Well guys. I got lazy. I decided that I didn't want to keep stomping the treadle to bring the hammer down. So, after some thought (and, YES, that hurt), I finally figured out a way to motorize the thing. Here are some pix of the final product. It ain't pretty, but that 16 pound hammer really smacks the anvil!!

I hope these posted OK. I'll be firing up the forge, tomorrow, and trying it out. I know that it cycles and hits the anvil hard. I just hope that it works on the hot iron. I hope that I have it set up right. If you hear what sounds like a big crash, you'll know that I'm back at the drawing board. :D

Edited July 21, 200916 yr by CurlyGeorge

Can't wait to see your report. Looks great to me.

Interesting looking, would love to see a video of it opperating if you can but if not it will be nice to hear how it works.

welder19

Classic! Way to go!

Looks like a nice bit of work - Not bad for a "lazy" guy :)

How long ago did you study under Rube Goldberg? He would be so proud of you! Looks good! Interesting little helve hammer.:cool:

Well, my report is not so good, for now. The hammer cycles slow and I can move more metal hand hammering that I did with the motorized version. Stan is comming up, on Saturday. So maybe he will have some ideas on how I can tweek more power out of it. I'll keep you posted. If all else fails, I know that I can go back to treadle power and pound metal hard. :D

As best as I can tell from the pictures, you have a 1750 RPM motor on slightly better than a 2 to 1 drive ratio. That's trying to drive the hammer at something like 700 or 800 beats per minute. It pretty much can't be done, you're either stalling out the motor or slipping the belt or some combination of both.

Once you get a proper ratio (I'd go for about 120 to maybe 150 TOPS) you'll need to make sure that the idler pulley is on the slack side of the belt. The motor "pulls" one side of the belt tight, putting all the slack on the other. If the idler is on the tight side of the belt, when the belt tightens it pushes the idler away requiring you to press harder on the treadle. I've seen a lot of hammers set up wrong and run 100 times better just by reversing the motor.

Next, you'll need to introduce some elasticity in your drive. If you look at any mechanical hammer ever made you'll see springs in the system somewhere. Click on this link:
YouTube - The Original Junk Yard Hammer

This is a hammer I built many years ago. Look at the springs on the drive. They give it "whip" and allows for different thicknesses of material. I'm not particularly reccomending that setup for your hammer, just showing the principles. There are hundreds of ways to do it.

For all that, I reckon Heath Robinson would have loved it! :D

Thanks Grant. I watched your video a few nights back. That's some engineering!! I have a spring inside the pipe, connected right under the hammer handle, on the drive connection. That spring compresses and allows for different thicknesses of metal. But I think that you are right about the pulley ratio. Stan's comming up, tomorrow, and we're going to go over that. Thanks for the advice. I was hoping that someone with build experience could look at it and see something wrong. That sure gives me a place to start. I'll let you know what we come up with.