Modern mechnical hammer

[MLMartin]

Came across this forging hammer the other day, looks pretty nice. Wish they were in the sates! maybe we can get some imported to the US

http://www.maneklalexports.com/index.html

at the top left of the page, click the machine tool button, then scroll down to the presses and hammer category - mechanical forging hammer

[A.Lewis]

You could always take a little "business trip" to Mumbai...

Cool hammer though...

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Kayne & Son brought one in a couple years ago.

[bigfootnampa]

I can't see why you'd want one... when you could have an air hammer. I notice that they have new leg vises though.

[Dillon Sculpture]

Anybody have an idea how the adjustments work on this hammer? Is this a helve?

[MLMartin]

Hey Michael, looks like a helve. if you look at the back of the top spring, you can see that the contact arm from the motor slides forward and backward. the spring on top has a slight curve to it, so when you slide back, or forward on the connection you get a long or shorter stroke

errr i think

[MLMartin]

I think the hammer is vary similar to this one.

[jason0012]

What/ where is that hammer? It looks a lot like the Indian hammer. I saw this company online years ago with a name like "Rattan" or something . I e-mailed about it but never got a response. At the time I was actually serious about buying one. There are advantages of a mechanical hammer over an air breather. This looks like a pretty good design. There were a number of old machines like this, the names elude me at the moment but I have seen the stroke adjustment like that before. It is my biggest complaint with the Bradley that the stroke requires loosening bolts to adjust. Being able to change the stroke while running sounds pretty good, though I'm not sure how sturdy this machine would be. I was curious how much the beast would cost, and how prohibative shipping from India would be. Kinda a moot point now as I don't have the spare cash to get one but I'm still curious if anyone knows.

[jason0012]

They make some decent looking belt grinders too.

[Bryce Masuk]

mechanical hammers are not the greatest you could probley get an anyang or saymak for a pretty similar price maybe a little more

a 50lb little giant has so little power i dont know how this machine stacks up

if you have a shop with several hammers its not really a big deal but having to adjust the hammer for tooling and different stock doesnt help you

plus the power of a air hammer is great I got to try john prosser's 3b he can forge a 1.5 square bar from 18 inches to 31 inches with 3/4 inch on the end of the taper in one heat
it definately has some punch the hammer shakes the whole building and moves around a little bit it doesnt have a full foundation under it either and i am sure it would be better with it fully stable

[jason0012]

I got an e-mail this morning from Steve Kayne. He didn't have kind things to say about this hammer. Apparently the clutch is poorly designed and the motor it shipped with was quite problematic. He didn't go into a lot of detail but seemed to think it had potential if someone wished to invest some time into re-engineering it. He did not feel that it was worth the effort however to get the thing market ready so lost interest.

While I don't have the highest opinion of Little Giants I don't think it is fair comparing a 50#LG to a 3B Nazel! Kinda like a bicycle trying to compete in the Indinapolis 500! Reminds me of the time i got to use Kurt Ferenbach's 600# Erie, then went home and went back to work with my 25# LG !

[Dillon Sculpture]

I would agree being a fan of MECH. I always felt my LG 50 hit as hard as the air hammers I saw and used. I have also used a Utility 300 and feel my 250 Murray can whop it up as good any day of the week (weekends too) you just don't have as much room for tooling.

[Don Hanson]

Well, since we're on Little Giants. Not all LGs are equal, I've run a few 50 lbers that sucked, just worn out, or not tuned right. I'll say my 25 will out work at least half the 50s out there

I'd take a LG over one of those indian hammers anyday.

Also, Tom Clark told me in person that a 100 lb LG hits harder than his 110 lb air hammers. I've come very close to getting one of Tom's hammers a few times, and have run a bunch of them, but my 100 lb LG is better (for me) making damascus, forging down large W2 bars and forging blades.

Lets not sell the Little Giants short. They are work horses when well tuned and maintained.

[SGropp]

In some circles it's fashionable to dismiss mechanical hammers and particularly Little Giants. .

Sure, there are better hammers out there, but parts for Little Giants are still available, as well as a lot of real information about rebuilding and keeping them adjusted. They also have low horsepower requirements to ram weight ratios, making them suitable for smaller shops .

My 25 # LG turned a 100 years old this year and hasn't missed a beat. I see no reason why, that with proper care it won't make it for another century. My 100# LG and 200# Beaudry are both almost 90 and should keep on hitting hard into the next century.

It will be interesting to see if this current crop of import hammers will last that long.