Power hammer parts.....

[FieryFurnace]

I've been wanting to build a power hammer for a while now. I bought Clay's plans for the tire hammer a while back. The whole "head" assembly worries me.....just don't know if I got the brain for that.

Anyway, I've been keeping an eye out for a good base plate and anvil post at my steel yard. I went out today and got a 5/8" base plate 45" square, and a 6 1/2" anvil post 35 1/2" long. Over 700 pounds of steel total.

While I was there I asked if they had any 4140 for the dies. They had some 4 foot pieces of 2 inch square 4140 for $25 a piece. So I got one of those as well; four feet will make quite a few dies and the extra thickness will make up for the tad short anvil post.
Overall I'm pleased.....now to get it out of the back of the truck without uhhhhhh crushing any body parts!

I already have the 5 inch, 1/4 wall piping for the back bone, several motors to choose from, and a tire. However, like I said, the head assembly of the tire hammer worries me.

Soooo, I looked up the "rusty" and "dusty" power hammers. After looking over the build page where it has pictures of all the ones that people have built, I had an idea!

Can I use the drive system of the tire hammer? I.E. The motor is attached to the treadle, the treadle is pushed down and the motor engages the tire. Like this:


The I use the operating system of the rusty and dusty hammers. I.E. Operating rod off center on the tire, attached to leaf springs that pivot and operate the ram. Like this:


Then use the guide tube for the ram, that the inline treadle hammer uses. Like this:


Just wondering!

[CurlyGeorge]

Dave, don't worry about not having the brains to figure it out. I've seen some of the work that you have figured out a way to accomplish. You can do this. Don't rush it. Just think it thru and work at it a little at a time. If I can figure out the hammer control arms without anything but pictures to go by, I have no doubt that you can figure out a way to make it work. Also, to answer your question about using the tire and treadle to drive a rusty, someone put a video on here not long ago about the one they built like that. Good luck, :D

[KTB]

In my humble opinion while the rusty hammer is nice, it isn't quite the hammer the tire hammer is. I know the whole concept is to build a hammer on a tight budget or is was when I built mine. I took advantage of an option I had in having John Wayne Taylor in Alabama ( a close associate of Clay Spencer ) build my upper and lower arms because he has the jigs that make everything align perfectly. Just an option I thought I would throw out there. Everything else is pretty much straight forward. Follow the plans carefully and you should do fine. I'm not covered up in smarts but my hammer came out sweeeeet. Besides, you have plenty of help on this forum if you need it.

PS / I ended up with extra bronze bushings for the arms because I purchased them and then John Wayne had them already installed. I would be glad to send them to you at no charge if you can use them although I will add the stipulation that you post pictures of your hammer when completed.

- K -

[Anderson G. Phillips]

I don’t know which I would trust less to have in my face while forgoing, the tire or that spring! But many people use tire hammer and the bulk of them stay in one piece. I am interested to see what you come up with in the end. How are you going to build and attach your dies?

[arftist]

I agree with you Dave, and say you are good at thinking to see that the helve linkage (rusty/dusty) is simpler to fabricate than the dupont linkage (tire hammer style). You definitely could use the tire drive on your rusty style hammer, been done a few times that I know of. Personaly, I am not a fan of the tire drive, there is more inertia to overcome than needed. I prefer a flat-belt, slip clutch drive, with an idler connected to the foot petal, and a decent sized flywheel, always spinning when the motor is switched on. Even little giants have some flywheel effect, and they were basicaly the cheapest production power hammers made. I think the idea of the tire was to open up construction to those who didn't have the equipment to make something more complex. To be honest, my main problem with the tire hammer is that the tup mechanism is activated entirely by the momentum or power of the motor alone, and the weight of the tire just adds to this miserey. The tire drive would be fine if there were a decent flywheel involved somewhere.

Now before all you tire hammer guys flame a smoking hole where this post used to be, read it again, more slowly this time.

As far as the roller guide system, I don't know what to think about that. I used bearing bronze and like it. I can't say good or bad about those rollers without putting a lot of thought towards it. Perhaps someone else can guide you with that a bit.

If you decide you want to try a flat belt clutch, I will be glad to help you with the pulley diameters, clutch design, etc.

[clinton]

I am not a big fan of reinventing the wheel, I would go with one design or the other, certain modifications due to material on hand can be tricky so tack weld every thing as you go. When you are sure that everything is working proper then you can complete the welding
Also the slack belt does work well it gives you good control and easy start up

[FieryFurnace]

KTB
Have you actually used both the rusty style and the tire hammer? See I've only used the tire hammer and I love it; I am just attracted by the simplicity of the rusty style. I've never so much as seen a rusty in use in person! The ones in the you tube videos I've seen, seemed to hit hard but run a little slow......I suppose that can be altered by the size of the pulleys or the offcenter distance on the tire.
I would be most grateful for the bushings. However, let me decide first what hammer I want to build. I appreciate when anyone tries to help me along but I don't want to take something for free unless I'm going to use it! Do you have enough bearings for the entire hammer?

Ok artfist!
You are talking about a large belt like the bradly hammers, right? How hard are those to find when you wear one out, and what is the cost? Is there a great advantage to a wide belt over the V-groove belts that the original rusty design uses?
You said:
"I prefer a flat-belt, slip clutch drive, with an idler connected to the foot petal, and a decent sized flywheel, always spinning when the motor is switched on."

What would be the dificulty level of all of this and the price as compared to the original rusty design or the tire hammer system? I'm not familiar with flywheels much accept for the one on our IH square bailer......I suppose you are not talking about one that big! LOL I think I know their general concept though: the thing doing the spinning, the power source, keeps spinning but the flywheel keeps the operating parts from engaging until a lever is pressed to engage them.
Is there an advantage in this system over just having a pulley that tightens up the belt when the treadle is pressed?

Am I making any sense at all?

Thank you all for your patient help and advice!

[Stormcrow]

FieryFurnace - Check a few threads down and you can see the Appalachian-style hammer that my cousin and I built for me, which utilizes a tire clutch. One of several reasons I went with this design is because it is so very simple, only two steps higher in complexity than the absolute simplest power hammer design. I can understand it, and if something doesn't work right, I can fix it. Mine is built on a bit larger scale than the average for this design, but overall works pretty well. I think it might be a bit heavy for the tire clutch design as I am losing some rubber off my spare tire, but I'm thinking of adding a layer of round hay baler rubber strap to the outside of the wheel or just swapping to a full-size tire. I'm in the final phases of major tweaking, then will shoot a new video showing what alterations I've made and showing it in operation.

How big of a ram are you wanting to operate? Mine is an 80 pound ram, not counting the weight of the dies. I'm about to add a bit more weight as I change how I hold the dies on. Overall weight of the ram is in excess of 100 pounds with the dies. Most folks run these with 25-65 pound rams, and a lot of them use a 1 horse motor. I'm running a 3 horse motor (because I got it for free), and have no problem with it when I start pounding. I've seen video of hammers of this style with slightly heavier rams than mine, but nothing significantly larger. 100 pounds seems to be about as big as folks build this design. I don't know that that is the limit of the design, but 100 pounds can flatten steel in a hurry, and should cover the needs of most smiths.

To sum up my rambling thoughts, I think that as long as you are building a medium to small size hammer (what most folks build), you will do just dandily with an Appalachian-style hammer using a tire clutch. If you want to draw from my experience a bit more before you start your own, give me a few days. I have a Christmas gift order that I waiting on my to get my die system finished and a pair of dies built. You can see how it works now that I've made my changes.

[arftist]

The reason I chose the flatbelt versus the vee-belt is the flat belts propensity to slip. I use a 3" wide power transmission belt, 4 ply with a rubber face on my 75# hammer. Flat belts are relatively cheap for what you get, I paid $40 bucks for mine, 7 or 8 years ago. I wanted good slippage, both for speed controll and ease of engaging/disengaging the clutch. Vee-belts are nice, alignement is not hyper-critical, existing pulleys are cheap and available. I had one 4" flatbelt pully left over from a millwright job years ago, the customer ordered two but only needed one, then went bankrupt.
The other pulley I made from a slice of 12" pipe. The idler is a chunk of aluminum with bearings in the ends.

My setup involves a lot of lathework. If you don't have a lathe it would be good to consider Stormcrow's approach. For the type of work you are mostly posting a much smaller hammer would be fine, 35# head would give you the sweet, most efficient anvil to hammer ratio of twenty to one. You could go up to 50# and still be good. As Stormcrow pointed out, a tire drive can be effective at those weights, additionaly, small hammers can stroke faster, meaning a smaller numerical gear ratio, in other words, a larger drive pulley on the motor. This will help with the tire shredding problem.

Oops, missed a question. The advantage to having a flywheel, the flywheels stores energy. Once the hammer is up to speed, it doesn't matter if you have a flywheel or not. Getting up to speed is where the flywheel pays off, especialy from a dead start. The weight of the tup and dies, the spring, pitman arm and crank or whatever have a lot of inertia, which means when they are not moving, they don't want to start moving. This is why stormcrows tire is shredding. The wear on the tire happens almost entirely at startup. If I missed anything, ask again.

[FieryFurnace]

Ok thanks! I think I understand!
Can't do any lathe work parts! That's one thing that I find in the tire hammer plans; lathe work and plasma cutting. It sort of rubs me the wrong way when you are supposed to be building a "junk yard hammer" on a budget but you have to have a metal lathe and plasma cutter to do it. Not exactly the same "budget" I'm looking at folks! Anyway, Clay is a great guy and I really enjoyed the class, but there should be an "alternate methods" section in the plans in my humble opinion!

I am thinking a max of 50 pounds of ram weight! The LG 25# at John C. Campbell tapered out 3/4" round bar about 15 inches in two heats. That's moving a lot of metal.....for me! 50# of ram will give me growing room, and will enable me to use slightly larger dies for flattening and rounding, without decreasing the hitting efficiency of the hammer. (I'm supposing here that a 50 pound hammer head is going to hit hard on a 2x3 inch die then it would were the same 50# spread out on a 3x5 inch die! Is that correct?)

The motors I have available are all 1 horse power and run about 1725 RPM. However, there is a large motor in our old AC unit that I am going to try to extract. It may be a bit stronger and be better suited.

Thanks "stormcrow" I'll check that out!

[KTB]

I have not used a rusty style but have observed one in operation. They are certainly easier to build and therein is the beauty. They do run a bit slower but I am not sure I would be too concerned about that. If anything I have found my tire hammer has the capability to run much faster than I can use it. And yes, I do have enough bushings for the arms.
Whatever way you choose to go we are behind you.

[ptree]

I built a Rusty style in 2002. Ran it at 32# ram with the Vee belt running on the flat. When I went to 45# ram I started smelling burnt rubber. I changed to a tire clutch and this MADE the hammer. Much better control, the flywheel weight of the tire made the hammer smoother, and at 45# that tire shows little to no wear since I made the mod in 2005. I have a hood over the leaf spring for safety, making for a less frieghtening experience when operating.

Suggestions:
Build a stout hood over the spring and ram.
Use a Gran Voyager rear axle bearing hub assy to run the compact spare on. ( Has a bolt flange, and sealed taper bearings)
Use a second wheel center, to weld the pivot for the pittman arm so you are not welding on a wheel with a tire on it.
Use a shoulder bolt for the pivot for the lower end of the pittman arm.
Use a forged steel turnbuckle from a metal building wind brace for the pittman arm adjustment.
Use the rear pivot and pin and mount from a hydraulic cylinder for the center pivot.
Drill and zerk every moving joint to allow lots of lubrication.
Use Moly disulfide grease in you grease gun for wear prevention.

And last but not least, if you get up to louisville way, give me a shout and you can try mine.

[FieryFurnace]

Thanks for the suggestions ptree! I'll actually be in Louisville this Tuesday to deliver that fireplace set I posted pics of up in "general discussion." I'd love to just see and take pictures of it to help with the build if I decide on that mechanism....but using one would definately help me decide too!

Thanks KTB! I don't think it would be a huge mathimatical deal to change the speed on the rusty.....cross that bridge if I come to it! LOL

[ptree]

I get home around 6:00 in the evening. You are welcome, private message me and I can give directions. Be aware no heat in the shop and tomorrow is supposed to be a bite in the rear cold night:)

I am home and in the shop most weekends, and again you are welcome. I will fire the forge and let you drive.
The only bad design on my hammer is my goof, the ram guides are too light.

[arftist]

There you go Dave, your own personal hammer mentor. Very fortunate for you. ptree knows his stuff.

[FieryFurnace]

ptree:
I'll have to take a raincheck! But when I'm back up there I'll give you a yell!

[FieryFurnace]

After much consideration, drawing, thinking, drawing, and consideration, I have THINK I have settled on the tire hammer afterall.

I threw around some ideas with the helve style rusty, that I think would make the hammer run better and look better. However, I am thinking that the hammer is going to be up against the wall and if that is the case, the long springs sticking out of the back of the hammer would be an inconvenience.

I am also concerned about control with the helve style hammers. Once again, I know that I like the tire hammer, whereas I may build a complete NICE rusty and just hate the way it runs. I'm afraid that with that system, it will be harder to just tap the metal when need be.

So I'm staying in my comfort zone, aka the tire hammer!

With that in mind, if anyone has any suggestions on where to get the little spring that goes in the head assembly, I'd be grateful. I looked it up on MSC (as per the plans) and the crazy thing is $48.00 plus shipping! I want to build a good hammmer but I want to scrounge as many parts as possible.

I'm also going to need to get the wheel that spins the tire. Any fab suggestions there? The plans say I can get an aluminum one turned from a guy in Alabama for $40.00 plus shipping. There aren't quite as many aluminum wheels laying around as springs I don't suppose, so if the $40 there is what I have to spend then oh well, but if I could fab something for $10 all the better.

[Bad Creek Blacksmith]

Dave, If you need anything turned on the lathe or cut with a plasma, get in contact with a vocational high school if you have one in the area. They are there to help out the public and the kids get to learn on reading drawings ,dealing with people and working with the equipment. All you have to do is supply the material. Good luck. Paul

[CurlyGeorge]

Dave, the roller does not have to be aluminum. I have seen pics on IFI of some that have used steel shafting. I, personally, think that you made the right choice with the tire hammer. I sure enjoy mine, and it does set fairly close to the wall. Good luck. Happy New Year. :D

[pkrankow]

Use a Gran Voyager rear axle bearing hub assy to run the compact spare on. ( Has a bolt flange, and sealed taper bearings)

Most modern vehicles use bearing assemblies. The drive axle bearing will have splines in them, and the non-drive axle are solid in the center. You can also rig a brake drum with little effort if you desire. (some hammers have brakes)

If the drive axle is not properly torqued in the bearing assembly the bearing can come apart. I learned this the hard (but happily not too expensive) way on my car because I changed one and a year later learned it loosened. The bearing failed very quickly.

Use a second wheel center, to weld the pivot for the pittman arm so you are not welding on a wheel with a tire on it.

Welding on a rim with a tire is a recipe for disaster. The rubber will gas off into the enclosed space of the tire long after you finished welding, and will go off like a bomb with enough energy to take out walls and possibly kill.

Good luck. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Phil

[Eric Farrar]

On the question of the spindle that contacts the tire, how about using a multi-belt pulley with grooves for 2-4 v-belts with either a snug-fitting section of pipe or a steel can welded over it to level the grooves out?

Been toying with that idea while I search for a chunk to turn on the lathe to make a spindle with.

Any thoughts on the multi-belt pulley with a snug pipe on it?

[arftist]

On the question of the spindle that contacts the tire, how about using a multi-belt pulley with grooves for 2-4 v-belts with either a snug-fitting section of pipe or a steel can welded over it to level the grooves out?

Been toying with that idea while I search for a chunk to turn on the lathe to make a spindle with.

Any thoughts on the multi-belt pulley with a snug pipe on it?

Why not? You could also machine the grooves off.

[FieryFurnace]

That is a good idea!

How do the pullies stay on the motor shaft? Set screw?

I'm going through the part lists now trying to see what I do have already, what I need, and where I need to get it from!

I've got some big barn doors to build before I begin though! Just part gathering right now.

I did find out the other day that my steel supplier has pillow blocks...so I should be able to get a couple of those from them!

I also discovered a fastenall in our town, and I was told they may have the compression spring I need!