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Appalachian Power hammer build...


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This is as far as I am on my APH, takes a lot of time to fit everything, and with all the heavy stock my HF saw is working overtime. The head weight is 19lbs right now, and I could load the shaft if needed.

Sorry for the poor picture quality, kind of a long day....

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Got the linkages worked out enough to rotate it today. Need to make the belt idler/foot pedal. Need to finish up some grinding, then disassemble for paint, and anchor to the floor. Not totally committed on the color yet but leaning toward Massey Ferguson Red.

Everything seems stout enough so far, keeping my fingers crossed.

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I'm impressed! The plans, or should I say rough and parse drawings I got, are severly lacking. Might you consider posting your plans and materials? I don't have the time to build anything very complex and seriously need one. I've considered purchasing something but the cost is a barrier for the moment. Your build is both cost effective and doable.

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Plans? What are plans? We don't need no stinkin Plans... :)

I didn't have a set of plans, and didn't write any down, I built it as I went, and made things to fit. I did do some online research on the beats per minute, and leaf springs, but that is about it. The best I could provide is some 3rd grade sketches, and there is already a set of them out there. I did see one set of plans all in German and metric, but I didn't like the head design. The majority of it is 1/4" wall tubing, and the rest of the fixtures for it are out of 1/4" plate. I used all grade 8 bolts, as that is what we used in roll cages, and adapted as I went. I am sorry I don't have a set of plans.

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Hi Jeff,
Your power hammer making looks very good. My elbow has been telling me lately I`d better get some kind of mechanical hammer. So after doing some research it seemed appropiate to ask experienced guys about a few details, before I start making my own.
Right up you say:"I could load the shaft if needed." Does that mean you could change to a larger bolted steel block as shown on your pic? And if so, what about the working height, would you adjust that then? I understand the 10 bolts clamping what it seems to be a two-part ram guide, but the portion of the ram guide facing outwards shows two bolts or nuts, is that plate holding some brass or something for friction against the ram? And last, what is that chain gear for located left of the power shaft? Jeff, sorry for asking so many questions, don`t mean to highjack your tech, just have a big tangle of information in my head and need a bit of help to say the least! This would be the FIRST power hammer I ever get to work with, so I`m very excited about rigging up something that`ll work well. For what I can see, your hammer would give about 4-5 stroke/second if the motor turns at 1750 rpm??? Jeff it may sound off the wall but I thought about adding a second pulley on the power shaft, so I could have a slow option for more delicate work. What do you think about this wacky idea? Thanks so much for any input, and any help from other people, will be appreciated too. nelson.

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Hi Jeff,
Your power hammer making looks very good. My elbow has been telling me lately I`d better get some kind of mechanical hammer. So after doing some research it seemed appropiate to ask experienced guys about a few details, before I start making my own.
Right up you say:"I could load the shaft if needed." Does that mean you could change to a larger bolted steel block as shown on your pic? And if so, what about the working height, would you adjust that then? I understand the 10 bolts clamping what it seems to be a two-part ram guide, but the portion of the ram guide facing outwards shows two bolts or nuts, is that plate holding some brass or something for friction against the ram? And last, what is that chain gear for located left of the power shaft? Jeff, sorry for asking so many questions, don`t mean to highjack your tech, just have a big tangle of information in my head and need a bit of help to say the least! This would be the FIRST power hammer I ever get to work with, so I`m very excited about rigging up something that`ll work well. For what I can see, your hammer would give about 4-5 stroke/second if the motor turns at 1750 rpm??? Jeff it may sound off the wall but I thought about adding a second pulley on the power shaft, so I could have a slow option for more delicate work. What do you think about this wacky idea? Thanks so much for any input, and any help from other people, will be appreciated too. nelson.


The head shaft is hollow, and I could fill it with lead shot, or sand if needed.

Those are not bolts on the face of the head guide, those are grease zerks. I shimmed it with one piece of pallet banding for clearance, and added the grease fittings. The bore clearance is whatever banding is? You have to make this part come apart, because with the head welded on one end, and the pivot on the other, once welded you need to be able to take it apart. All of the pivot points in the drive have grease fittings.

The "gear" on the back is what I bolted the "rocking shaft" too, the reason I used it, was it is plenty heavy, had a bore that fit the jackshaft I used, and a keyway. They come in many sizes, I did get one that was overly large, I only offset the drive by 1.5 inches, for 3" of total stroke.

The stepdown in the pulley is 1" drive and 10" driven, giving a 10 to 1, 175 beats per minute. If needed I can up the drive pulley larger, at this point I want to make sure everything does not fly apart, slow careful, for now. You could use a double pulley, but 10 to 1 is about the lowest ratio I found in parts that I could get off E-bay or at Tractor Supply.

I tore it all apart this morning and painted it, I knew if I didn't I would start using it and never paint it, plus the paint makes my welds look better. :)

I plan to let the paint dry most of the week, and re-assemble and work it next weekend. I have worked it on cold metal just making sure it all worked, so far so good.

I know I deviated from the plans that are available on the net, reason being I had to adapt to what materials I had available to me, and so far (fingers crossed) it works. Forgive me for not giving out a full set of plans, I just can't see how this would help. They would start: "Get that piece of heavy square that the Maintenance Dept just threw in the dumpster" and so on. Plus I would never forgive myself if one of my many friends on here were to follow my "plan" and get hurt. Also you notice there are no guards on mine yet, that will be remedied after trials are done.

I don't mind questions, but I hope you understand, some things I wish to keep to myself. And call me selfish, but all my hours of trial and error, figuring things out etc amount to a good deal of ground work. I can't tell you how many times I "ran out of engineering" and had to sleep on it, or change the design. Anyone who wants to come to East TN on a Saturday after trials are done are more than welcome, bring your ruler, and sketch pad.

Next weekend when it is re-assembled, I will run it, test it, take some pictures, and file a full report with pictures. One thing I did notice with the little I did today, if you set the dies touching, the hammer will snub if you stick a piece of 1" flatbar edgeways. But setting 1/4" gap in the dies, it will run, and the spring will allow the head to drop to just about the full bottom of the stroke. This is the "whip" action spoken of in this design.

Thanks for you patience, more information to come.

Total cost for the project is around $500 so far, I bought a new spring, a new motor, some new metal in places that needed it, and the pulleys. And a good quantity of Grade 8 bolts, as I would use no less on a project like this where failure could result in injury.

Sorry for the long ramble, but there are some things I needed to address at this point.
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Jeff,
I was not interested in any plans or specific measurements at all. My interest is more focused on understanding basic principles at work for a reasonably well designed JYH. I have some plans with measurements and enough close ups of many home made power hammers. Since I`ve only had experience with hand hammers, little tips like the ones you give here as other bits collected from other people, are of great help and sure feel confortable enough to make my own. Following exact directions is sort of boring to me, and I prefer to incorporate my own ideas to achieve what best fits my needs, after all is like having to make your own pants, nobody better than you knows where`s too tight and how they feel on you. That "whip action" concept (which I completely ignored up to now) makes so much sense. Namely one could talk about a motor-off stroke and a mottor-on stroke, the latter being longer due to the spring inertia generated at the power source... gee I don`t know if that made sense, but I sure know what you mean. I`m ready to jump into this trial/error thing. Thanks so much Jeff. Nelson.

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Tomorrow is the day, I got the hammer anchored, and reassembled today. It is all greased up and ready to go. I have to return the hammer drill early AM and will be pounding by 9 I hope....

Will file a report tomorrow evening with performance results. I don't have any stock bigger than 1/2" square so that will have to do....

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Had a long day of work on the hammer....

It hits, but not as hard as I wish it would.

I drilled and loaded the head shaft with sand, it now weighs in at 24lbs, versus 19 empty. I was going to load it with lead shot, a 25 lb bag of lead shot is $43 :o, I almost had a stroke. Plus I got to thinking, if I make the head too heavy, the 1/2 hp motor may not cut it, making for a costly redesign, I know I could fill it partially, but thought then it would sound like a martini shaker.

I added straps to the ends of the leaves where they all come together, to make the center 3 act as one, I still think the leaf could be heavier, but too heavy and it will cause the linkage to bind, it has to have some give to it.

I also increased the stroke from 3" to 4" thinking more stroke would make for more velocity at the end to the stroke, hitting harder, seems a little better. Kind of along the lines of dropping 5 pound bag of sand from 6 inches versus 6 feet. I would have to cut the head tube slide off the main mast and reposition it higher to get any more stroke, I could gain about 2" that way, but wonder if the velocity gain would transfer to more power and a harder hit on the downstroke, at least enough to warrant moving it.

The head tube slide was binding a little, so I replaced the flat washer shims with lock washers, so that slides freely.

Also I am using a set of 4" square, flat dies, I may need to make one half into a drawing die, as this is mainly what I built it for.

Bottom line, in 2 heats, I can reduce a piece of 1/2" square stock, 2 inches long by about a third. Like I said I expected more. I know most use a larger diameter for "testing" but it is all I have.

Will sleep on it, and see where it goes from here. Other than power, it performs well, no binding on any part of the stroke, and pretty good speed control with the pedal linkage, after I added a long spring to it.

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4" square flat dies, that is way too much surface area especially for a head weight that small. The hammer would probably double it's efficiency if you put a set of dies 1 1/2 square by 3 inch long on it it would really move some metal, atleast as much as it could with the hollow anvil and hollow ram.


They aint hollow no more....;)

Are the ones on your power hammer solid Sam?

General consensus in chat last night is the die surface area is too big, which makes sense, the more square inches, the less pound per square inch of pressure for pounding. Back to the drawing board, will be re-doing dies today. Edited by unkle spike
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Die redo is done, reduced them to 2" X 4", and made it into a set of "combination" dies, with a fullering side about 3/4" wide, I may reduce this some more to see what it does.

I also increased the total stroke to 6" giving it more momentum.

On a piece of 1/2" square A36, it will reduce a 3" length to between 1/4" and 5/16" in one heat, with the end result being a nice flat finished piece with no fullering marks in it.

Although I built this hammer, I have to say I had a great deal of help from the people here on Iforgeiron, bouncing ideas off people and getting there suggestions and solutions in Chat has been invaluable. The list of people is to great to mention, and I would fear forgetting someone. Thank you all for your help and encouragement.

I may try doing a short video of it in action to post here, stay tuned.

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