patrick

When I was first considering a power hammer, I was focused primarily on damascus work. I seriously considered a treadle hammer at that time, but was advised that a power hammer would be better for my intended application. Shortly after I aquired my first power hammer, my interests drifted away from knife work. A few years latter I aquired the big hammer I now use and, after taking a class with Steve Parker a few years ago, I have really begun to make the power hammer the primary tool in my shop. I can definitly see the advantage to many people in having a treadle hammer, especially if you don't have the options of a power hammer requiring a large foundation and secluded environment, but now that I have a large hammer I would be reluctant to limit myself to something smaller. Patrick

Actually, I would claim that a good, well tuned, LARGE, MECHANICAL power hammer can do everything a treadle hammer can do. Most hammers aren't set up for this, but some of them can be made to perform this way. Take a look at www.sandersonirion.com. Joel does not have a treadle hammer, but uses his 250 Murray like one. His hammer will hit a single, hard blow and he center punches, slits, drifts, forms and sets rivets with it in addition to the more common power hammer applications. I have made tooling to do 90-degree bends with my hammer, punch holes in blocks 2-3" thick, upset 1.75" stock to make anvil tools etc. A hammer with large dies can be fitted with custom dies for repetitive bending and production forging operations. Hand tools can be created to allow for the formation of bowels, tapers and all manner of special shapes. Now I am not saying a power hammer is the BEST tool for all these operations, but I will say that if you have to pick between a power hammer, treadle hammer and fly press the power hammer can be by far the most versitile of the 3. This probably doesn't apply to the smaller hammers. Some of what I described just can't be done on a 50 lb hammer due to stroke length and power limitations. Cliftons tapes are one of the best resources available for folks using power hammers. In addion to the ones he sells, there are another 6 or seven of him at various demos throughout the last three decades available through the Upper Midwest Blacksmiths Association DVD library. There is a lot of overlap between these and what Clifton shows in his tapes but there is also a lot of stuff that isn't covered in the tapes he sells that shows up in the public demos he did. Another great resource for power hammer owners is "A Blacksmith's Manual Illustraded" by J. W. Lillico. This book goes throug the proces of making some very complicated forgings are really shows the versatilty of a power hammer. Patrick

A good power hammer should be capable of a lot more than just drawing as spreading. Upsetting (within the limits of the space between the dies) puching, cutting, slitting, drifting, incising, and forgings special shapes with spring tools are all possible. With a power hammer, you may have to make different tooling than you would if you were using a treadle hammer or flypress. I would ventere to say that, depending on the specific hammer, you should be able to do most jobs under a power hammer that can be done on a fly press or treadle hammer. The power hammer may not be the BEST tool for everything, but if it is all you have, you can make it do an awful lot. With a big hammer you can work big stock and consider it as clay rather than steel. This allows you to create different forms and contours than can be done with other tools. Patrick

Forgings vs. Casting vs. Machining The merit of each method of manufacture depends on the quality of production and the intended application. There are certain applications were forgings will give longer life than castings, particular where fatigue loads are present. In other cases, the method chosesen is a matter cost rather than product performance. In the case of a hammer the shape and heat treatment are most important. A good hammer of the proper shape heat treated correctly can be made by all three methods. The same is true for anvils and any number of other products. Patrick

Mark, I don't have a good way to gage the condition of the cushions. I have been fortunate to have others more familiar with that confirm for me that mine are in decent shape. They can dry rot and if they are badly cracked I'd get new ones. You might try a bounce test. Just drop it on the floor and see if it bounces or not. I have pretty much ignored the cracks in my ram. I have run the hammer pretty had and have not noticed any propigation, but when I found a spare ram I snapped it up just in case. If I had to, I could fabricate a new ram, but that would be expensive. As far as having the ram from a 500# machine in my hammer, that is possible. What I think might be more likely is that the company changed the design of the hammer over time. I am pretty sure they did this because in early company literature the weight for a 300# hammer is 15,000#, but in later document it is 12,000#. Also, I know one owner of a 300# machine whose anvil is solid and weighs over 4000#. The anvil on my machine is hollow and weighs 2600#. I also know that Bradley had options for things like steel sow blocks. Perhaps they had options for ram weight as well. Patrick

Mark, If you get the chance, weigh the ram in your Bradley. The ram in mine, with a standard factory flat die in place, weights 460#. I know another owner of a 300# machine that also has a 460# ram. I picked up a spare ram for my machine in september and that ram, which clearly is desinged to fit my hammer, only weighs 325# w/o the die in place, but even with the die it would only weigh in around 365# so I am curious to see where yours weighs in. Patrick

Terrell, I replied to the emails you sent. Since that didn't work, how should I connect with you? Patrick

Hi Falconer, Did you ever get my emails? I know you contacted me twice and I responded to your first email, but you second one made it sould like you never received my reply and I didn't hear back after I responded to your second request. Patrick

The fabricated hardy hole option has been mentioned, but I thought I'd point out a neat variation on this. An engineer here in WI fab up his anvil froma large block, say 8x8x24. He welded a hardy hole on one side, but designed it so that there is a cam lock lever coming out of one side. This allows him to tightly lock in hardys which don't other wise fit tightly, without jamming them in and getting them permanently stuck in the hole. It was a very well thought out and executed design. Patrick

Banjoe, If you contact me via email I will send you the owner's manual for the guided helve/strap hammer. It should give you a fair idea of what you will need for your hammer. Oak is not recommended for the beams on Bradleys since it is realively brittle. Hard rock maple will probably last longer, but if you already have oak, use it until it breaks and then replace with something better. A laminated beam will also last longer than a solid one. As for $1000, I consider that to be an excellent price provided there is no significant damage to the hammer. Bradley hammers are still supported to some extent by Cortland Machine, so you may be able to purchase new dies, but they really aren't that hard to make. I bought a 15 lb Bradley strap hammer earlier this year and it needs a complete overhall, including new dies, machine work on the anvil dovetail, machine work on the guides, probable a new crank shaft and definitly new leather. I paid $1000 and thougt I got a steal, mostly because Bradley hammers this small are pretty rare. Patrick

At work we are switching all our forge furnaces to a recuperative design that is commercially available through a company called North American. The principle is the same as that used in a blast furnace heat exhanger. In our case, we have multiple burners arranged on opposite sides of the furnace. When one burner is on, the other is not and vice versa. When not on, ceramic media just below the burner is being heated. Once the buriner turnes back on, the air passes over the medie before entering the burner. This has saved us around %40 on natural gas. Note that some of our furnace will easily hold 300,000 lbs or more in a load. Patrick

This is a link to a huge screw press recently listed on the Milwaukee, WI Craigslist. It is much bigger than the Hopkins #4 that I have, which weighs less than half of this press. photo click here Patrick

At work, where the furnaces are in some cases the size of a two car garage, all the forge furnaces have vertical sliding doors. Warping is not an issue. In this case, the doors ride on rails which are pushed away from the furnace by air cylinders before the door opens/closes. Once the door is closed, the cylinders retract, pulling the door up tight against the furnace. The doors are all remotely controlled. A system like this is more complicated than what I had in mind for a small forge, but something like this would make some of my work easier to get in and out of the forge. Patrick

I have what most would consider a fairly large, rectagular, double burner forced air forge. The biggest thing I would do differently is to have the front door mounted in such a way to allow it to slide up vertically when I want to open it. The current design has hinges on the top. This has proven to be very awkward on many occasions. The vertical sliding desing allows long work to protrude without out a great deal of heat loss. If you counter balance the door, you should be able to rig it to stay up until you want it to close. This is quite handy when handling large work where you want both hands on the work. If you are doing large work, I'd recommend the floor be made from a layer of soft fire brick with a second layer of hard brick on top. You can get half-thickness hard brick which has worked well for me. This arrangement is quite durable and will resist both abrasion and the corrosive effects of flux and molten iron oxide. Kaowool makes great walls and ceilings, but if you use it, make sure you make the walls exta thick for durability. I made mine by folding the Kaowook accordian style and jammng it into steel boxes which I then welded together for the sides and ceiling. The walls are about 4" thick and are not prone to caving in as they are with the cylindrical for designs. I hope this helps. Patrick

I am hosting a hammer-in at my shop this Saturday, 10/18/08 starting at 9am. I am just outside Beloit, WI. This is not a formal class, but would give you a chance to see and do a few things at the forge. Send me and email at pnowak@scotforge.com for directions. Patrick

A question about repairing sway backed anvils: I have always been a bit reluctant to build up a sway backed, anvil for fear of popping of the face plate as the weld solidifys and cools. For those of you who have made this type of repair, how did you do it and how successful was the repair? Thanks. Patrick

Thomas, As you know, I actually do have a pretty good working knowledge of forging most of the alloys you noted, plus the esoteric metallurgical knowledge etc etc etc. My reasons for owning and using a power hammer: 1. Longevity of health. One of the men who I spent time with when I first started smith work forged full time for over a decade without a power hammer. He has major physical problems because of it. 2. Efficiency-I can do more faster with a power hammer than without. 3. Ejoyment- I flat out love squishing steel. A hammer lets me do that. Since my first hammer purchase (50 lb Moloch) I have moved up to a 300 lb Bradley. I have easily forged alloy steel bars nealy 4" OD for sculptural and tooling applications. You just can't do that by yourself without a big power hammer. A power hammer lets you treat metal like clay. You can do this a little bit with hand forging, but most hand forging does not illustrate this quality of hot iron. Rather, bars are punched, spilt, tapered and upset. Drastically changing the form of the starting stock is someting that requires so much effort a power hammer is really reqiured to do it efficiently. Most of my work is not "traditional" in that I don't use a lot of punched holes, forged welded joints etc. I design and make things that I like and can do with the eqiupment I have. The more I work, the more my skills and repatoire grow. I will probably end up doing some traditional joinery using my hammer, but so far the projects I have designed haven't called for that. Patrick

If you don't need a perfect surface, you can cut Ti with a cutting torch just like steel. You may want to use a little darker shade in you cutting glasses with Ti than for steel since the sparks are very bright white.

My dad taught me long ago that the value of a thing is only worth what the buyer is willing to pay. That being the case, it is very hard to say what all my equipment would sell for if that were necessary. I do try to buy tools were I can at least get my money out if I do sell them, and I have sold some, usually becuase of an excess or lack of use. From an insurance point of view, I would want to insure the equipment at the cost of replacing it. When you use that as the standard for determining value, you probably would arrive at a figure of somewhere between $30K-$50K, but half of that would be replacing the large Bradley with new hammer of equivelant capacity. Patrick

My wife and I will be there. I'll have a small trailer loaded with H13 in various sizes, as well as some other tools. We'll be arriving mid-day on Friday. Patrick

Barzillai, I know that a friend of mine, Jim Hollo, will have a 150 lb Bradley Upright (Guided) Helve hammer and a 200 lb Chambursburg Utility hammer at Quad State. I'd be surprised if either one will be able to operate at the fairgrounds, though Jim was talking about trying to find a large air compressor to run the Chambursburg. Patirck

I do have info on Bradley's though not as much on the helve style as on the other types. There is more than one way to replace the beam. A solid piece of wood can be used. That is how my 300 lb guided helve is set up. Another way is to glue up boards into a beam with the glue joints oriented vertically. In either case, hard maple is the recommended wood. The size of the beam is based on the hammer. You can get this by measureing the machine itself to determine the cross section and length of the beam. The foundation is a funtion of the size of the hammer. I am not sure if I have foundation plans for this style of machine. Horse power and speed are also related to hammer size. Let me know the size and I will see what else I can find out for you. Feel free to contact me via email at pnowak@scotforge.com. Patrick Nowak

Ed, While I don't own a Beudry, I do have a big Bradley as you know. The one similarity between the two machines is that the anvil is not integral to the frame of the hammer. In my experiece, a foundation 4' wide x 5' thick x 10' long is sufficient to support my hammer, but we can still feel the hammer run in the house. My house is is quite close to the shop and our neighbors, who are several hundred feet away do not feel it. I would think that the size and design of the foundation would be a function not only of the size of your hammer, but also of your particular situation e.g. proximity to neighbors, soil condition, etc. Patrick

Typically, at least with alloy steels, once you over heat the steel, the damage is done. With wrought iron you can sometimes correct an overheat piece through additional forging. The conclusion of a crack due to overheating is based on the appearance of the crack. All cracks are NOT created equal and an understanding of the characteristics of different cracks will help you determine their cause. In this case, the crack is jagged and fairly wide. Cracks that occur due to phase transformations (quench cracks, cracks that occur on cooling etc.) tend to be very straight and tight. This is not always the case, but in general is true. Patrick

I am also of the opinion that the crack is caused by working the steel too hot rather than too cold. It looks to me like the steel was at a near welding heat in an oxidizing environment in the area of the crack. I have done this myself on numerous occasions when I used to forge with coal. I now use gas exclusivly, though not for reasons of over heating, but I do forge very hot. In the gas forge, rather than buring, you get heavy layers of scale or melting if you get too hot. You can probably work this material in the range of 2200-2300 F as I doubt very much that is a high alloy tool steel. More likely, it is an alloy steel of moderate carbon content such as 4140. I do not think there is anything wrong with the steel. Just pay attention to your temperture and where in the fire you put the work. If using coal, do go too deep in the fire or you will be too close to the air blast which is very oxygen rich. Patrick