July 8, 201016 yr I have occasionally posted about a Nazel 3B I've been working on. Although there is still a lot of work I need to do to before I should be hitting hot iron with it, this morning I decided to power it up to see it run for the first time. After some manual oiling (cylinders and bearings) and a temporary electrical hookup, I put power to it. If you are curious, you can find a short clip on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7C0Wnii5NI I need to modify these dies to a more friendly (to me) size, test and hook up the oiler, put the treadle on and build a platform to make the dies a comfortable working height.
July 8, 201016 yr IT'S ALIVE!!!! Congratulations Dave, you have got to be one happy man. The hammer seems to be running very well. Mike Lambiase
July 9, 201016 yr The size of the work area is killing, you can forge weld the Effeil tower down to a cube
July 9, 201016 yr Did you have enough 3 phase generated to run it or did you get the generator going? Its great (and inspiring!) to see the hammer come to life. Thanks!
July 9, 201016 yr very very (very) cool ! I can apreciate how much work has gone into getting it going ! Is it that high because you havent 'sunk' the anvil ? ( I believe the 'IFI' terminology is 'outlaw style' install?) Now, Forging videos please !
July 9, 201016 yr Author Thanks for all the nice comments everyone! Kerry.... My 15HP converter brought the hammer up easily. I put a compressor unloader on it, but didn't need to use it... (at least not yet, maybe when it's cold out). John N.... The base for the hammer is steel plate (which just sits on bare ground (rock dust)), so the base of the anvil is even a little higher than the floor. The hammer frame is mounted on "C" channel. I will be building a platform to stand on when I forge. The first video is very benign because I still have work to do on the hammer. I will be posting forging videos later.... Monstermetal.... Yes... I think it's kind of an addiction once you start...
July 10, 201016 yr Dave, The hammer has an interesting sow block configuration. Any idea why it is done that way? Attached it photo of my sow block along with Steve Fontanini maker of the Rat Hole anvil renamed the Fontanini anvil. glenn
July 10, 201016 yr Author Glenn... It's pretty clear (at least, I believe) that this is not the original anvil/sowblock configuration for the hammer. This sowblock actually looks like it was made from the top of another similar anvil (or just milled out of a large block of steel). I could verify it, but I don't think the sowblock is cast iron. I don't have any information about what happened, but it looks like the original anvil may have been broken, remilled to have a male dovetail on it's top, then this sowblock made from the top of another anvil, then added. In any case, it's good, because this sowblock probably weighs 700 pounds or more and adds to the mass of the anvil tower. The production environment this hammer was used in obviously used the large dies because one had "settled" into the top of this sowblock a little. Sometime in the future, I would like to get the dovetail and top of the sowblock cleaned up a bit. If, when I modify these or make new dies, I have issues getting the hitting surfaces parallel, it will be sooner rather than later.
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