Hi ladies and gentlemen, did any of you order the plan for the Rusty power hammer lately, I have send a couple E-mail in the past 2 week and I did not have any response. I just want to know if they are still available. and which one you guys would recommend, Rusty, Super Rusty or Dusty. I'm just and amateur and I want to build one before I retired. Thanks:::rolleyes:

I've heard similar complaints by guys trying to contact them.

Frosty

I'll forward this info to one of the fellows that helps maintain the Rusty site, and see if that helps. I'm sure there is a good reason why they don't respond.

edit: I sent an email to the man behind the scenes, if I don't hear back from him, I'll see what I can find out this weekend at our conference. Someone there will know what's up about this.

Edited April 29, 200917 yr by keykeeper

I was in a rusty building class and would advise going to a tire hammer personally.

Per the webmaster:

As far as contacting them about plans, best bet is to call the number in the contact/ordering info or just send a check to the address listed and Jerry will send the plans out. Sometimes the email to that address doesn't get checked regularly, so that may be the best course to take.

Thomas, why would you go with the tire hammer instead of rusty style, did you tried both. which one has less trouble to keep maintenance.

All powerhammers want to tear themselves apart.
All moving bits wear/flex fatigue in *anything*

The tire hammer has a better foot print and less "flapping stuff".

The Rusty is a true JYH in that you look around to see what you have and build it from that. As such it's better than no powerhammer by a bunch.

The tirehammer is a bit more optimized in my opinion and so a bit pickier to build but less to go wrong and easier to maintain.

Personally I ended up buying a working commercial powerhammer for less than the cost of building one, ($700 for a 30# Champion in working condition)

Took about 2 weeks to get a response from Jerry. Then about 2 weeks to get the plans. Many months later they are still on my drawing board.
Ken

I got the drawings for Rusty in about 3 weeks. I don't think they are worth what they cost but the drawings and rough measurements gave me something to start with. Suggestions from Jeff Reinhart, (PTree) helped a lot. There is a video of my hammer running in the gallery. I used a drive wheel setup instead of a belt drive and enjoy the control. The hammer weight with the die is 32 lbs, hitting around 175 hits a minute-- maybe a little more. No accurate count yet. After getting things adjusted it runs great. By the way--with scrounging and bartering I spent less than $100 getting it built and running.

Edited May 1, 200917 yr by JerryCarroll
left out cost

I built first from Rusty plans, but modified, and also don't think the plans were a good value for the cost. That said I did get a working hammer, for less the $50.00
I later modified and increased the ram weight and changed to a tire clutch. My hammer now has great control, hits hard, cost little, and has less moving parts in my facial/chest area than any of the mechanicals. I did put on a hood to cover the moving spring.

If you build any mechanical hammer, the safety guard to protect you from flying spring etc parts is critical.

I built mine from the picture....and modified as ptree said. All said and done, it is worth the money, mine was around $400 with buying most of the pieces.

I would buy a NEW leaf spring like I did, and next on the agenda for me is building the guards as ptree also said.

Mine is a 20lb head, not the biggest, but it works and saves time.

While I agree that Jerry's plans are not spectactular, the time he spent with me on the phone was invaluable. I also changed/improved a lot of the systems, but Jerry's verbal giudence, and written plans put me ahead of the game and in my opinion was money very well spent.

Hi Guys, I was away for the last 5 days , thanks for all the infos, I"ll wait for a while and make a decision later.