THE $50 OLIVER OR 50$VER

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Introducing the 50$ver ~ Yet a Nuther Junkyard Hammer by Slap and Dash, the 'Tap It' Brothers ~ 1998

There's been some interest recently in pedal hammers, of the type the English call an 'Oliver'. Neither of us are particularly enamored of them, as they generally require more effort to operate then you'll ever get out of them. They are simple to build, however, and a powered one, to relieve all that incessant pumping up and down whilst standing on one leg, might have some merit.



So, with our minds running in high beer, er, gear, we thought: had so much fun building the first JYH, why not build another? After all, we've got almost two weeks until the ABANA conference...

Grant had heard of an interesting drive that used a section of V-belt running loose against a motor pulley; when an idler pinches the belt into the pulley, the belt will yank hard on whatever it's attached to, in this case an ordinary sledge hammer; sounded promising!

A quick soapstone CAD drawing on the workbench top yielded what we hoped would be a workable plan, so we set out to come up with the 'rules'; because of our schedules, and the time constraints, we decided:
- Must use an ordinary, unmodified sledge hammer - Must operate against whatever anvil a chap might have in the shop - Must be built with ordinary tools and techniques - Must cost no more than US$50.00 for materials, and - Must be buildable in one day! Henceforth, the $50.00 Oliver, or '50$ver' for short. A quick trip around the scrap pile yielded a 14 pound sledge with a broken handle, a handy pillow block, and odd bits of steel, wood, and hardware. We bought a new handle ($6.50), and some 5/16" U-bolts ($5.00). Jim Moore donated a couple of motors to our JYH parts collection (would that be our 'motor pool'?). We knew we'd need some sort of springs for the 'up' stroke; $10.00 at the local Costco got us a nice Tub-o-Bungees. Add to that a couple of bucks worth of square tube we didn't happen to have on hand, and we were in business.

We envisioned this thing arranged to strike directly on an anvil, with provisions for swinging it out of the way when not needed, but we figured we couldn't count on what might be available at the conference, so we substituted a length of 3" mild steel round to give us something to pound on; it also serves as a leg to stand it on.

We whittled out a block of wood to fit the handle, clamped it securely with U-bolts, and bolted the block to the pillow block. The pivot assembly and a mast to support the Bungees are welded to a short length of square tube; this slides up and down on a smaller square tube to give some vertical adjustment.

Connecting the V-belt directly to about the mid-point of the hammer handle didn't work; trying to suddenly accelerate the hammer from rest stalls even a 1 HP motor, so Grant rigged a 'bowstring' with two Bungees, and attached the belt to that. Works a treat, as it gives the motor a chance to 'grab hold' and start the hammer down. Fiddled around a bit more getting the treadle to work the way it ought to, and we're done.

Just had time to bang on a little hot iron (yup, dents it pretty good!) before giving it a quick paint job and banding it to a pallet, paint still wet, to ship it off to the ABANA conference.

[maddog]

That's cool. I had been toying with a similar idea but I was thinking of putting a flywheel on the motor side of the clutch to store energy for when the "transmission" engages.

[arftist]

Thats cool Grant. Got Video?

[CurlyGeorge]

I like it Grant. I hope it hits harder than the one that I built. I tore it apart and used some of the parts for my tire hammer. That works better for me. :D

[ironsmith]

I would love to see some more pictures Grant,
that thing is neat!

Thanks for posting it!