John Larson

John N, I posted my 31 May 09 100# results.

John N invited me to give this test a go, so I tested one of my iron kiss octagon 100 pound hammers today. My dies on this machine are 2 3/4 wide, flat, with generous edge radius. I set the stroke to 9" of air space and the speed to about 175 bpm. I used the coal/coke forge and took the 1x1 HR A36 8" bars to welding heat. I had center punched the 2" point and laid that mark where the flat of the die started and the edge radius ended. The appearance was similar to that shown by others. The average for 5 blows was .586" and the 10-blow number was .360". I found some variation in the A-36, but maybe that is a non issue for us. I looked for a piece of pure iron but didn't have any 1x1 (grin). I have a 150 nearing completion so it will be a blast to try it.

Thanks, Glenn, for giving me a call and placing information about Iron Kiss hammers in the responses. The best way to get information about Iron Kiss hammers is to visit the web site, Iron Kiss Hammers, LLC. and I hope Glenn doesn't consider this advertising. Contact information is there if you want to discuss anything. Thanks again, John Larson

ptree, the terms you use are familiar to you but maybe not the typical reader. What is a "way", a "poppit", etc. ? I'm quite willing to hereafter say "spool valve" instead of "shuttle valve" , and I have certainly used "5-port valve" a lot in my writing and posting. I find the term "way" to be too obscure for my thick skull. How obscure? Letme count the ways. :-)

Mark, the Kinyon plans are noted for their insufficient info on some topics. Ron is a heckofa nice guy and a full time metal smith in the Phoenix area and I respect him quite a bit. Also, terminology can be varied. So let me try to explain. The main valve that routes the air into and out of the cylinder is a shuttle valve. A cylindrical piece moves back and forth (shuttles back and forth) to turn a cylinder hose from intake to exhaust mode, and vice-versa, to get the reciprocation needed in the hammer head. The shuttle is activated by air pressure. Typically, a roller valve triggers this air pressure. The roller is on a short lever and the roller bears against the hammer head when the head is up, and is released when the hammer head is down. This lever's movement pushes a small spring loaded shuttle to pulse the air that activates the bigger shuttle valve. This is analogous to electrical relays where a small current flow is used to switch a big current flow, like with the headlights on a car. I use Norgren brand valves in my hammers. The main shuttle valve is MN01CHA73A000. It has 3/4" npt ports. The roller valve I use is 03061122 and it has 1/4" npt ports. This roller valve is rugged and has proven durability with all aluminum and steel construction, as compared to lighter duty roller valves with some nonmetalic parts that suffer breakage and that do not flow air fast enough to give snappy performance (in my opinion based on experience). Each of these valves is in the $75-$100 range. Like I said the roller valve is durable. The big shuttle valve will only live for 4-6 years and is susceptible to dirty air. Use an oiler and filter--mandatory--, preferably mounted on or close to the hammer. The filter is obvious. The oiler should be set so that a teaspoon of oil is used every hour or so. The tell tale of adequate oiling is an oily finger when you stick it in the hammer's exhaust pipe, not dripping wet but just moist. Valve failures in the field in my experience almost always stem from inadequate oiling and air line crud. If there is a long hose between the filter and the hammer expect to have water condense out of the air between the filter and the hammer.

I've built hammers using I-beams with 1/2 flanges and that works, but I now favor box beams that I construct using channels and flats, bolted together. With bolted together box beams I can, like with I-beams, access bolts that pass through a flange. With rectangular tubes I find the sides are not particularly flat and bolts have to be threaded into the tube walls, or totally welded construction used. I have nothing really against tubes, but I prefer fab'd box beams.

I don't know how the web site name was goofed up. The proper url is ironkisshammers.com

I see that my dies are so outta square Earl is afraid to come around my Iron Kiss Hammer. Ha, Ha, Ha. :-) Missing a dozen bolts? Baloney. Several bolts may have been removed to enable the access door to be opened to show folks the plumbing. People at Boone's were using my machine and enjoying themselves for quite a few of the past few years. I demo my hammers at hammer ins within driving distance of Baltimore. People like Primtechsmith observed it in action in the past two weeks, people at many hammer-ins have observed it in action over the years. I was at Tipton IN in 2007 and the great Clifton Ralph used the machine along with his students Steve Parker and Kurt Farhenbach for the full weekend. You can get a dvd of that for $7 from the upper midwest blacksmithing association librarian at umbaonline.org. You can visit my web site Blacksmith Power Hammers - Iron Kiss Hammers, LLC., call me a 410-925-2255, or visit my shop and use one of the hammers for as long as you want to stay. So if you want good information check it out. I do not do high pressure sales talks, tell tall tales, or act pushy. Really, the whole point of me doing hammer-ins is to let the machine do the talking. I will happily answer your questions to the best of my ability and help you think through the hammer selection process. You may use my e-mail [jolarson@comcast.net] so that we can both speak without my half-deafness being a problem and without any time constraints. Most of the hammers on the market have stood the market test for many years. They all have their virtues. In my opinion, you have to use the machines to make a good decision, based upon the kind of work you want to do. Visit shops and use their hammers. Visit my shop and use mine. You cannot believe advertisements. You can believe your own experiences.

Someone just directed me to this set of comments. I've spoken to a couple of you folks. For the rest of you, please feel free to contact me via Blacksmith Power Hammers - Iron Kiss Hammers, LLC. or 410-925-2255. Please keep in mind that I'm a bit hearing impaired. You folks are always welcome to visit my shop in Joppa, MD and check out the hammers. John Larson Iron Kiss Hammers

I have one. It is rectangular. The air hole is circular, however, and the fire ends up being circular pretty much like a traditional square firepot. I have done a number of experiments to elongate the fire, including rotating the clinker breaker 90 degrees so that the slots run lengthwise instead of cross wise. I had a (Buffalo?) rectangular firepot from "back in the day" with a rectagular air hole and clinker breaker. The fire was correspondingly rectangular. Sold it to a friend who loves it. The configuration that I have found useful--and most simple-- is just to lay two 1x1 bars on the fireport bottom edges. This slightly rectangularizes the air opening, provides a path for the air to flow under the bulk of the coal, still allows the clinker breaker to work, and elongates the fire substantially. It works. More elaborate experiments have not really accomplished much more. For example, the use of a plate on top of the two 1x1 bars, drilled for strategic air distribution, creates an air plenum that overcomes the design deficiency of the circular clinker breaker. However, not using the plate pretty much still provides a good rectangular fire in the coal.

Maybe you misread my post? I believe I said the mechanicals were least costly and listed the same advantages of for them as you did, so I think that puts us in agreement. If my post besmudged mechanicals it was not my intent. And they don't have much stroke length so tooling has to be quite compact. Pounding Out the Profits by Freund is an excelllent book to read for a humbling education.

I make air hammers Iron Kiss Hammers and I'm biased. Mechanical hammers require tedious stroke adjustments and the maximum stroke is often not that much as compared to most air hammer designs. And some mechanical designs like Little Giant are hard to tune to get them to have "table manners" as mentioned above. However, they run nonstop if you want to do that so they fit into a production shop quite well. Ed Thomas's Beaudrys are examples of highly perfected mechanical design. I had a smaller one and to this day regret selling it. Air hammers come in self-contained and utility hammer configurations. The former, like mechanical hammers, can run nonstop. All of those now on the market, to my critical eye anyway, are quite well made. However, those of the "Kuhn" design are all too short and too light. They've been made with too little steel in them to be successful without some augmentary weight. To build a machine that must be perched on top of an auxilliary base is pretty darned stupid. Sahinler is of an okay height, but it is still too light. The best thing you can do for most of these hammers is to mount them on very heavy baseplates (ditto Big Blu, Little Giant, ...). The two-piece self-contained hammers usually have insufficient anvil mass, though Bob Bergman has shown how to use a big baseplate to help the situation. The Nazel at ABANA-Kentucky showed this and also showed that with a sufficient baseplate you do not need an elaborate special foundation. I've built many utility hammers and a few self-containeds. IMO, if you have enough air compressor to run your utility hammer nonstop, then the advantage of a self-contained is absent. As a matter of fact, self-containeds make too much noise! A utility hammer sits there quietly until you step on the treadle. Kinyon style hammers will give you most all that you want from a power hammer (if not your first one, then your second attempt), except control. I have proven that control can be achieved with speed and power, and it is not necessary to sacrifice speed and power to get control (by choking the circuits as some brands do). Over the years on the keenjunk forum I posted about this numerous times. (Some would say ad nauseum.) I've proved this. Those who used my machine at quad states, and other eastern hammerins, over the past two years can attest to my claim. Some have posted about their experiences in late September/early October when they returned from sofa quad states. Check out the blacksmiths forum, anvilfire, and theforge. So what is an adequate amount of air compressor for a hundred pound Kinyon? A 5hp, two-stage, 15-17 cfm @ 100 psi, 60 gallon machine will work for a one-iron-in-the-fire situation where the work piece is on the order of a railroad spike. If you use a 3.25" bore cylinder you can run a bit longer than if you use a 2.5" bore cylinder because your machine will work down to a much lower tank pressure (and will be much stronger at higher pressures). If you work bigger irons or run more irons in the fire, then two of these compressors on separate circuit breakers make a great combination. If you can swing it, a 15 hp Ingersol-Rand, or equivalent is just swell. Steve Barringer runs the power hammer school's 4 Big Blu 110 machines simultaneously with a 15 hp IR T30. He has to add a 5 hp machine when he adds a fifth hammer. I've been there and I know his setup works well. BTW, Steve has very strong opinions about the superiority of air hammers compared to mechanicals. He and Paul Garrett built a fine quality tire-type machine back in '97 or so and he knows what he's talking about. So the economics of power hammers seems to be essentially that self-contained hammers are the high priced option. By quite a bit. A utility hammer with at least 10 hp of compressor(s) is next, followed by a utility hammer with a 5hp compressor. Then the mechanicals. It is not at all clear to me that self-contained hammers are cost effective however cool they are, but utility hammers can be cost effective. So why an air hammer? Air hammers have a squishing blow instead of a slapping blow (which is why they take more power) that some smiths really like; a feature a bit like the old steam hammers, though not as pronounced. My 90# utility will hit much harder than a 90# mechanical because of the pneumatic force on top of the gravitationally induced acceleration shared with mechanical designs. That's the major reason. Other reasons are that very large stroke lengths can be designed into a Kinyon so that tooling and/or work pieces can be quite tall and there is no need to use a wrench to adjust any connecting rod like with mechanicals, control of an air hammer can be exquisite and the work you can do can be of much higher quality with that control without sacrifice of speed and power, and finally an air hammer can be built with an anvil weight that is massive (more than 12 times the hammer head weight is good, up to about 20:1 makes a diminishing difference). My 90# machine weighs 3000# and just sits there when running full tilt, ditto my 160# unit that weighs in at 5000#. Lighter machines tend to bounce and have to be bolted down to be effective. That effectiveness is not as good as with machines that have the mass built in. If you want bigger, I can build them! But I urge you to try one of my "little" machines before you claim you need anything bigger. Build your own if you are oriented that way. Be careful. All hammers are dangerous and possibly addictive. :-) Edit: hot link to Iron Kiss Hammersadded

These pictures are great in that they tell most of the story. I have this style in my home forge and I go horizontally through the wall and into a T's stem. The stack is supported from one branch of the T by pipe down to the ground where it rests on some bricks. Make the rest of the stack tall to draw well. No stack cap is needed cuz the rain goes to the ground. IMHO, the big diameter shown in the photographs is good and worth the money and any bs that is required to get some. I first saw the scheme at ABANA Alfred at each of the forging tents courtesy of Missouri smiths.

Hey, Ed Thomas, I'm curious about how your shop is coming along.

Ed, use a truck or tractor as a place to mount the come-along/chain-fall even if these machines can't pull the machine or you don't want burnt rubber on the new shop floor. Add some cleats to the front and back ends of the timbers to keep the timber constant distance apart for better stability. Good luck.

At Alfred ABANA in '96 I looked at the smoke stacks and forges provided by Missouri smiths. I copied them at my home forge and they work, especially with respect to rain. The outside stack runs all the way to the ground and need not have a cap because any water flows to the ground. The bottom straight sections provide the support for the rest of the stack; mine sits on a bed of bricks. The forge stack rises from the smoke box by the forge pot, turns horizontal, exits through the wall, and junctions with the smoke stack using a T. 10" diameter is good enough. 8" is probably too small. Make the smoke stack taller than you think is actually necessary. If using a shelf to support the smoke stack instead of several straight sections, still use a T junction with a bottom cap. The alternative articulated 90 degree bends tend to rot out from the acidic water collecting in the joints.

That's a nice size building. It pays to have an exhaust fan in the peak of the roof to purge any smoke that wants to hang around up there.