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I Forge Iron

My junk yard hammer


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Hey everyone, I spent most of my free time the past few months working on building a power hammer. It's not the most elegant one but it sure saves me alot of pounding. I modeled it after the japanese style of hammer where the anvil is a block and the ram is a simple round hammer. Maybe someday i'll make some dies for it and a different ram but for now this does it for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDI4ond4c_4

Theres a few other videos of it there in my youtube profile...

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It looks good, smooth speed control. I liked all of your videos. You might try bolting a few pounds counterweight
opposite the crank pin to reduce the side to side wobble. Add a little at a time to find the sweet spot.


Thanks, I have added some lead weights I molded up of various sizes since that video was filmed. No weights in the video. I have less side to side wobble now but was not able to eliminate it completely.

I was surprised when I first fired it up how much speed control I could get my varying pressure on the pedal.
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Hey everyone, I spent most of my free time the past few months working on building a power hammer. It's not the most elegant one but it sure saves me alot of pounding. I modeled it after the japanese style of hammer where the anvil is a block and the ram is a simple round hammer. Maybe someday i'll make some dies for it and a different ram but for now this does it for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDI4ond4c_4

Theres a few other videos of it there in my youtube profile...

Nice hammer you got there. The coke can really show how well made it really is in that how smooth and straight the action on that hammer is. Great work keep it up!
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Nice hammer you got there. The coke can really show how well made it really is in that how smooth and straight the action on that hammer is. Great work keep it up!


Yeah I was worried how the alignment was and how consistently straight it would strike. A coke can was the first test then we had some fun with the video editing software.
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Feukair, look like you were going for a similar hammer to the japanese spring hammer? I did some close looking and studying of them and how they work, the faces are very crowned but round like a hand hammer and the lower die is bigger, allows you to do a half on half of blow to one side of the die which allows forging the bevels and/or spreading the spine and extremely fast yet highly controlled metal moving. you've probably seen this video, but watch the metal closely under Murray's hammer and where he puts it in relation to move the metal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oShQNbkdZc

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Feukair, look like you were going for a similar hammer to the japanese spring hammer? I did some close looking and studying of them and how they work, the faces are very crowned but round like a hand hammer and the lower die is bigger, allows you to do a half on half of blow to one side of the die which allows forging the bevels and/or spreading the spine and extremely fast yet highly controlled metal moving. you've probably seen this video, but watch the metal closely under Murray's hammer and where he puts it in relation to move the metal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oShQNbkdZc


Hey Sam, yes i did model the ram and anvil after the japanese hammers. But mostly be cause it was the simplest design that i had seen. I had considered making the combo drawing flattening dies that most hammers have but i just couldnt come up with the materials or a design that would fit with the rest of what i had to rig. In the end i had an old 3"round 10 pound sledge hammer head and some square tube with a 3" ID so i decided to weld the hammer head up inside the tube and fill it will lead to make the ram. Then i chose to make a larger square anvil because it occured to me that this would be a model similar to the japanese ones. I don't know if i'll ever forge bevels with my hammer, i've tried on a couple of scrap pieces and it does seem possible to rough in some of a bevel, but until i'm better with it i like the hand hammer control for that.

Thanks for that video, i actually had not seen that before. Man he really runs that hammer fast sometimes, seems as fast as a sewing machine a couple times LOL...thanks again.
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  • 4 weeks later...

Hey everyone, I spent most of my free time the past few months working on building a power hammer. It's not the most elegant one but it sure saves me alot of pounding. I modeled it after the japanese style of hammer where the anvil is a block and the ram is a simple round hammer. Maybe someday i'll make some dies for it and a different ram but for now this does it for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDI4ond4c_4

Theres a few other videos of it there in my youtube profile...

Nice Piece !! did you have a set of plans when you started the project? Where did you get the drive wheel off the motor?

Dick Poeske
[email protected]
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Nice Piece !! did you have a set of plans when you started the project? Where did you get the drive wheel off the motor?

Dick Poeske
[email protected]


Thanks, no specific plans, modeled it after the clay spencer design, scoured the web looking for pictures and kept my eye out for pieces i could use.

The steel drive wheel i got from a tractor supply store it is a hub that u would weld a sprocket on to. The sell lots of different sizes and shaft diameters, only about $6 for that piece.
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Feukair, what was the anvil made from?


The anvil is a piece of the ibeam same as the hammer frame. I welded a piece of 1/2" plate on the end. Put two lag bolts thru for mounting the small block and welded those underneath. Then i welded some 3/16" plate on both sides of the ibeam. Put it upside down and filled it with cement, let it dry and welded 3/16" plate on the bottom. I weighed it, came poy to over 250 lbs. It works great for an anvil.
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Nice job! What is causing the little shake in the video? Is the hammer vibrating the camera? It looks like a wince or flinch of the eye at each blow. It also looks like a thermal shock wave.


Yeah that is wierd. Not sure, i think its just shaking the camera. For this vid the camera was on a tripod a few feet from the hammer. When you hand hold the camera it doesnt do that.
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