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I Forge Iron

Steam hammers.


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I saw a chambersburg steam hammer used at a hammerin at the John Deere site in Illinois a couple years ago. It, and a boiler, was brought to the site on a flatbed trailer. There were two boilermen. Steve Parker and Clifton Ralph forged with it. I believe the same hammer and boiler will be used at Tipton, IN next June.

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The guy who owns that brings it to the UMBA Conference in Pontiac IL most years, and we are trying to get him to bring it to the ILLIANA Steam and Power show in July of 2010;-) If I remember correctly Steve Parker said it was a 400# Chambersburg, he knows I have a thing for steam hammers;-) and was trying to get me to come over to Pontiac, (which I still have never been able to swing... :-(

I will be closer to Tipton this year 2010, we are moving 45 minutes east of there instead of an hour and a half west of there;-) I do hope he can bring it in they are a ton of fun (or several tons that is... ;-)

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I've never been to Ironbridge; it's quite difficult to get to. There are some videos of it here:

YouTube - Blists Hill Ironworks, Ironbridge April 2008

YouTube - Blists Hill Victorian Town Ironworks

The hammer is quite small by steelworks standards, but very large by blacksmiths standards. I don't really like the way they run around with the iron between the furnace, the hammer and the rolling mill. Maybe it's historically accurate, but it looks distinctly dangerous, and I can't see any need for it; a lump of iron that size keeps it's heat for quite a while, and a few extra seconds to walk with it wouldn't make much difference.

The hammer seems to deliver single blows, unlike a modern air hammer, and needs two people to operate it.

There's a small steam hammer at the forge where I did my one-day course recently, but it's long dis-used, certainly since the '50s when the chimney was demolished and the boilers scrapped, but possibly since the '40s, when the steam pumping engines were taken out of use. One of the engines was run occasionally in the '50s, so at least one of the boilers must still have been usable at that time, but having to fire up a Lancashire boiler just to do a few minutes work on a small steam hammer obviously wouldn't have been an attractive proposition.

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In industry there are still some steam hammer run on steam. Up until about 2 years ago we had 6 ranging in size from 4000-8000 lbs rams running off of a couple of very large boilers. These have since been converted to running off of compressed air because it is more cost effective to do so.

Patrick

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I didn't find it hard to get to Ironbridge; though it might have helped that I started from America...


There are about three or four trains per day from London to Telford, no doubt more from Birmingham, but the journey onward from there by bus seems to be difficult. From London there are several trains each hour to Birmingham, from there frequent trains run to Kidderminster, and from there, at weekends and certain other days, the Severn Valley Railway run steam trains, a few times each day, to Bridgnorth, but the railway no longer goes beyond there. There are buses from Bridgnorth to Ironbridge, but they seem to be slow, infrequent and irregular, and it's just about impossible to do the trip from London in a day.

Since Ironbridge is supposed to be a major tourist attraction you'd think you would be able to buy a combined rail, bus ad admission ticket from London, but you can't; and why the place doesn't have a decent bus service, I don't know.
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We still have a steam hammer in our workshop still conected to our boiler, but we have not used it in about 8 years, since we installed our 5cwt massey. The steamy is still servicable, just not cost effective to run. it takes a boiler attendant (the boiler is oil fired automatic) I am qualifed to run it, but that means I have to stay there. Steam hammers are great machines but really need a constant source of steam to make them viable (ie in a steel mill with plant steam available 24/7 anyway) just go over to the valve turn it on and away you go (basically). The general rule was 10 horse power of boiler for every cwt of hammer at between 40 to 80 PSI. We used to run our hammer at first on air, a 3cwt hammer required a 250 CFM diesel air comp to run it for any decent forging capacity. It is fed with a 2" pipe and exhaust 3 inch pipe. Before we move to our new workshop I have promised the boys that we will run it one more time for old times.

Cheers
Phil

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At the Henry Vogt Machine Co., in Louisville Kentucky, USA we ran a steam drop hammer shop from 1905 till 1994. There was a slow transition from steam hammers to the much more effecient and accurate mechanical press. The majority of the hammers were out of service by 1994, with one little baby 1500# that was used once a week or so for making test bars. The hammers varied from 1500# to 25,000#, all 145 psi/345F steam drop hammers made by Erie. That forge shop is still running under different ownership, but no hammers.
Most comercial shops have converted to air from steam due to the much less expensive operation, and the ability to turn on/off without the lag time of boilers. There are many operating issues for boilers, regulations, permitting and so forth. Also, at least in the US the boilers must be inspected and insured, and that is hugely expensive. But a properly inspected, maintained, operated boiler is safe. :eave out any one of those three and you return to pre-ASME times of boiler explosions.
Ptree, who ran the powerhouse that fed the steam and air to that forge shop.
The steam mains for that shop were 8" by the way, and in the winter those boilers ate a railcar of E. Kentucky coal a DAY! that fed the hammers, heated the water and heated the shops for that campus of 42 acres and perhaps 1.5 million square feet of forge, boiler, ice machine and valve shops.

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