ptree

Praying

FieryFurnace, I drive up on Thursday from Floyds Knobs Indiana. I will probably have a spare seat. I come back leaving Sunday about lunch or a little later. If interested e-mail me.

Glenn, You family is in my prayers and thoughts. Jeff

Larry, I don't have anything to offer that will help. The tragic loss of a child in this manner is devastating. I know as that is how my son left us. Prayers are going up.

Friends make joy doubled, and heartbreak halved. Thanks all.

My Oldest Son Greg, 23 years passed away yesterday. All prayers welcomed. Thanks Jeff

I would offer that the first hammer in the US would mostly be called a Trip hammer or a helve hammer. The big drop hammer show by Macbruce would be a rope drop hammer. Other types of drop hammers would board drop air drop steam drop and the one of a king Mule drop hammer. I have worked with Erie Steam drop hammers used for closed die work. We had the old remains of the Mule drop hammer in the boiler shop.

For the best price on Barnes log splitter type pumps in several sizes, bell housings to adapt to motors and engines couplings and lots of other useful goodies, may I commend Bailey Sales in Knoxville TN. The phone is 1-800-800-1810 and the have a website.

In my experience in comercial forge shops much of what has been said above does apply. The things that arn't said is that a big comercial forge shop is a hellish place for any machinery. There is a huge amount of abrasive dust from rust and scale. Lots of vibration, if fuel burning forges,combustion gasses that rust stuff. 3 shift a day, in a low margin business and so maintenance is deffered. Many of these machines if not most have no available new parts. So when it breaks the local millwrights go in high gear, and welders and grinders are the first tools. Lubrication is total loss on most of these machines and so when a press or upsetter eats 250 gallons a week of $3.00 a gallon gear oil, and it all runs down the machine into a water filled pit under, you have to dispose of 350 gallons a week of water/oil scale dead rats and cigarette butts etc at another $1.00 per gallon. So folks try and skimp on the oils, buy cheaper oils, recyle the oils poorly etc. Face it folks, a forge shop eats machines. Most of the hammers start breaking as soon as you start them up. So they were built stout, simple and if you use lots of the right oil, do the wear maintenance you can make acceptable parts all day long. You WILL have to do heavy maintenance. And it will be expensive maintenance. In a home shop, they hours are much smaller, the care sometimes better.

Baling wire and duct tape together, Back in the 1960's my Dad was one of the Kentucky Flying Service "recovery Crew" who went and recovered broken, crashed and UNPAID for airplanes. To the baling wire and duct tape add boom handles to the list. A Piper J-3 Cub had landed in a pasture after running out of gas. It was almost stopped when one of the main wheels went into a hole and broke part of that sides gear structure off. While it was laying there one wing tip on the ground, a small boy decided to walk up the wing, and placed a hole in the fabric between every single rib. Dad arrived in the infamous 63 Chevy pickup, and from the back came a case of 200 mile an hour tape. That is the nice brown green ARMY duct tape 6" wide. The wing fabric was restored with duct tape. The wing was picked up by yours truley, and a couple of broom sticks, lots of baling wire and more duct tape got the wheel in the right place. 5 gallons of gas, a quick twist of the prop and the 65Hp 4 banger was barking sweetly. Dad Gave it full power, with me holding the wing up on the bad side and I ran till I could not keep up. He had the rudder and aeleron over hard and had the wheel off the ground and flew it out. When he landed, He landed in the grass right in front of the ramp, and taxi'ed in with that wheel not touching. When it was where he wanted it, he chopped power and as the wheel touched it slowely sagged till the wing was almost touching. MUCH cheaper to fix in the hanger instead of disassembling and trailoring it back When we were re-possessing unpaid for aircraft, my small size made me handy to slip in thru baggage doors. Seems almost all of the aircraft, even the million dollar ones had the same $0.79 cabinet lock on the baggage doors:)Balling wire and duct tape was often used to hold the seat backs in place where I had pushed thru. Once I was in, I checked that the Mags were off, and exited as I unlocked, and walked back to the airplane that had brought us and waited. They did not want an 8 to 12 year old around if the owner showed up mad:) Later when I was 16, and about 5'5" and 175 and all upper body, I was often flown to Piper Azetec twins that had a burned up starter. KFS ran 8 of those and one would eat a starter every couple of weeks. (they were getting 100 hours a week per plane) Being short and stout, I could UP-PROP those 520 cubic inch air cooled 8 cylinders. Most folks could not as the prop center was too low to the ground to prop like a regular engine. So I got to fly there in an Aztec, getting instruction for free, we gave the good airplane to the pilot with the passengers, and we took the dead engine bird. I would prop it, and we would fly home me getting more flight time. I had 200 hours of flight instruction in Twins, before I solo'ed on my 16 birthday. It was worth it to fly me there trade planes and then fix the airplane at its home base.

Right out of The Army I went to Technology School, and while there co-op'ed and then went full time with Westinghouse Air Brake Co Fluid Power div in the test lab. Got to spend about 2 years breaking stuff:) I found I was rather good at breaking stuff:) Want to learn how to keep stuff in good shape? Spend time breaking it on purpose. I also disassembled alot of returns to do forensic determination of failure mode. The number one advice I can give to make pnuematic items last longer is never ever put Marvel Mystery oil in, on or near the items. That stuff EATS seals, causing them to swell bigtime.

Most hydraulic cylinders made for industrial pressures say 3000psi rating will have iron rings to seal the piston, much like a gasoline engine, and will first have a lot of blow by, and second, unless very well lubed will score the barrel. The cheaper IE AG cylinders are often cup seals and somewhat useable on air but will be stiff, and have a lot of mass in the rod and piston. That may be good, but probably no biggee. Last the cheaper ag cylinders will not have end of stroke cushions and in an air cylinder, the cushions are your last defense to pushing the head or cap off in a high speed end of stroke mishap. So if you lube the air very well, never let the cylinder run at speed to end of stroke, have lots of air compressor capacity, then a hydraulic cylinder should work. NOTE: There is a class of cylinders, usually NFPA style that are rated 250psi air/500psi hydraulic. These are the Rolls Royce of air cylinders and are very expensive, but often found on used industrial equipment. These will have square block heads and caps and tie rods. These are also VERY rebuildable as long as the barrel and rod are not scored. a FEW CYLINDER TIDBITS: The steel barrels on both hydraulic and pnuematic cylinders are almost always plain drawn over mandrel steel tube, id ground and not plated. The pistons on almost all air cylinders have wear rings that help keep the piston from scouring the barrel when the rod is side loaded. Pnuematic cylinders are factory lubed, start the airline lube, wash out the factory lube and fail to continue lubing well and the cylinder will trash itself. Piston rods on all but the cheapest disposable cylinders are known as Induction Hardened Chrome plated. The hardening is a "Case and Core" with hardeness reducing as you get towards the center of the rod diameter. The plating is hard chrome, and finish ground to the ideal oil holding finish of 16 to 25 microinch. To machine in a lathe, go in from the end with a carbide tool and set the cut to go under the chrome and pop if off, then the rod can be threaded etc. To cut use an abrasive chop saw. If you weld to the plate you will both create Hexavalent chrome in the arc, a carcinogen and a skin irriantant but the weld will be very weak. The tie rods are a material called Stress Proof in the industry. ALLWAYS roll threaded, so you can't really shorten and recut threads unless you have roll threading capability. This material does not weld well. Pistons on Hydraulic cylinders are often loctited, lock nuted and drilled for a roll pin thru the nut and rod to prevent the piston unscrewing. Note that the piston is usually LEFT hand threaded o the rod, with a smaller RIGHT hand thread on the jamb nut. I have seen many returned cylinders that the piston came off and the rod squirted out. Usually when someone disassembled and did not replace the roll pin use a nuw nut and did not re loctite. Probably the best all around airline lubrication oil is a light spindle oil, or if not buying oil by the drum, ATF. The best lubricators are hands down the Parker Micro-Mist style. Tired of breathing oil from the exhaust? First take a clean white paper and hold where the exhaust blows on it and cycle say 5 strokes. You should ideally see a little shotgun pattern of almost invisible dots of oil. Nothing as big as even 1/32". Adjust to that standard and check from time to time. Want really clean air? buy any brand of LARGE, say 2 port sizes bigger air line filter and plumb the exhaust into the filter, and put a muffler in the out port. Most of the oil will end up in the filter bowl and the exhaust note of the equipment will be delightfully lessened. ptree the old industrial R&D guy who tested cylinders for a leading maker back in the late 70's and then designed and maintained hydrauilc/pnuematic equipment for the next 24 years.

My involvement with those big hammers was I was the supervisor of the pipefitters who ran the staem lines, and the powerhouse that made the steam to run them. Did a lot of quality troubleshooting in the forge shop in another position there. I worked for Henry Vogt Machine co for 17 years, followed by 4 more with a follow on that bought the valve and fitting division. In my early days there I was also the tourguide for customer groups, and was encourgaged to learn everything I could so as to be able to accuratly answer questions. Since we had a 43 acre compound of shops that ran from heavy machining to high production machining, to huge utility boiler manufacture as well as Ice making equipment. I got to sastify my techno-freak every day for 21 years. And yes every single tour produced a question that was new, and so I would run down the answer, and communicate that to the customer, usually before they left. Made them feel good about how we cared, and I got to learn new stuff every day. That was a once in a lifetime, in the right place at the right time, wonderful job to have and I miss it every day.

At the Henry Vogt Machine Co, All of our hammers were steam, closed die Eries. Smallest was 1500# biggest was 25,000#. 28 hammers total if I recall correctly. All ran on 145# steam. When the 25,000# broke the anvil, it was removed from service and we quit making the biggest forgings. When the anvil was pulled, it was amazingly tall and massive, and it was the anvil not the base or subplate! The 15,000# and 10,000# as well as a slew of 7500# and 5000# all worked on till about 1995 when the conversion to all presses was made. They had a 7000 ton, 5000# and a slew of 2300 and 1600 ton mechanicals, all closed die. Over in the boiler shop we had a 1300 ton water hydraulic open die press, used for making domed heads and for straightening structuals such as 24" wide beam and 36" I-beam. Came to crooked to use from the mill, so we straightened in the big press. When the structuals became too long to handle as we went to bigger modules, I had a 1000 tom portable straightening press made up. Moved the press down the lenght of the structual rather than moveing the structual under the press. Steam condensate is very hard on everthing if live steam is cycled onto it. Because the water is nearly incompressable things tend to break, seals burst, pipes rupture and generally everybody has a really bad rotten horrible day. That is one of the reasons steam hammer tup even when not actually forging. The steam is going to be evaporated by the steam generator and has to go somewhere, it might as well flow thru the piping valving and keep everything hot and dry. We would open a little 1" bypass on the 8" steam main to allow the condensate to be blow out and the entire header piping to warm, usually opening the bypass about an hour before shift. When the shift workers arrived on Monday morning that hour had warmed up the piping and condensate lines from the powerhouse and back, and all through the forge shop. Then the hammer drains were opens, and once dry steam was seen, the hammer would be started to tup just a little, and the tup stroke increased until normal. The forges would have been filled an hour eary and would about ready once the hammers were. Steam is an unforgiving whitch. Can do powerful magic, but if not handled correctly a curse will fall upon the shop, and things get badly wrong and people hurt or killed.

Glenn and Family, I am so sorry for your loss. Words leave me. Jeff and Family

By the way, here is the folded down ready to tow photo.

I built a "fold-A-Forge from an old Datsun bed. Has built in forge, a tool box external to the bed and a quick mount for the post drill. The vise is also outside the bed. The covered bed has the tables and so forth. Mine is about 5' wide, and about 10' long. I am always given adaquate room, as I demand space to safely operate. I never pay fees and sometimes get gas money if a longer than say 20 mile drive. They advertise a blacksmith and that is a draw to their event. Mine won the do it at home contest for a forge at the IBA Tipton hammer-in. I have used it for about 5 years now, and find it quite handy. I am scheming a new version and it will be a mini gooseneck trailer. Photos is attached. By the way, as a pretty good scrounger, the trailer, painted and with brand new tires cost $43 total:)

Since that feed gear appears to be a worm and gear wheel I would definetly use a gear oil. You have sliding and extreme pressure in worm drives and that is why gear box oils are rated by the AGMA American Gear Manufacturers Assoc. These are rated by various schemes but good old 80-90 gear oil would sure be a good start.

I DO fume, dust and vapor exhaust as a factory safety guy. Here are a few tidbits to help. 1. Fume is smoke, ie welding smoke. This is microspocis sized metal droplets that freeze and then are so small they can float. These are dangerous to the lungs, as they get by the bodies natural defenses. 2. Vapor will go right thru most dust and fume filters. Vapor is evaporated liquids such as paint solvent. 3. HEPA filters are rated to protect the lungs from stuff too small to see, and those are the particles that harm you. Most of the bigger dust that you can see hit the ground and never get inhaled. In asbestos, the fibers that get into the lungs and cause the grief are about 1 micrometer by 4 micrometers in size. We can't see things below about 40 micrometers. 4. A furnace filter if of the pleated type is better than nothing, but just barely. 5. Most furnace filters and woodworking dust colletctors are a fire waiting to happen in a metal shop as the filter media is not spark rated. 6. Most grinding dust collectors are of the "Roto-clone" variety and draw the air in and down into a water bath. The air is coming down and has to make a hard 180 degree turn to rise back up and out of the machine. The dust particles have too much mass and can not make the turn but rather go straight and impact the water. 7. If you plan to work in a closed shop, one that is heated, and not blow all the air out, use point of generation capture. A good but fairly small blower, with a flex duct is placed close to wear the dust is made. You need 100 foot/sec velocity, AT the point of generation by the suction and you will capture the dust,smoke vapor etc.

I upgraded my guided spring helve hammer to a better slide system. I used the 4" square tube inside a 5" square tube somewhat like the tire hammer. I added steel inside the tube, and a 2" thick bottom to get to 60+# and the total ram and dies is at 70#. I ran the hammer today and boy is it nice and smooth. This ram and guide is WAY better than the Rusty style I had before.

Couple of things. I don't know where you live in the US, but Haldex are very premium pumps. I would suggest you give Baily Sales in Knoxville TN a look. They sell Barnes 2 stage pumps for very attractive prices. The two stage pumps are set up to move a big volume of oil at low, say 250 to 500psi to get the cylinder to where you want it. At the set point the big volume-low pressure side opens to short circuit itself drawing little horsepower, and the high pressure-low volume section can use the full horsepower to do work. Grant gave you the Hp vs flow and pressure. Good numbers. Personally if I could find it, I would go with a pressure compensated variable volume pump. Look at a Parker PAVC series. Millions made, not cheap but not premium. Set the desired pressure on the compensator, set the volume stops to not over amp the motor and now you have a "smart" pump. Throw that valve to move the cylinder and the pump strokes to make the max volume of oil, and when the work is reached the pressure starts to rise and the pump destrokes to make the desired pressure and moves only the oil needed to make the pressure even while moving. Return the cylinder and throw the valve to stop and the pump de-strokes to move a minimum of oil to make the set pressure and pulls only about 5% of the rated Hp. Another choice, if you have the Hp to move it is the pumps used on concrete mixer trucks. Same technology, tuff as nails and they move huge amounts of oil. Takes much more Hp than you mention, and these GROWL, but fairly cheap as rebuilts and again TUFF!

When I built mine, having a nice forged steel tee, rated to 2000psi (means nice wall thickness) I just used a sharp punch, drilled with a short small bit to get a good start and then drilled to size. Been using that ABANA pipe forge for at least 10 years. I did the drilling in a small drill press. Nice part about the forged steel fitting besides it having been free from work as scrap, but that forged steel is soooo easy to weld to.

One thing to remember is that every hydraulic spool valve has some internal leakage, and if you add enough spool valves, you will see volume loss. Second, the ratio of cylinder rods is not enough to gain a lot. A simple rule of thumb: every 2" increase in diameter of the cylinder almost doubles the piston area. so a 4" cylinder is 12.56" square a 6" cylinder is 28.26" square a 8" cylinder is 50.24" square a 10" cylinder is 78.5" square So, want more tonnage? add diameter or pressure, or both. so a 4" bore at 1000 psi=12560#(6.28 tons) Go to 5000psi and 62,800# (31.4 ton) But a 6" at 1000=28260 (14.13) and to see the 62,800# would only take 2222 psi. Since the hosing and valves and pumps last much longer at 2000 than at 5000psi, and are much less expensive, go for a bigger cylinder, and a higher volume but lower pressure pump. The motor size needed will be almost exactly the same.

What did it start out as when new? Trencher?