor and air tank.
  15. Replace all of the rubber and cork with concrete, put about half an inch of rubber between the hammer and concrete bolt it down. It should be much better.
  16. I am sorry if I have rained on someone's parade but the OP did ask what do you think. Based on 20+ years of rebuilding hammers and 40 or so hammers some of which were Bradley's, that is what I thought. Most people get a big dose of sticker shock when they find out the price of Bradley parts. It is possible to have 1 part cost over $1000. Many parts you will have to build yourself. Many of the pieces that are there have been destroyed by someone who did not know what they were doing. Bradley hammers NEVER used any pins and bushing on any of there hammers, and each place this has been done is going to be very expensive and time consuming to repair. Many of the parts needed there is not even a part to use as a pattern, or the mating part has been change making it very hard for an inexperienced person to know what is needed. Please accept my apology if I was negative, I was trying to answer his question as honestly as I could, based on my past experience. I have a few black holes for money sitting around my place that I wish someone had warned be about before I threw a bunch of money away. If you want to rebuild this hammer for the learning experience then I will offer my help. If you need a hammer to use in the near future you can spend your money in a better way than building this hammer.
  17. I would tell you to not put one dollar in that hammer. You don't even have a good start. I don't see a ram or an anvil/sow block. If you can find the parts at all you will spend thousands of dollars. They do not use bushing of any kind, they have special bolts with a ball end that fits into a matching socket. Really too bad that someone used this as a parts machine for another hammer.
  18. 2 times the diameter = 4 times the volume. that means you need lots more air and much bigger lines and valves. that equals big money. Don't over look the mechanical hammers. A really good 100 to 150# mechanical hammer will do a lot of work. Most time you don't need more stroke you need more die opening.
  19. Build yourself a big rotary phase converter. I built mine 20+ years a go. Less than $100 then but it has saved me thousand on equipment and motors. Mine is made from a 15 hp motor can run 71/2 hp. if I turn on my lathes 3 hp I can run a 10 hp.
  20. with a lot of work it might forge 1/4 inch square but you could forge it faster with a hand hammer. Not practical.
  21. dies that are to tall really limit your power and control without adding any real advantage.
  22. If you are letting it idle the short stroke will not warm the hammer much. To warm up an air hammer it does the most work when it is stroking as long as possible without hitting the dies. My Sa mak takes about 5 min. at 20 degrees to warm to the point I can do useable forging. 10 more min. of light forging and it's full power. I am working on a dual oil tank set up with ATF in one tank and 30wt. it the other. Seem to work if I turn off the 30 wt. and on the ATF about 10 min before I quit forging at the end of the day. Start up the next morning is on the ATF for 1 or 2 min switch back to 30 wt. So far so good. A light bulb very close to the oil tank also helps.
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