Treadle hammer build

[clinton]

After years of planning to build a treadle hammer I finally got around to doing it. I collected some of the parts with plans to build the hammer years ago, the bottom anvil is a 2 inch thick piece 10 inches square, I had a hole cut by my buddy with the water jet machine for hardy tooling, I made it 1 1/4 inch to match my anvil tooling. I have a set of plans that I got from Jere Kirtpatrick, Valley forge and Welding. The plans are very well detailed and easy to follow. I did however change a few things along the way, due to material that I had available, stuff that I salvaged off jobs over the years. The hammer is pretty much finished now, I just need to get a few bolts and get it adjusted and this thing will be ready to pound some iron. This is recycling at it's best, the only thing that I had to pay for was the 2 inch plate for the anvil, everything else was salvaged or given to me. The leaf spring I saved from my last truck, and the return springs were given to me from the guy that I bought my band saw from.

[ciladog]

Hay Clinton

Nice job on the hammer. It’s a good feeling to finish something that you plan on building for, in your case, years. It looks good for a treadle hammer. But I’m no fan of treadle hammers. I figure that if I’m going to put the effort into building something to make the work easier then I want it to do the work for me.

Oh, and by the way, didn’t your mama teach you to clean the steel before you weld the steel?

[clinton]

My mama prefers the look of rusty steel- I did grind off the rust for welding but the rest of the parts I plan to just leave rusty. My shop is outside and I am not a big fan of fancy paint jobs.
I finished up the few welds that were lacking yesterday and went to round up some 9/16 diameter bolts for the final assembly and I found that my local hardware store no longer stocks 9/16 bolts, they have the nuts and the washers but no bolts (duh) so I spent 3 hours running around trying to find 3 bolts. I needed two that were 4 1/2 inches long and one at 8 inches. I did find the 4 1/2 bolts $17.00 for five bolts (sold in packs of five only). They did not have anything over 5 inches, so I went to a large fab shop and asked for a piece of cold rolled .562 and I made my own bolt, it just 1018 but it should do the job.
It looks like this hammer is going to hit pretty hard, the plans call for a few pounds of lead in the upper die, but I am not sure that I need it. I need to clear out a spot and mount the hammer then I can see what it will do.

[ironstein]

Nice job clinton. I agree with you, i kinda like the rusty look on stuff i make as well. I just clean up the areas i am gonna weld using a grinder or wire wheel. That hammer looks like a great striker substitute.

[Greg Thompson]

I like the hammer alot. It makes me think about building one. Are there plans available on line?

[Mark Wargo New2bs]

Clinton,

That is a good looking treadle hammer. Let us know how it works for you. Will it work for the hand hammer forging you were planning?

Mark

[clinton]

Thanks for the positive comments guys, it does take some time to build one of these, it is a simple design but there is lots of cutting and drilling involved. I think that it would be more efficient to build more than one at a time, have one guy cutting and another drilling and assembling parts. If two or three guys got together to build it would be quicker and easier, also more eyes watching for mistakes along the way (I went though a few zip wheels during this build)
I want to get this thing mounted this week and I need to make a coal run (200 mile round trip) then I can try it out.
Mark- I am planning to try using this to slit the eye for hammers I think it will hit hard enough, and with the bottom tools I can do the fullering and cupping as well. Hopefully with the knowledge that Brian Brazeal has shared with me I can make a hammer on my own, "just put the material between the dies, it practically makes its self" Is what Brian said, I will see how much of this I retained.
Greg- here is a link to the web site lots of good stuff there
http://saber.net/jere/

[Whittler Kev]

I must be missing something . As a newbie it looks like when you tread on the treadle, it pulls the hammer down, bending the leaf springs, so it hits the anvil. The leaf spring and the treadle spring then returns the hammer to the top again.
It looks like the treadle travel distance is only half of the distance between the hammer and the anvil. The leaf spring seems short as well.
Am I missing something or have I got the principles wrong?:blink:

[clinton]

I must be missing something . As a newbie it looks like when you tread on the treadle, it pulls the hammer down, bending the leaf springs, so it hits the anvil. The leaf spring and the treadle spring then returns the hammer to the top again.
It looks like the treadle travel distance is only half of the distance between the hammer and the anvil. The leaf spring seems short as well.
Am I missing something or have I got the principles wrong?

I am not sure what you are missing, yes you step on the treadle the top head comes down and strikes the anvil, the return springs return to the top again. The leaf spring does not bend it just swings up and down through the pivot point. The spring does look short on this type of hammer and if there is no work piece in between the upper die and the anvil it will strike the anvil all the way on the back side. If you put a work piece that is 2 inches tall in between it will strike in the center, a larger piece and it will strike to the front side. This is the downside to this type of treadle hammer, the Clay Spencer hammers use roller blade wheels as guides and the top die moves straight down, no arc swing to it.

[Whittler Kev]

Sorry about that. I had a gander on Youtube and saw what you mean.
I've gone and got all excited and realised that they don't look super hard to make (I know I'll have problems doing it ) and fancy making one.
SWMBO has reminded me that I may have a riot from the neighbours unless I do something about quietening down the noise from the shed:lol: . Maybe completely covering it in expanded polystyrene or foam .............or just moving off of an estate :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[clinton]

No problem whittler I am sure there are others that have the same questions as well, this is a simple design and a fairly easy build, I changed a few things due to the fact that I had material that was not the same dimension that was called out in the drawings, so I had to change other parts accordingly.
As far as the noise concerns here at my place I just do not work too early or too late, and the cops are too busy tracking down drive- by shooters in our town to respond to some noise making, just keep my head down to avoid stray bullets