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When mine was nearly done it took them an extra week to paint it because they do it outside and it was rainy.  Its nice to see your people have a paint booth.

After about a year my hammer is still working fine.  It is not used much and purely a hobby machine so I still feel good about the purchase.  Having talked to other purchasers from that factory before buying made me feel better about taking the risk.

If I were relying on it to earn a living, I would for sure buy from James.  The value of support for something that pays the bills is worth way more than the lower price from another vendor.

Thanks for all of the input.  The dealer says that some areas with a lot of sand in the soil go through the blades really quickly.  He has blades made out of some soft of abrasion resistant material that he says last 4-6 times longer.  Cost is 3x the price of the normal ones.

Since the blade is just a rectangle of 1/8" or so thick bar with 2 holes in it and no grinding or fancy edges, I may look into buying wear strip bar by the foot and having a bunch made by a shop that does laser cutting.

For now, I've got plenty to do without another project so I'll just order a set or two of the hard blades and see how they do.

I recently got a Berta rotary plow.  This thing has 4 spinning blades that pulverize and fling the dirt.  It has some replaceable metal blade tips to prevent the big spinning blade from wearing out.  The blades are about 1/8" think x an inch wide, and about 4 inches long.  After about 4 hours of use, the replaceable tip was worn and needed to be turned to a new edge.

If I want to make new ones from a more abrasion resistant steel, what would be a good one to use?

Thanks.

looks like a really nice build.  What are the various configurations of the wheels and platten used for?

I used to have a #3 Hawkeye.  It said what model it was on the front pedestal.  My #3 had a cast iron rear pedestal, so I would guess that yours is #1 or #2.  In the ad, the #2 says so on the casting so if your says nothing maybe its a #1.

I built a gas forge doing just what you describe.  The rammable refractory I put over the kaowool held up just fine and since it was pretty thin didn't suck up a lot of heat to get up to temperature.  This would be a lot more useful to you if I could remember the name of the material I used, but I don't.

There is a 3 day hammer in scheduled for August 19-21 at Roaring Camp near Santa Cruz CA.  Cost is $110 for all 3 days and there will be demos as well as a group project that everyone can work on.  It should be fun and I hope it is enough of a success to become an annual event.

I just spent the last hour reading a VFD manual for something else and it does sound like there are many ways to screw it up.  Manufacturers often have customer support people who can help  you with the handful of settings that really matter for your application.  A phone call to the support line might be a good use of time.  The whine on motor drives can be caused by a drive signal that isn't the right sequence and amplituded needed to cause any movement but just vibrates the windings.  You don't want to do that because you're putting power into the motor without it turning the fan to cool off.  You may also damage your VFD.

Here is the Trenton logo from my nephew's anvil.

Thank you for the dating information.  His anvil looks like it came to him via a time machine.  Its either hardly been used or expertly repaired.  I'll get a picture of the logo and numbers when I next see my nephew.

Another request for Trenton dating if someone has the Postman book.

My nephew just got a Trenton serial number 217515 on the right side of the foot.  On the left is maybe a 75, maybe Z5.

Thanks.

I would not reuse the oil.  Oil is cheap compared to a scored cylinder from some grit that might make its way out of your sump.

As far as oiling, you pump the handle until you see the first drop or two in the sight windows, then when its running you adjust the needle valves so that you see a drop every 6-10 seconds being pulled in.  Again, oil is cheap and hammers expensive so don't be stingy with the oil.

You do want to grease the bearings, but not too much.  A couples of strokes on the grease pump is all you need.  The manual says every 3 months of use for the grease so you can adjust that to the amount of work you do.

We'll be camping too.  We'll have a black Dodge truck.

I bought that book for my son's 12th birthday and can highly recomend it.  It is very complete and written in a clear concise style that makes learning easy and presents the material in small bites, and in increasing levels of complexity.

Who else is going?  I'll be there with my son.  Look for the old guy with a beard.  That'll be me.

My blower handle is a cheap Chinese file handle that I drilled through.  No wonder everything I make looks Iike crap.  I need a brass blower handle.

I forget what that job was called.  My son did a report on it when they studied the U.N. children's rights declaration at school.  He found some old pictures of some very dirty 8-10 year olds sitting in front of a conveyor belt of passing coal picking out the rocks.

If you Google for John McClellan tongs you'll find a reprint of an illustrated set of instructions for making tongs.  He suggests starting with 18" of 3/8x3/4.  You can make these without using tongs because you cut the two halves apart after doing all of the shaping so you've always got a cold end to hold onto.

I'm less than a month in my new space and already tools that I've had for 30 years are starting to develop a layer of rust.  I'm right at the base of some hills and water my shop is on the flat spot where the water collects and not more than 30 feet from a year round creek.    Last week I opened the door to see the dies on my new power hammer looking like they'd been hit with a spray nozzle, just from condensation.

Others must live in similar climates so what do you do?  I thought of getting a dehumidifier and running it constantly.  I could install heat and keep it warm enough to avoid some of the condensation.  Right now the space is slab with no insulation and no sheetrock on the inside.

Ideas?

I hope you have a full and rapid recovery.

Great story.  I thought it was going to end with you getting a sweet deal on the swage block.

These aren't so rare that you'd be throwing out something valuable if you used in another project.

Sorry I let so much dust settle on your question.  I have been super busy at work and moving, and also working on design and permitting for construction of some houses so I haven't had much time.

Yes, I would do it again, and given my positive experience and the other people who came forward and were also satisfied buying from the same factory I think the risk of getting nothing after sending your money is very, very low, and I have not heard of a DOA hammer either.  This factory seems to deliver equipment that works, but could use some tweaks by the user to really reach 100%.  If you're OK with that and comfortable going ahead without a dealer to help and support you in the future I think this is a good way to go.

With moving into the new place and everything else on the to do list, yesterday was the first time that I got to really use the hammer.  It works well as far as I can tell with nothing to compare it to.  It quickly became obvious that I really will need some time and practice with it.  Sometimes when drawing out some tong handles, I'd hit the sweet spot and get a lot done in one heat and have the nice smooth reduction in size that I was after.  Other times, I'd either get too much power and have a gouge in the work, or just sit there with the ram idling up and down and never making contact while my metal cooled.

I also need to spend some time with a grinder and dress the dies.  They came totally sharp cornered from the factory and I put maybe a 1/8" radius on the edges.  I think about twice that would have been a better choice.

With the 15kg hammer, the power wasn't available to do as much damage with a couple of too forceful blows the way I could with the 25.  I'm glad I didn't give in to the "go bigger" voice talking in my ear and get the 40.  Just for grins, I looked at the electric meter and the idling hammer uses about 2kw.  I expect it would go up during use.

Matto, you may want to call The Crucible in Oakland Ca.  They do a lot of hands on hot work and also have kids participating.  They could probably give you some information about how they handle liability and insurance issues.  They've been operating for about 20 years now.