Justin Topp

A worn out gear pump was my issue. It barely trickles when I spin it using my drill in a bucket of water. I found another gear pump and with the same drill in the bucket of water it shot tons of water out. Should be easy enough to fix 

The saw is running the correct direction. So the gear pump should be too. 
 

Haha I think I’ll keep it. I paid 300 a few months back and it’s far outperforming my 4x6 bandsaw 

Supposedly gear pumps doesn’t need to be primed. But I also tried that to no avail. I may have to buy a separate pump but it would be cool to keep the original. Maybe I’ll see about getting some other belt driven pump and hook it up 

I have a Racine 14” power hacksaw and I attempted to connect the coolant but there’s no flow. Pump is clean and in good conditions and lines are clear. I’m trying to use water for testing and the pump is a gear pump. Does it need to be oil? Cutting fluid isn’t that much thicker than water though 

Lots of work in progress tools 

I like branches for top tools. Minimal work and it makes a useable handle. If it breaks I just go find another branch. 

Haha I like that dogs head hammer 

I purchase my ash and hickory normally but I may start splitting ash for use myself. It’s abundant and there’s tons of dead straight grained ash around. 
 

also it’s hammer time!

Looks like I’m going to have to forge a cats head hammer. The one I mentioned that I ordered got lost in shipping. 3 day shipping and it finally arrived after 12 days. Problem is they gave me an empty box with a sticker that says they lost the contents. :/ 

 should be a fun experiment to make one at least 

Thanks!

I prefer it for a few reasons. It’s a little springier so it seems less prone to shattering and seems to transmit less vibration into your hand. 
 

Hickory is available but ash is about half the price of hickory. It’s very plentiful around here so I can also harvest myself. 
 

It’s a bit softer and much easier to shape in my experience. 
 

However,  it’s not nearly as pretty as hickory is normally I think. 

Handle making practice recently. Not my favorite but it’s important. Meaning I restored some vintage hammers and re hung them. And some old hammers I’ve made that got rusty and now are back to former glory. There’s the 4 I showed last and 4 ones since those first ones. Handles are all ash because I’ve realized I like it over hickory. 

Thank you. I have not yet. I squared up a billet on it though. Still learning power hammer control and making tooling. Using it primarily for tongs currently 

thank you! Still learning lots on the process!
Going to try using the power hammer on one soon 

It’s been pretty cold recently. Got down to -26 last week. Average was around -16 or so. Yesterday it was 17 and today it got to a sweltering 36 degrees. 

Did some stuff today...

Thank you CGL!

A quick swage for making lathe chisels. I have also purchased a cats head hammer for 45$ To experiment with. They’ve interested me for quite a while now 

Awesome thank you. Very nice hammer!

Collected the parts and did the finish machining myself. Very close to finishing the real cam and the hammer. Milled a keyway into the shaft. And turned everything else to size on the lathe. Tolerances are +/- 0.003”. Should work out pretty good I think. 

Yes I have built it. it works great. I did change a few things on it though. Mine came out at 53 lb ram weight. 
 

There is 10” or so of adjustment. So you can raise the head via two top links to any hight you need to hammer square. 
 

The final “cam” from the video is just about done. Just need to weld it. But I got impatient. 

Yes my forge is bottom blast. My forge is about 4” deep. Coal was about 3/4” round. 

Thanks! 

a flywheel wouldn’t hurt. I may add one eventually 

Started working on this rose at school today 

It’s just a hobby for now but you never know! 
Yes I make everything myself. My hammer eye drift was forged from 1.25” round 4140 using a 2.5 lb hammer haha that took a while. Power hammer should help out. But I mainly plan on using it for repetitive tasks. Not on everything I make. 

Power hammer is finished mostly. So hammered out a few things.

Some scrolling tong blanks in 4 heats. From 3/4” square stock. And some small pickup tongs that didn’t come out so well from 9” of 5/8 rebar. Each half done in about 7 heats.

It’ll Be a big learning curve to use this hammer but should work pretty good as I figure it out. 

On 1/26/2021 at 11:51 AM, ThomasPowers said:

I hope you plan to speed it up in the future.

It’s finished for the most part. Sped up very nicely with the motor added. 
 

Got impatient with it and added a temporary cam. Hits pretty good. Here’s one heat on 1.625” round 4140

 I wish I had rods to help haha. Although my power hammer is nearly finished! Photos on my post in the power hammer section. I’ll link it if anyone wants. 
 

2-3 hours for <3 lb hammers. 4ish for >3lb 

heat treatment and grinding is another 30 minutes. Handle is another hour