setlab

Ok thanks. Ya, just your run of the mill 50lb tire hammer. I built it pretty much to the exact detentions as the plan calls for, maybe 1000 lbs in total weight.

I just re-read your post and I can picture it better in my head now. Is your regular all thread good enough or should I search for a certain grade? Thanks

I thought about mechanical fasteners but I like the idea of epoxy better. Plus I already bought the anchoring epoxy a long time ago so it would probably be a pretty dumb waste of money on my part not to use it. How come you guys are leaning more towards mechanical > epoxy fasteners? Is there an advantage or is epoxy just a relatively new method? From what I've read others say epoxy fasteners are much more shock resistant and are pretty much just as simple to install. 

I need to bolt my hammer down to the floor and was going to use threaded rod and concrete anchoring adhesive to do it. Do I need to buy a certain grade of threaded rod or will the regular run of the mill 1/2" threaded rod you buy at lowes be sufficient strength?

You're talking about railroad rail right? You have 6' of that and will cut in into 3 24"sections and welded up in a bundle 24" tall? Would work better than what I originally thought you had in mind. But unless the goal is extreme penny pinching I would hold out for a different option.  If it were me,  before I put that much of my time and effort building something I'd be sure to o overbuild it as much as possible. If you want to brave the drive to Atmore, Al there is a scrap yard there that has a piece of maybe 4"x5" solid bar that's maybe 8 feet long. I think he sells stuff for $.32 a lb, I'd call first and ask if you can cut it into smaller pieces though before the drive. 

You'll wind up with a junk hammer, did that with my first junkyard hammer when I was young and ended up with a hammer more suited as yard art than forging. Apparently the hammers energy gets absorbed instead of rebounded when stacking metal used for the anvil horizontally.

Just skimming through the first listings that pop up it looks like everyone with an angle grinder and RR track anvil is selling stuff they made in 15 minutes. Wondering if buyers skimm past that stuff or is the market so saturated with that stuff there you'd be lucky to have anyone find your listing?

I've been giving a lot of thought into selling on etsy lately. I've never really sold much of my work before and it seems like a good place to start. What do you guys make that sells well there? I was thinking small things at first, wall hooks, bottle openers, maybe RR spike knives? Well made, does that stuff sell quickly there?

Wish my wallet would let me go to quad state again, I'll let you know before then. Are you driving there all the way from Texas!? Quite the drive.

Handn't really thought about it, this was kinda a last dich talk me out of selling it post lol. If I do put a number on it down the road I'll let you know. I know I'm never going to make armor though.

I have a beverly B2 shear that I'm thinking of selling, I kinda see it as an unnecessary tool. Anything I would use it for can easily be done on a grinder or bandsaw. Before I do though how do you guys use yours? Does It fill a nich In your shop another tool doesn't already?

A swinging design could work, I certainly have high enough ceilings for it to get out of the way. How well does that funnel hood work for you with a tall fresh pile of coal? Is something like that big enough for that amount of smoke all at once? 

Not sure if I'm using the term hood and stack right, in my mind the hood attaches to the stack; I want a hood that I can raise up out of the way. Here's a picture I came upon earlier I liked, I basically want a setup simmilar to this with a blower assist but I need it to raise up out of the way. 

When I was young I remember trying to cob one together with what I could find out of the metal pile and it worked horribly lol. Now that I'm older I'd like to try it one more time and am keeping my eyes open for ideas that work. My shop isn't 100% dedicated to blacksmith work and I try to keep everything on wheels to quickly move around as needed so I'm pretty sold on the idea, no talking me out of it  I've never delt much with chimneys before so I really have no idea what kind of fancy products are avalable. I am working with the assumption that I will need some kind of helper fan to induce draft as my rooftop is pretty tall and the wind can get pretty nasty, a tall chimney is out of the equation unfortunately.

What have you guys seen out there? Any suggestions? 

Yes, I'd have to look at what size I used though. Google will tell you better than I. I searched around ebay and found a decent priced morse taper drill to do the job.

Unless you made a jig to weld the inside diameter perpendicular to the dog bone arm squaring the end of the pipe up before welding would be the best way to keep it square. You make the PN 37 and dog bone weldment basically the same, couldn't find a picture of my dog bone. As for the bearings I don't know much about that, I've just been following the plans pretty closely on the movable parts. Once I drilled and reamed the dog bone pressing in the bearing was simple, I was surprised at how little material was removed when I reamed the bearings to .75 on a drill press. 

I squared the pipe on a mini mill with a long cutter and I did everything else on the drill press.

Dies this help? I'm in the process of building mine, I'll do a wip when I'm done. But here is my welding jig I made.

On 6/17/2015 at 4:26 AM, Vadeka said:

Any chance you could reupload the images?  Would be extremely helpfull!

Why do images disappear from these old topics? So frustrating when there is an interesting topic.

I've been busy working on my hammer and am about ready to build the move-able ram portion. I'm figuring how much material I need to do it. You guys that followed Clay's plans, what is the distance between the back of the tire to the 5x5 frame post? I'll post more pictures of the build when I'm done but here is pretty much where I'm at now. 

Oh definitely, I would be sure to find a fairly nice one from a junkyard to use. Might even buy one new if I have to.

Thanks for all the response, gave me some different Google search ideas and found this: possible bolt on axle candidate once Monday comes I'll stop by a local trailer fab shop too.

Oh yes frosty, my days of scrounging from junk piles and cobbing stuff together have long past me by minus an exception here and there. I take it you're not a fan of shop built power hammers frosty?

I'm just collecting parts right now too but I'm getting close. I'll make sure I take plenty of pictures too.

So I'm working out what axle/bearing to use for my hammer build. I'm deviating a little from Clay's plans and making an adjustable head similar to the dp120 pictured below, however I'm not a car guy so I don't really know what to look for or ask for at a junk yard that will work. On this particular hammer in the pictures the axle/hub bearing are from the rear of a front drive car but so far my Google searches haven't really narrowed down my search any. Basically I'm looking for an axle that I can bolt on instead of weld on. Can someone point me in the right direction or maybe a year and model car to look for so the guys at the junk yard don't look at me like a total idiot when I tell them what I need?  

Thanks Glenn

Hope he gave someone else permission to sell plans then, that would be a shame to let disappear. Next time I'm that way I guess I'll invest in a few stamps to send his way, don't really want to blow his phone up with probably another call from a random tire hammer plan inquiry.