patrick

So, are you still considering these Bradleys or, after seeing the Chambursburg are you planning to head in that direction? They are great machines too if you have the means to run them effectively. Patrick

Impressive, but super dangerous and slow way to make that part. In US shops today a part that size is handled with mobile manipultors.

Bradley hammers are supported to a limited degree by Cortland Machine out of Cortland New York. They have all the drawings, some wood patterns for castings and they can make almost any thing you'd need, but it is not cheap. I just ordered a new pair of sow block keys from them. Ask to speak with Stan Pierce if you call them. Bradley hammers are not complicated so if you do need parts you can often make them yourself if you have access to fabrication and machining facilities.Manuals have been posted in a few places on the internet or you can contact me directly and I can email you a copy. The biggest issues with Bradleys are their size and weight. This one probably weighs around 7800#, maybe more depending on when it was made. The other issue they have, which is true of all mechanical hammers, is that the stroke is limited and you will reach a point where the size of the work or the height of the tooling will not permit the hammer to complete its rotation. That is not an issue with air hammers. However, you'd be hard pressed to find a more robust machine. Within its design limits they are fantastic forging tools. I'm in the process of setting up a 500 lb Guided helve, which is very similar to the strap hammer you're interested in and I've been running a 300 lb Guided Helve for the last 10 years. The strap hammer style will actually have a bit more flexibility in its stroke than the Guided Helve type and the blow will be a bit snappier. I've sometimes thought of converting one of my machines to that design. Bradley did make a few big strap hammers, but found that in production environments the leather belting supporting the ram just didn't hold up on those big machines. I think we could overcome that limitation with modern materials. As far as pricing is concerned, that's a very flexible issue. I would say that in really great shape $4000-5000 would be fair. However, Bradleys don't seem to command the prices that Little Giant style machines bring. There just doesn't seem to be the demand for them. That being said, I'd probably offer something more like $2500-3000. I paid $2000 for my 500, including the 15 HP 880 RPM motor and the electrical connections for it. The hammer is in great shape. I was able to test drive it before purchase. I felt like I got a steal, but the owner was content because he'd been trying to sell it for a couple of years with no interest. He was happy to get scrap prices just to make sure it didn't get scrapped. The trade off for me is that the machine weighs 18000 lbs, has 15 cubic yards of concrete under it and about 700 lbs of 3/4" rebar embedded in the concrete. I had to get it out of the shop it was in and move it about 300 miles to my shop. My set up cost, including running 3-phase to my shop to power the machine, is going to be roughly 3 times the purchase price. Because of the higher costs of transportation and set up, there seems to be much less demand for the really big hammers, consequently they often sell at much lower prices than the small and mid sized machines like the one you're interested in. In the case of this hammer you'll still need a foundation and power, but nothing like what I have set up. A foundation 4 feet wide, 4 feet deep and 9 feet long would be more than enough. You could probably even get away with 3 feet thick. A 7.5 horse single phase motor will run this machine just fine. These machines were designed to run directly from a motor running at 900 RPM. If you don't have such a motor, you can jackshaft a fast one. That is how my 300 has been set up and it works just fine. Before you jump on this, think carefully about the type of work you want to do. Because of the limitations I noted, there are some things an air hammer will do better. Also, if you already have a large shop air compressor that will support a utility style hammer, you will save a great deal of floor space going that route. If you anticipate doing production type repetitive jobs, then a Bradley is the machine to use. The large guides, dies and die orientation allow you to create dies with multiple stations. This way you can run several steps of a job without have to change tools. Air hammers tend to have fairly short dies in comparison and they don't usually have guides as robust so they don't handle off center blows as well. Also, Bradley dies are held in with two keys instead of one. This means that neither the die dove tail nor the matching dovetail tapers along its length. The results is that it is very easy to machine, fabricate or even forge dies for Bradleys. If you still have questions, PM me and I send you my phone #. Patrick

Nice work. What metals are you using? How big a billet are you making?

Have you already posted pictures of the 500 Beadury? If not please share. I'd love to see it.

Michael-The reason they look the same is because the 300 is sitting on 10" of timber. The 500 is on about 5.5" of 2x12 planks. There are a couple of thin sheets of plywood, about 5/8" total, serving as shims between the anvil and the frame. Under the anvil is 1.5" thick oak planks. The overall length of the 500 is about a foot longer than the 300. The anvil is MUCH bigger. Remember, the anvil on a 300 lb hammer sits even with the bottom of the hammer while the anvil on the 500 lb hammer sits 4" below the hammer frame. So, the anvil from the 500 lb hammer is siting on 1.5" of wood, the anvil from the 300 lb hammer is on 10" of wood and the top of the sow block on both anvils is nearly the same height off the floor. The concrete turned out fine but it was a bit dicey at the end. We came up about 1/4 yard short. Based on the dimension of the pit we should have been about 1/4 yard over what we needed. To make up the difference we shove a bunch of big chunks of concrete from the floor section we cut out into the pit at the back of the hammer. The foundation is 11 feet long and the rebar cage is only 9 feet long. I left 18" between the back wall of the pit and the rebar to allow access to the rebar so we could get it level. This open space is where we put the floor chunks. Thehammer itself sits forward of this location, so even if those chunks didn't bond the best to the new concrete, I'm not worried about a failure of the foundation.

The hammer is in!!!! I'm soooo excited! It's been sitting in my yard for over a year and half whispering "USE ME, USE ME" every time I walked past it to get to the shop. Well now it's in. Here a few shot of the foundation pour we did on Monday and then setting the hammer in place this morning. It was an extremely tight fit to get the wrecker boom in the door; only made it by a few inches, but it made it. Using the pattern to set the anchor bolt positions was slicker than snail snot. We had to jockey the hammer around a bit with the wrecker and a couple of come-a-longs but once we got everything lined up in dropped on those studs as pretty as pie.I still have to run power to the wall behind the hammer and install the motor. I'm going to mount the motor above and behind the hammer to reduce the impact on my (now) much more limited floor space.

The reference to Scott steel is not to Scot Forge products. At that time Scot Forge was known as Atlas Forge and it carried that name into the 1970s. It wasn't renamed until Peter Jorgeson, the last private owner, started the transition from his ownership to an employee owned company. That transition was complete in the lat 1990s and ever since Scot Forge has been 100% employee owned.

Did you look in The Hammerman's Emporium". It's by the same author as Pounding Out the Profits with a focus on air hammers.

That reminds me of a 50 lb Erie steam hammer I saw once. What is the ram weight in that machine? How big is the bottom die looks pretty big but maybe that is just the scale of the over all machine?

I have done foundations with and without floor isolation and I don't see that it makes much difference so I'm not doing that this time.

This is the third large Bradley foundation I've done. The factory plans do not call for any rebar, but I had them reviewed by our head engineer at work the first time I did this and recommended 3/4" rebar mats 9" on center for my 300 lb machine. Since this is a bigger hammer, I narrowed up the spacing. As for leveling, we'll run a 2x6 board across the floor to screed the foundation even with the floor. We'll smooth and finish as best we can, but I'm not worried about minor imperfections since there will be several inches of wood between the hammer and the concrete. If it is really uneven, I can use several layers of tar paper to help even it up, but I don't think that is going to be an issue. I'll let you know tomorrow. Concrete is coming right after lunch.

That layout table is set up with the jack stands from a couple of semi trailers. That lets it be mobile, but I can set it down on a stationary base which is bolted to the top. It has a smaller foot print than the jacking legs.

Well, I finally got the funds to set up the 500 lb Bradley. I've been working on the rebar cage for the last several weeks and that turned out to be a great opportunity to teach my 7 year old son to weld. I set him up with some 7014 and a auto darkening helmet and let him loose. The cage is done with the anchor bolts welded in place. When I bought the hammer I made a template of the base and have been working from that. For this machine, I'm using 1.25" x 6 foot long all thread. Plain carbon steel since I welded them directly into the rebar cage. The cage itself is two mats of 3/4" rebar 6" on center. These are spaced 5 feet apart. The concrete block itself will be 6 feet wide, 6 feet deep and 11 feet long (15 cubic yards). The cage itself is 5x5x9. The extra length in the pit is just to allow access once the cage is in the pit so we can ship as needed to make it level. Some friends and I dug the pit and set the rebar this afternoon. Concrete will be coming on Monday right after lunch. I'm not sure if I'll set the hammer on the foundation the weekend after Thanksgiving or wait till the following weekend. Either way, I hope to have it up and running by the end of the year.

I just had the foundation pit for my 500 lb bradley dug today and we set the rebar cage in the pit before coming in for supper. In my case I made a template of the base of the hammer and the welded all thread rod into that. In my case each rod is 6 feet long, I have done used the method of drill holes after the hammer is in place an then setting the anchors in expoxy, but both times I did it I hit rebar and didn't get the hole as deep as I wanted and I also had trouble getting all the dust out of the holes. I've the the template method one other time and it really works well if you take time to make sure the all thread is positioned just right

Stamping die for silverware?

Alan- You are right about the abrasive nature of scale. It certainly does result in wear on power hammer and press dies and no doubt could contribute to wear on anvil faces, but I would draw the same distinction you did between wear and deformation. The anvils I've owned and seen with sway back show the swelling you observed beneath the face. As far as wear is concerned, I actually think that the chipping of the face would contribute to more uneven work surface than wear from abrasion.

Since you asked for a technical/engineer type to answer this question I'll chime in. For those that don't know, I am a degreed metallurgical engineer with 13 years of experience, the last 11 of which I've spent working as the plant metallurgist for the Clinton, WI facility of Scot Forge where we make open die forgings with starting weights up to 50,000 lbs. I've been hand forging for the last 17 years. In that time, the only sway backed anvils I've encountered were those made from wrought iron with steel faces, though I don't doubt it could happen with steel anvils which were not heat treated correctly or were exposed to such high temperatures that the steel was annealed. The cause of the sway back condition in wrought iron anvils is indeed due to plastic deformation. Wrought iron is generally pure iron with iron silicate slag inclusions, but usually no alloying elements. Pure iron has the strength of pure copper. So even though the anvil face is hardened steel, the body of a wrought anvil is extremely soft. This soft material lacks the strength to support the steel when subjected to very heavy blows and will deform over time leading to the sway backed condition. Steel anvils, whether cast of forged, have much higher strength when properly heat treated than wrought iron so they are much less likely to develop a sway back. Cast iron anvils, whether they have a steel face like Fishers or not, will not get a sway back because the cast iron does not have the ductility to plastically deform. It just chips or breaks. A couple of other things which could affect the formation of swayback are the thickness of the steel plate and how well that plate is forge welded to the wrought iron. Thin faces or poorly welded ones will likely have a more severe sway back than thick faced anvils with good welds. Though scale is hard, it does not cause swayback, but it could cause dents or pits in the face. A casting flaw in a cast steel anvil probably would not be so large as to cause sway back but it could cause other problems such as pits if the voids were too close to the face. The temperature of the anvil during use probably does not have much affect on the development of sway back. Even if the anvil reaches a temperature of several hundred degrees, that will not significantly lower the force required to plasticaly deform the material beneath the face. One thing to keep in mind about anvils and their use is that they were heavily used in industrial settings where production hand forging was done daily. In these settings, the anvils were exposed to a lot of heavy sledge work. Watch "Welding the Big Ring" on you tube and pay attention to what is happening in the background. You'll see a great example of that type of heavy work. That is the type of work that causes sway back. If you read through Practical Blacksmithing by MT Richardson you will find several examples describing re working of sway back anvils to make them flat again and you can see that mentioned in some of the advertising literature shown in Anvils In America by Postman. It seems that there was quite a call for reworking of anvils in years past which would suggest that sway back was common and occurred much more rapidly than we tend to think, again due to the continuous use of heavy sledges rather than by a lone smith swinging a hand hammer.

Both the stoody and hobart products mentioned work very well for repairing anvils. An anvil face is over 50 hrc when new in most csses and at that hardness their is always some risk of chipping. When selecting a hard face rod for an anvil you need to understand what you're buying. Some rods are inteded for extreme wear resistance. Others go down soft and work harden under extreme load such as in crushers. Neither of these are really good for anvils. You need something that goes down hard but still has good toughness.

We've used Fabreeka under our hammers a work for years, BUT that is the top layer in a 4' thick stack of white oak timber on top of a concerte foundation. All the anvils on those hammers are independant and the anvil mass is what resists the blow and delivers energy to the work piece. The fabreeka and timber serve to cushion everything and promote less broken parts. I'd be surprized if, for hammers under 500 lbs (maybe even bigger) the Fabreeka gives you much improvement over a thick timber mat. I have 10" of white oak under my Bradley and a 5' thick foundation under that. No noticeable vibration much beyond the shop, though that likely is also related to soil conditions and water table position too.

You could make a die to do this that would fit most any hammer. You'd need to have a dovetail that matched the hammer, then weld a cyclinder to that. The size of the cyclinder would be a function the the hammer design. With mechanical hammers you will have a much shorter cylinder than what you could get away with on an air hammer.

Yes I was advocating that you build up the missing section of the anvil to match the section of the orginal face. It won't take you that long. I used the procoess I described to hard face an anvil with a face 9.75 x 20. I put two layers of Hardalloy 58 over that entire area using 3/16 rod. It took 7 hours of non stop work. Your repair will take a small fraction of that time as it looks like the area you're working with is less than 1/10 of the area I was working with. Besides, I don't think you want the last four inches to step back down. You'd loose some functionality if you didn't make it even with the rest of the face.

Modern examples of solid state welding: 1. Chain-Same method as was done years ago but now induction heating and automated forging take the place of solid fuel and hand hammers. 2. Drive shaft and other tubular automotive components are inertia/friction welded 3.Down hole oil field tools are also friction welded-short fat sections welded on to long bars 4. Open die forging of ingots- All ingots have internal holes. Converting the casting (ingot) to a forging involves forge welding those holes closed. If we don't do that correctly, then the finished part has holes remaining internally which can lead to premature part failure.

I would absolutely repair this anvil if it were mine. I'd use the following approach: 1. Overlay the wrought iron with Hobart Hardalloy 38-two passes. This is NOT a hard face rod but a buildup rod. It should have a hardness of about 20-22 Rockwell C. This is needed to support the actual hardfacing layer since wrought iron is too soft by itself to do that job. 2. Preheat anvil to 400- 600 F and overlay Hardalloy 38 with Hardalloy 58. This is a hardface rod that should give you a hardness in the low 50 HRc. Weld no more than 2 passes. More than that will likely lead to cracks. If you do not pre-heat the anvil, expect the hard face and the existing face plate to crack. 3. Wrap in Kaowool or other insulating media and slow cool. 4. Grind to final size. I'd make graphite or copper plugs to fit the hardy and pritchel so you don't have to grind them open after welding.

The process described above is called vacuum stream degassing. It's function is to removed dissoveld gases from liquid steel, mostly hydrogen. Hydrogen in too high a concentration can result in internal cracking. Today, most steels used for open die forging have a maximum hydrogen content of 2 parts per million.