harrismetalsmith

Beautiful tools Sam, nicely done.

Dave, very nice video. Thanks for sharing your results, I am curious as to the turnout. I had never really considered the muffler to be of importance in the operation of the machine. I always looked at it more as a exhaust pipe. R. Smith, I would love to know the measurements of the 2 B cone if you have them. My muffler has been repaired, and I don't know how close to the original it is. As far as the leather goes, it does make it big difference, especially in the drawing up of the ram. I have layered thinner leather to achieve the right thickness, not ideal but it works.

The spring arm is the same as a Champion, flywheel has zero application for a blacksmith power hammer as shown in the pictures you posted. You need a larger flywheel with a ratio similar to many common trip hammers

That design is simply a smaller version of a Champion power hammer, with some minor differences. The design would work scaled up in size. If forging spring arms for that application i would use a known steel rather than scrap and have a professional heat treat done. Or do an extremely precise heat treat yourself with a temperature controlled forge. There is an entire thread here on Champion hammers

My 2b only hit very hard and had no short stroke when i got it. I had to rebuild the valves. Air slipping around the valves gave it no control. I rebuilt the valves like Bob Bergman shows in his video, by brazing up with silicone bronze. I actually rebuilt mine 3 times. First two times i did nothing to the sleaves. Last time i sent the sleaves out to be cylintricly ground. That made all the difference. After remachining the valves to the freshly ground sleaves it works like it should. I had a german guy in PA do the cylintric grinding. HANNER INDUSTRIES $900 for the 2 sleaves. Hope that helps

Stewart, I've never seen a #2 in action. Always wanted to :-) I would love to get either a #2 Champion, or a 150 lb. Bradley, upright, or compact.

FYI, per an original Champion catalog that hammer set up with the motor, was called a Champion #1E, the line shaft model was ordered as a Champion #1

Yes, my #1 came as a Electric drive with the motor mount on the bottom. I converted it to an overhead drive because I feel the clutch works better for production work. I would be willing to sell the motor mount and the proper size pulley that cam with it for the top. Send me a PM. I have to bottom motor mount original pulley mounted off the back of the hammer. I'll have to hunt, but I believe I have the original bottom pulley that came off the motor. If you do set your's up this way you will more than likely have to get a 1150 rpm motor to get the speed right. they are tough to find

Hey! I was wondering if you who mix graphite in with paint, could share your recipes. Is it a formula or a dab al do ya? Also have any of you used a hvlp spray setup to apply it? I have read that some of you rub it down to reveal the graphite. Any favorite type of cloth for that? Do you clear coat after painting to "lock" in the graphite? Really appreciate any tips! Thanks Matt

Did you spray the graphite mix paint with a hvlp spray gun?I have a gate I'm finishing that I want to use that mix with, and I want to spray it with our shop spray setup. Thanks

Congratulations! That's awesome news. I just found out a month ago, that a sculpture I was proposing for college did not go through. That is an impressive piece. Nice big stock sizes.

Larry here is a picture of a copy my boss gave me of the Nazel 2B foundation plan. My foundation is actually bigger than this. When we dug down the hole kept back filling because of the furnace slag, so my foundation is 6 ft. Deep, and 8 by 8 footprint. My shop is located at a historic iron furnace. I just raised the hammer and put it on oak timbers because it was to low. Historicly they set these hammers lower as shown. Sorry I don't have a 4b blueprint. Multiply by 2???? Lol

I think that is a solid idea. I just raised up my 2B, for a couple different reasons, and I put it on oak timbers so I wouldn't have to pull the hammer off the anvil, to mount it to the steel plate. The oak timbers were a really cost effective way to mount the hammer. As far as height goes that is definitely a personal preference. I'm 6'4" and my anvil on the 2B is 36", that feels very comfortable to me. The lower the anvil the more safe I feel. A quick look through the Nazel catalog shows the anvil getting lower the bigger the machine. I think it was this way for safety of something kicking off the die. The lower it is the further away from the vitals the workpiece is. Filling in with gravel will make a comfortable work area on your back. The only downfall I could see is if you have any thing like a cart or forge on wheels it will be a pain to move over this. My entire shop floor is concrete bricks laid over a base of sand. It does not lend itself well to fabricating right off the floor, but I love it in the forge area. It is very forgiving on the back and I can still roll stuff around. I have carts, my forges, and my hydraulic press all on wheels, to move around for flexibility at different power hammers and the 2 forging stations. The bricks work well. When I put them down, I filled in the cracks with a mix of mortar and sand to give the bricks a flexible mortar lock.

I think mounting the hammer on a plate is the way to go. If I had a chance to mount my 2B again I would definitely go with the plate type setup. I like it for several reasons. 1. Like Larry, I don't own my own building and I know I will move eventualy, be it 5 or 20 years from now I like the idea of being able to move the machine all set up ready to go. 2. You have to put money in the foundation in one form or another, why not put some of the money into something you keep? 3. With this type of setup, you could move the hammer around inside the shop if needed. Granted your not going to shove it from corner to corner, but with the machine bolted down to the concrete pad there is no way to move it. I am very fussy with efficiency and ergonomics in my forging setups, so even the ability to tweak the hammer angle a few inches would be nice. Having said all this, I don't think setting any hammer on a regular concrete pad is a good idea. Even with the steel plate I think the area the hammer is going to set should be 12" to 24" thick. My ideal setup , would be to build a shop where the entire forging area is about 18" thick. I took one of my champion trip hammers and mounted it on a plate. It is really nice to have the ability to tweak the location of the machine.

:D I have always wanted an original copy of the Nazel Hammer Book. Well today my old boss gave me one. It is a fantastic piece of early forging literature. No, it is not for sale. The graphic on the cover was embossed. Shows you that in 1927 a catalog was a companies face not a web site.

I do it a similar way. I use electricians pull line, and bend over a full size chalk drawing. I start at the end of the scroll and work my way back to a center mark and then measure the other side. But I hold the end back for whatever portion that I think the material will elongate for the taper on the end. Not very scientific but after allot of practice it works well. Sometimes taking a few more minutes in the layout saves allot of frustration in the process. If it saves mistakes it is not necessarily the the long way. The electrician pull line is a braided nylon string. It is springy and will hold a curved line for about 6" as you travel along. Its easier than wire because of the spring in it.!

Grant, with induction, how many pieces do you think could be done per hour? Jack hammer bits.

With pointing them under the hammer, the final point is done totally by forging. There is no need for a grinder if the smith is experienced enough. The exception is the wide blade points. That is why the hammer is the most effective, because it eliminates the clean up step.

If its that volume, it will be worth it then. Hope you get it worked out.

Man I'm thinking you have to get at least $4 a bit to make it work. I run a two man shop, my dad is my only employee. We need to get $60 an hour. Even with an induction forge, you would be cruising to get one done in 4 min. with tempering included. I'm assuming tempering is included. If not the $1.5 may work but that sounds awfully low. You have to be fair to yourself and them. I've never done runs on breaker bits, but I still do runs on dressing mason hammers. Upsetting the faces, drawing out the pein, grinding, and heat treating. I'm doing good to do 2 hammers an hour. At $30 for a redress, that work is disapearing quickly. On the other hand, I think what you are talking about with a bigger company, with bigger overhead, looking to reduce their overhead, is going to help small 2 to 4 man shops like mine and yours, in the long run. Like John N. said take into account the wear on your hammer as well. My 2B Nazel ram dovetail was out of square with the ram by about a 1/8" on the short way, probably from years of work like this where the impact stress is more on one side of the die. Might want to plan on 4 runs that are 2 hours long with a 30 min. rest for the hammer and your son. Just thinkin' out loud. I'm hoping to make it to Philly on friday, to look at those dies, and pick up some other stuff.

Monster, we did a lot of sharpening work at the industrial forge I worked at in Philadelphia. I don't remember exactly what they charged for Jack hammer bits. My old boss called me and he is selling some old dies for the 3b hammer. I looked at them the other day and I bought a pair I'm converting to fit my 2b. I'm going back up to get a pair for Dave Hammer. I think I remember seeing some pointing dies. He wanted $100 a die. If you want the pointing dies I could get one for you. Probably cost another $50 or $60 to ship it. Let me know if you want it. I think I remember one.

Just finished re setting this puppy this afternoon. The bottom die is now at a comfortable height, and I have gained a full 3" of stroke with the new properly sized upper die. Excited to run it with the new setup.

Ron, I am in the process of raising my anvil and hammer height. So when I pulled up the anvil i shot these photos for you. The base measures 36" by 17 1/2". The baseplate is about 2 1/2" on the end and tapers up to 4" thick as it becomes the main post. The main anvil is a 17 1/2" octagon, The one photo shows the height to the bottom of the dovetail. All of the blocking in these photos is only temporary as we raise the hammer. I am using oak for all of the permanent blocking. These last photos are of an extra sow block I have. It is not good for the regular sow block because the dovetails are not 90 degrees to one another, but it may be good to use to weld into your anvil to create a dovetail for your sow block to connect into. If you want it you can have it, just pay the shipping, it is heavy. If I had to do it all over I would have mounted the hammer and anvil to a 3" baseplate like the guy posted on my Nazel die height post. You could do this and use that large baseplate as the base to weld your anvil to. The more mass the merrier! Just a thought. Sorry your anvil was stolen. Matt

Nice way of jigging that. Thank you for sharing the picture and idea.

I now have a properly sized top die, and I'm almost finished with the bottom die. My old boss from Philadelphia came through with some good die steel. So I am fitting them up to the machine. Does anyone have any good tricks for machining keys? Templating the trapezoid cross section? I measure with a caliper and lay it out on a blued piece of steel, but I'm open to other ideas.