Well, I have started scrounging up the parts to build a power hammer. I got a piece of 4 1/4 inch square tubing for the mast. Now I have located two round cut outs that measure 17 1/2 inch diameter by 1 3/4 inch thick. I'm going to cut a flat side on each one and weld them together, all the way around. Each piece weighs..........A BUNCH!!! so I should end up with a fairly substantial base plate to build up from. As I find more parts and start to build, I'll post more pix. This is almost fun!! LOL.
Base For Tire Hammer - Blacksmith Photo Gallery

I have been toying with the idea of building a JY hammer. I haven't gotten around to it. Will be looking forward to your updates on the project. What did those plates come off of? Keep hammerin on :)

Edited September 29, 200916 yr by sorefingers
adding question

Sorefingers, those plates are industrial cut outs. Not sure what they are from. I have found some more parts. But the pix won't upload to my gallery. I got a 4X4 tubing about 6 ft tall for the mast, and I found two pieces of round stock for the tire drive. One is 2 1/2 inch diameter aluminum and the other is 2 inch diameter steel. Not sure which one would work best. I have a one horse motor to drive the tire. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. :D

I am not 100% sure george once i built a direct drive scooter with a solid rubber tire and i used a knurled steel piece and i did not harden it and the knurling wore off within a month of so.

I would imagine steel would be the best option possibly case hardened if possible I dont think aluminum would be the best choice but hopefully someone who has built a tire hammer can tell you.

are you going to machine the shaft to fit the shaft on the motor?

if machining it isnt possible you may find that you can buy hub that fits your motor and weld it on to the hub obviously your going to have to be pretty careful as to keep it running true,

how many rpm is your motor? you will need to have an idea from someone who has built one on what you will need

I have a friend that is a machinist. I plan on taking it over and having him put the shaft hole in it for me. Several of the tire hammer pix, on the the forum, show what looks to be an aluminum drive. I'm just not sure which size would be better.

Curly, I have a 1 1/2 3500 rpm motor with a drive wheel made from oak on my hammer. I got a hub from our local farm store to fit the shaft with threaded holes for bolting the wheel on. I got the idea of using the oak from an old line shaft drive in a shop in Southern Il. It's been working great for a couple of years now. There is a short video in the gallery of the hammer running.

HI RE the drive hub. i used a piece of alu billet 3 inch dia.i think i will wear out before the hub.knurling the hub is not necessary.

REGARDS TO ALL DANIEL TASMANIA.

DANIEL HERE AGAIN.

should have mentioned that i had a lot of mucking about to stoping tire hammer walking about the floor.even with the base and anvil weighing 900lb . the weight of lead on the tire rim ended up 11.5 lbs to stop it walking.hope this may help builders DANIEL TASMANIA.

Daniel,

On counterweight setup,did you put it all in in one weight opposite the hammer or divide it in two and place each about a third of the way around the wheel?
Just wondering if dividing the counter weight in two might help performance.

HI, i welded a piece of 1/8 plate to the inside rim.to make a small internal quadrant oposite the crank throw , i then kept topping up the formed recess with lead till it stopped walking about. a bit of Heath Robinson method but after all i am Scottish.

used the hammer through the week to make up some damascus.

After the hammering i put the billet through the rolling mill and it turned out great.


I think the hammer is well worth building.


Daniel TASMANIA.

Determine the target blows per minute (BPM) first and assume that you'll use a 1725 RPM motor. Then you can work out the circumference of the drive pully and tire. I bought a 21" (inflated) dia 4 lug tire at Harbor Freight and then machined a hub with a keyway. A 5 lug bolt pattern will be a much harder to fab. My drive wheel is 3.5" AL with the inside bored out to reduce weight and runout. This gave me a 6 to 1 ratio. Take the 1725 motor rpm divided by the 6.0 ratio and you get a 287 BPM. My thoughts on BPM is that slow is better because it gives enough time between blows to rotate the stock and move in and out. Any faster and it becomes more challenging.

Keith, thanks for that info. Seems like maybe I am going to have to find a little larger drive for pushing the tire. Mine may be too slow. :(

OK. Since we can't upload pix to the gallery, lets try it this way. Here' a picture of the 4X4 tubing that I plan to use for the mast and a pic of the two pieces of round that I had planned to use for the roller to drive the tire. Also, laying on the mast is a piece of coil spring that I am going to try to us between the arms.
Tire hammer Mast picture by Curly_George - Photobucket
Tire Hammer Drive Wheels picture by Curly_George - Photobucket

With the aluminium wheel installed in the Clay Spencer class along with 12 others, we get about 220 bpm, that's plenty, I never run it wide open anyway, no real control at that speed.

OK all of you tirehammer builders out there. I am up to the point of being ready to attach the essentric to the tire rim. What I don't know is how do I figure out how far off center of the tire to put the shaft? I still have a little more work to do before I weld it on. But it is coming along fairly quickly, so far. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. :)

HI GEORGE,

may be a bit late however i made mine with a two and a half inch offset for a 5 inch travel.i get a bit more travel when the springs load up.



regards Daniel TASMANIA.

HI ,

I should have added that i have a gap of half an inch between the dies at rest. i machined up the the dies from an old truck axle .No idea what the steel was but i heat treated it and it shows no sign of deterioration after a lot of hammering.

Merry Christmas.


DANIEL TASMANIA.

Thanks Daniel. I have it welded on, now. I set it at a little over 2" off center. Got the tire hub mounted today and the tire, with the spindle attached, is now in place. Now I have to fab the arms for the hammer and install that. It's going slow, but I'm enjoying not being in a rush. :)

HI .

here is a pic of my tire hammer in action.


DANIEL TASMANIA.

OK. Still can't seem to get my pix to upload to my gallery. So here's an update on the hammer with links to photos on Photobucket. I finally got the hammer arms and spring assembly together, temporarily, with pins holding it all in place. I found that I am going to have to cut off and shorten the hammer a bit. As soon as I determin the correct length of the hammer and get it cut I am going to bolt it all together. I went over to a friend's house and he bored the hole in the center of the drive roller for me this AM. While I was there, he gave me a piece for the anvil. It's 8" diameter and 12" long. Took both of us to get it in my truck. I'm not done, yet, but I'm starting to see progress.

http://s758.photobucket.com/albums/xx224/Curly_George/?action=view&current=MyTireHammer001.jpg

http://s758.photobucket.com/albums/xx224/Curly_George/?action=view&current=MyTireHammer.jpg

A fine example of Vise-GripCAD.

LOL. I like that, Grant. Hey, the guy that I got that anvil from is Bob Haverstock. Do you know him? He bought an air operated press that he said was one of your designs. Man, it hits hard and fast!! :)