Alaric

These are true quick connect mounts and when the friend who asked me to do this first brought it up I shared your concern that the whole thing could fold in the middle but he assured me the he knows of quite a few if this exact unit with this conversion done and they hold up fine. They are now tacked in place well enough that I don't have to worry about anything moving around during the rest of the welding. I'll post an update when I'm done. Thanks again, Richard

Here is one of the plates test fit to the plow blade, hopefully this will give a clearer idea what I'm trying to do.

I checked the 7018 rods I have and they still look fine so I'll bake a hand full and run some test beads to see how they behave. It will be good if I can use them up instead of buying new rod. Thanks for all the help, Richard

Here are the plates I'm welding to the plow.

Thanks for all the information, it sounds like 7018 is the consensus, I have used it with this machine but it has been a while. It was never my favorite rod as it can be a pain to get the arc started with this machine but seems to weld fine once you do. I still have about 20 lbs. of the stiff sitting in a homemade drying box but it is over 20 years old and I’m told the shelf life for it is very long. Clean won’t be a problem, the plates I’m welding on will be freshly machined at the joint and the plow still has its original paint at the welding area so it will clean you easily with a grinder. No one has mentioned it but with the size of these plates and the limited capacity of my welder would preheating the plates be in order? So what does someone do with expired 7018 rod? Thanks, Richard Chase

and that should have been .5" not .05". I was on my first cup of coffee.

Sorry if I was unclear, let me try again. The welder is 220V 31A from the power grid and 180A(max) 25V AC at the welding rod. The 1.5” plate are the quick disconnect mounts for the Cat loader it will be used on and the .25” thick material on the plow that the plates will be welded to is 12” x 2” x .25” C channel running the width of the plow. The plow itself forms a large C as well so there is additional strength there as well and there will be some addition bracing, but making a good weld at the 1.5” x 12” mounting point is my primary concerns do to the mass of the plates. Does that clear it up at all? Thanks, Richard Chase

I'm looking for some advice/recommendations on welding some large stock The project involves welding a pair of 1.5" thick plates to the back of a 12' plow blade. these plates weigh around 200lb each and will be welded on edge with a contact area 1.5" wide and 12" long. the mounting spot on the blade is .25" thick and everything is mild structural steel. I have a vintage Craftsman 180amp(25volt) AC welder to accomplish this with. My welding training consists of a trade school course 30 years ago but I do weld steel up to .05" thick fairly regularly and the welds have always held up well even in high stress applications. I have my own thoughts on how to accomplish this but would like some input from someone with more experience then me. I'm looking for both rod and procedure recommendations. Thank you, Richard Chase

I finally found some time to get setup to machine out the lower dovetail area, It’s slow going as the cuts need to be very light since the only thing holding the hammer casting in place is gravity. Here are a couple of pictures of the cuts in progress.

I plan on making sure everything is true, My machine tool equipment and skills put me in a pretty good position to do that. I've got a plane in my head for a jig that will allow me to accurately alien the shaft and hold it in place while I pore the Babbitt around it for the lower bearings. No big rush on the drawings as I only have time at the moment to pick at this project. Thanks, Richard

I was being a bit facetious when I mentioned making the caps from oak, my point being these aren't caps for a big V8. I hadn't thought of using the Bronze as the bearing just as a medium to cast them from and I had considered just machining them from bar stock and still may. I'll probably go with having them cast if I can workout the details for 2 reasons learning to make the pattern and making connections in the Foundry world gives me another resource to call on for future projects and I have a tendency to try and put all the things I restore back to as close to original condition as I can. I'm not really set up to be able to line bore the bearings, just machining out the anvil area is going to require some creativity. Thank for all this information, it's a huge help. Now I just need to find time to actualy work on it. Richard

I talked to the owner of the Foundry and he would prefer they made the pattern but was willing to use one I made if it passed their inspection. The cost for them to make it was in the $750 to $1000 range while casting the caps was approximately $75.00 each. I didn't think of bronze, I would think it would be strong enough, with all the work being the lifting of the Tup and the low RPM I would think Oak would be strong enough, the majority of the load should be carried by the lower bearings. Would you still use Babbitt or use the bronze as a bearing surface? I like the Bronze Idea, I get to pick up a new skill, can anyone think of a problem with bronze bearing caps?

I'm ok with massive, I can use heavier plate if needed. Pictures of one that is off would be great. Does anyone know anything about cast iron and having parts cast? Class 30 Iron (30,000psi) should be sufficient for the bearing caps shouldn't it? Also any pointers on pattern making would be appreciated, I understand the basics but have never made a pattern before. I looked under "Foundry and Casting" but didn't find much.

The pictures that would be of the most help are some pictures if the bearing caps from the top and if someone has the original motor mount that mounted on the back at the bottom I'd love some pictures of that so I can mimic it in 1/2" plate. Pictures of the clutch/brake linkage from a machine with the motor mounted in that position would also be of interest. Thanks again for all the help. Richard Chase

Thanks for this information, It is going to be very helpful. Based on your measurements just over 2” of the Tup has been cut off but only 1” of the Dovetails has so I may not bother to extent the dovetail when I add the 2” back to the bottom of the tup. I have settled on a variation of your idea for the Die retainer for the lower die. A couple of more questions : What is the diameter of the pin that holds the links to the Tup? Is the 65lb the weight of the Tup with or without a die? If the dovetails for the dies are not tapered are they held in with duel tapered shims? Thanks again for all the help, Richard

It's looking up for the motor, I was trying to figure out how the pulley comes off and I put a pry-bar between the back of the pulley and the motor housing and when I put a little pressure on the back of the pulley it moved away from the motor about 1/4 of an inch and the motor spins like new now. If I push back while spinning I can feel it start to drag so it wasn't rusted just jammed. I'll still take it to a shop and have it gone. I still need to figure out how the pulley comes off, any thought? It's wooden, it looks like it might be layers of plywood, there doesn't appear to be ant set screws. Richard

My plan to fix the bottom of the tup and the anvil area is to fit a machines insert with the dovetail mount for the die already machined into them. They will bolt in place with many bolts, the question of welding was whether or not to weld the seam. Everything will be fit with good overall contact. I have some training and experience in machine tool rebuilding and recently finished re-scraping a surface grinder, I have a biax and hand scraping equipment as well as an engine lathe, 2 mills and the previously mentioned surface grinder so I should be in good shape to tackle the job of rebuilding the tup ways. I have just ordered a copy of The Little Giant power hammer, thanks for the reference. Sketches and/or pictured of the bearing caps would be helpful, I’m planning to make them from Dura-bar gray iron. Thanks Jim for all this info. njanvilman I’d love to come done and check out the hammer you have, I’ll have to see if I can work out the timing to do so. Richard

The motor I have is 2HP so if I can save it should be a good match to the hammer, if I did the math correctly the hammer RPM should be about 292rpm does that sound appropriate? If the tup is cast steel then 1018 should be ok to build up the missing section from I would think. If you could provide measurements of the overall height of the tup without the die and the footprint of the tup including dovetail placement and dimensions that would be very helpful as would dimensions and placement of the lower dovetail. I’m planning to square up the mess that is the anvil surface and mate a new piece of material to it with good contact throughout and the dovetail already machined into it and then bolt and possible weld it in place. Any thoughts on whether I should use mild steel or cast iron for this? Can anyone point me to information on rebabbitting bearings? I know the basics but some comprehensive information to help with prep and selection of the proper alloy would useful. Thanks, Richard

I am hopping to same to motor, in addition to being better suited the this kind of work it just look correct on a machine like this. The speed listed on the motor is 1750RPMs so it's pretty standard in that respect. I'm hopping the stator is just rusted to the rotor.

The power Hammer made it home yesterday. It is going to be a major restoration project but it replaces my plans to build a tire hammer, will be about the same amount of work and is cooler because it is old. I haven’t had much time to really go through all the parts but here are my Initial observations. 1) The bearing caps are missing, some previous owner fitted bearing blocks when the babbitt wore out. 2) The dovetails for the lower hammer are gone and the gap has been opened up further. 3) One of the peddle hoops is missing. 4) The tup has been cut down and a piece of RR track has been welded to it. the ways for the tup are very worn 5) One of the through pins for the spring is missing and the ties that go from them to the tup look homemade and are worn out. 6) The spring and linkage to the flywheel look to be in very good shape. 7) The upper pulley has a 4” chunk broken out (I have the piece) and a second piece broken out of the side about ¾” deep and 3” long ( I don’t have the piece). 8) The century motor that came with it look to be original and looks to be in good shape from the outside but is stuck. I don’t see any major issue in fixing all of this and making anything I am missing but I would love to find someone close to me who has one of these that I could look at and take measurements off for parts I need to make. Does anyone know what the main casting and tub would be made from? They are obviously cast but cast Iron? Or something less brittle? Here are the pictures I was sent before I bought it.

I didn't know him well but I did know him. I made it up to his place once and got to see all his trucks.

Can anyone tell me the rough dimensions of the main casting of a Champion #1 power hammer? I'm going to pick up a basket case hammer this weekend and it would be helpful to know this information before I leave the shop. The dimensions I'm primarily interested in are the height and the length of the side of the base plate, also the weight if the bare casting would be useful if someone has a guess. Thanks, Richard

I agree that ILL is a wonderful thing but whenever possible I like to own the books.

I love used bookstores.

As an example I’m also into traditional archery and lot that long ago I ordered a book called “traditional archery from six continents” by Charles E. Grayson for the $59.00 cover price and it got lost in shipping, the seller was unable to get another copy from his distributor as it had recently gone of print. It took me almost a year to track done another copy for what I considered a reasonable price, around $100.00, this was just over a year ago. I just checked Amazon and they have 3 listed starting at $2,877.00. The book was published in 2007 so it’s not even very old.