Whats with Self Contained hammers?

[monstermetal]

This question was posted in another thread and not really responded too so I thought I would breach the topic...

Sask Mark wrote..

This thread brings up a question I have been wondering about for a while. Please keep in mind the only thing I know about these larger hammers is they are big and they hit hard.

My question is this: why is it that almost every large self-contained hammer I hear about seems to need fairly extensive work? Were they usually mis-used in a past life? Did they have design flaws? Is it just normal wear and tear from running 12 hour days for years on end? Once 'properly' rebuilt (and assuming they are not abused), are these hammers capable of servicing a hobbiest or smaller fab shop for many years without many repairs except for routine lubrication/service, or should the owner expect to have to repair the hammer with expensive parts every couple of years or...?

I'm not serious enough to justify the costs that many here mention to buy one of these hammers. I am just curious as to what one could expect in 'getting into bed' with one of these beasts.


So let me first put my own experience into perspective. I am not a self contained hammer expert. I have owned half a dozen and worked on others as well but I still just barely have a working understanding of what it takes to make a hammer work well. These are simple machines but require many systems to work in perfect harmony to produce a controlled blow...

So as a example I'll use the 4B which is my current project. It was a running hammer when I bought it out of a local industrial shop. it came to them from a tool forging operation out of Portland. This particular machine is Nazel serial number 305 and was manufactured on May 19 1905 (at least it was finished that day)... Now let that sink in for a moment... it was before the Henry Ford developed the Model T by 4 years... Harley Davidson was still two friends building bicycles and World War One was still about 10 years off... This machine is 106 years old... A hundred and six... And is still not only a viable tool but in remarkably good shape. Its got some wear and needs some love but just think about what a testament that is to Nazel and the Beche design... Think about taking a truck that was built around the same time and putting it back into industrial service and it performing the task better than any new equivalent truck produced today...

As to why it seems like most of these hammers need major repair... Its the nature of the supply. These where used in heavy industry often in repetitive self destructive applications. And they often ran several shifts a day for decades before they where taken out of service... Not all hammers but by far the majority.. a few very lucky people have got there hands on late model machines that if they just keep them oiled they couldn't ever create enough wear in a lifetime that the machine would even need adjusted, let alone rebuilt... The reason why it doesn't seem to be like that for most of us is we have machines that in industry where broken, repaired broken again till they got to a point of replacement... My 3B is a good example.. It was a ore sample crusher.. It was built in 1948 and in the 60 years since just about every part has been repaired or replaced... the ram bore has been sleeved... the ram is out of another hammer.. the compressor piston has been built up and re machined as has the piston guide... all the bearings have been replaced and the original motor is gone... If it was anything else built in 1948 you would just replace it with a new "better" one that was more efficient and effective... But despite all the problems and repairs it still runs 20-30 hours a week in my shop (doing the jackhammer bits its often running flat out for most a good part of that)

My feeling on the China built hammers is most of the issues have to do with quality control. Its to be expected, we demand a cheap product and then are unhappy with the performance of the cheap product we demanded... a 100lb Chambersburg hammer cost over a hundred grand in the 1970's and today you can buy a Chinese copy for less than $10,000... You cant expect it to be the same quality... Its a cheap copy. And even those cheap copies are durable enduring machines capable of providing many many years of service.. The Anyang hammers have steadily improved since they started importing them. Many of the early issues have been resolved and I know of several 10+ year old hammers that I would love to own... I also know of several that have never run right, I partly blame that on poor quality control but the bigger factor is most people (myself included to a degree) dont have any idea how to trouble shoot and repair anything but the simplest of issues..

Anyone else have anything to add?

[dablacksmith]

s lot of the tools blacksmiths use are like that ...take your typical anvil ... if its not new (last 10 years or so ) it was probably made before ww2 (my shop anvil has a 1939 date) it was most likely used daily for decades ... almost all mechanical trip hammers were made in that era also (1880-1940)..to build that type of equipment nowadays would be more expensive than we are generally willing to pay... and also the buisness dosent warrant makeing these machines anymore ... i dont know if they have found something better or just cheaper (suspect the latter) its a sad state of afairs but its the world we live in ..

[peacock]

Larry I agree, It's pretty remarkable that several of us use are useing 100 yr old hammers on a regular basis.
I have very little experence with old air hammers but I have rebuilt 30 some mechanical hammers. The newest one
was 40 years old. Most of these were running hammers according to the seller. Many of my customers paid more to
get the hammer rebuilt than they paid for it. I am pretty sure in industry the lack of skilled operators
caused hammers to be setup with tooling that became a subistute for hammer control. That added to the constant
push for production, resulted in a lot of trashed hammers. Yes they were working, but most times wide open, full treadle,
with little lube and no maintaince. When they did break poor repairs caused even more damage. I have owned a
Tom Clark 50 kg for about 10 years no trouble yet. Tom and I often wondered what they would look like 100 years from now.
I have 3 Bradleys, 2 Mayer brothers (not little giant)and 2 LGs all made before 1920 I think they will make it
another 100 with proper care. The 25lb Lg I demo with is a 1946 model. All the parts except the babitt, spring,
motor, belts and pins are original.

I said all that to say this. If you have an old quality hammer, air or mech. and have the ability and cash to
properly rebuild it you will not regret it.

[macbruce]

I'd like to give credit where credit is due here........The worst hammers I've ever rebuilt were owned by Farmers.......Anvils and vices as well.

[John Larson]

The self-contained machines with the least wear that I've seen, aside from ones with low usage, are machines with a large heft factor on all the critical parts. As with all hammers, the bearing surfaces are the areas needing attention during a reconditioning process. When self-contained hammers don't have enough tup length there is more of a rocking motion, top to bottom, and the wear inherent in that causes the tup bore to become barrel shaped and the bottom guides to become shaped like a barrel turned inside out. If it wasn't for this primary pattern of wear the other stuff like seals would be less of a problem, IMHO. Some old steam hammers had very long piston bores and what I've seen is that they are in remarkably good shape. I think the Nazels with auxilliary guides like the one that Larry sold to Jesse James have the most heft and guide quality and are likely to survive the longest. I think the tup length and the length of the associated bottom cap are the most critical factors in self-contained designs. As for steam and utility hammers and mechanicals the same design issues apply. My two cents. I think the original inquiry is excellent.

[ptree]

In my experience in comercial forge shops much of what has been said above does apply. The things that arn't said is that a big comercial forge shop is a hellish place for any machinery. There is a huge amount of abrasive dust from rust and scale. Lots of vibration, if fuel burning forges,combustion gasses that rust stuff. 3 shift a day, in a low margin business and so maintenance is deffered. Many of these machines if not most have no available new parts. So when it breaks the local millwrights go in high gear, and welders and grinders are the first tools.
Lubrication is total loss on most of these machines and so when a press or upsetter eats 250 gallons a week of $3.00 a gallon gear oil, and it all runs down the machine into a water filled pit under, you have to dispose of 350 gallons a week of water/oil scale dead rats and cigarette butts etc at another $1.00 per gallon. So folks try and skimp on the oils, buy cheaper oils, recyle the oils poorly etc.
Face it folks, a forge shop eats machines. Most of the hammers start breaking as soon as you start them up. So they were built stout, simple and if you use lots of the right oil, do the wear maintenance you can make acceptable parts all day long. You WILL have to do heavy maintenance. And it will be expensive maintenance. In a home shop, they hours are much smaller, the care sometimes better.

[Bentiron1946]

There is one thing I have noticed about old machines that have survived until the present time is that for the most part they were over designed. That is they often had much more material put into them than machines manufactured today when there are much higher standards concerning materials and engineering design due to the use of computers. Things are designed to use the absolute minimum amount of material needed to produce a given item, there is nothing superfluous put in now where as in the past there were considerable amount of extra added just so things wouldn't fail. If your equipment got a bad reputation you were not long in business. Unfortunately now it doesn't seem to matter at all about quality just so long as the price is low, you nor the company that made the equipment will long be in business. A company is just a likely to buy an ASO as a real anvil, they won't have it long enough to matter, it's the same with self contained hammers, why pay for a first class machine when you can buy from off shore? This, I think, is the reason why hundred year old machines are in such demand, that and nostalgia. :blink:

[kpotter]

I have a shop full of old WW2 machine tools that I use everyday I have been in all of them and have worked as a machine mechanic for a number of years. It is real hard to find old machines in good shape. I would love a nazel I think they are beautiful they were made when people actually cared how something looked. The pattern makers were artists. Now with modern steel cutting technology the days of beautiful cast iron are gone everything will be fabbed from plate the costs are much lower and the strength is far greater. I just wish they would put a little thought into the appearance. China will be fabing stuff soon as it is more cost effective.

[nonjic]

'Small shop' blacksmiths also tend to be much more alert to the condition of the hammer that they have blood, sweat and tears in - even before it is set on a foundation.

Machines that have been working 'fine' with excess clearances and funny manners for dozens of years in an industrial setting suddenly get the TLC they deserve, just before they are put to very light use in a small shop environment!

edit,

of course the other reason is why the hammer was sold on in the first place! somtimes they are sold as the large company might just not want their little maintenance shop with a hammer in the corner anymore, result for the guy buying the machine.

The other, much more likely scenario is the hammer is sitting out the back of a factory under a tarp coz the owners know its on its last legs, and its much easier just to install another old machine thats in better condition!

[Sask Mark]

Thanks for starting this thread Larry. I was wondering about this but I didn't want to be a PITA and bump it up to the top if no one else wanted to provide any input.

Thanks to all for the very good information. Like I said I know nothing of these big hammers and what makes them tick/bang. I have never seen an industrial/commercial forge shop in action. I am not questioning anyone's motivation to buy or own them. If I had the means (even though I don't need one for my rinky-dink shop) I would love to get my hands on one (or more).

I think it's fantastic when one is brought back from the dead and I have deep respect for the people that can salvage them. I would like to understand them more so that if I am ever in the position to acquire one I should know what I might be up against. Thanks again everyone.

[fciron]

Dang, I think Larry covered it all in the first post. There were a few extra details, but that's pretty much what's up with old self-contained and utility hammers. The utility hammers (not self contained) are less popular because most of us don't have the compressors or boilers needed to run them.

In terms of why old hammers need work, I just found out that the 50lb little Giant that came with my shop has been set up for 440v current for the last forty years and the shop has 220. This explains why it would only do half the work of my 25. In addition it has had a strange maintenance history; the babbit bearings have been repoured several times, but none of the pins or the oval shaped holes in the dupont linkage have ever been repaired and the previous owner was amazed at the improvement in the hammer after I spent 1/2 and hour adjusting the ram guides.. I am also not sure that the alignment of the shaft was maintained when the new bearings were poured. A lot of this equipment has been maintained by untrained people in somewhat arbitrary ways. I am pretty sure my guys re-did the babbit because it was a process they knew, not necessarily because it was the source of the problem, but they didn't mess with the milling, reaming and recentering of holes because it wasn't their job. I'm sure he knew about and adjusted the ram guides when the machine was new, but as the machinery got older and was only used occasionally a lot of the maintenance issues accelerated without anyone noticing because no one remembered what it was supposed to work like. (I know when I replaced all the pins and bushings in the 25, ten years after the first rebuild, I was quite surprised at the improvement and my failure to notice the deterioration over time.)

Lewis

[Dave Hammer]

SASK MASK Wrote....

"I'm not serious enough to justify the costs that many here mention to buy one of these hammers. I am just curious as to what one could expect in 'getting into bed' with one of these beasts. "



I can answer that from experience.... Shear JOY when it runs for the first time. Excitement and satisfaction every time thereafter. Pleasure every time you look at it.

[ThomasPowers]

I used to work in the oilpatch and "deferred maintenance" was a big issue there. You see the driller usually got paid by the feet of hole he made and changing out a drill bit could be a day or more of zero in a deep hole tripping the bit out and back down. However if you didn't do it in time you could wear the cones off the bit leaving some very expensive metal down in the hole as it would mess up a new bit big time. So if it happened you would then need to trip back in with a junk basket and try to clean out the metal left behind which would then stack the zero's in the no feet of hole made department.

So a lot of drillers would try to push on and leave the maintenance down time to the next shift. Sometimes they screwed things up big time! (I have some very nice steel "gravel" that actually cost more than silver did back when it was made and recovered...)

Most good companies keep an eye on things these days and mandate bit changes before they are completely worn out---but as the news has shown us companies are still willing to skirt on safety issues to make the bottom line look better.

[Sask Mark]

SASK MASK Wrote....

I can answer that from experience.... Shear JOY when it runs for the first time.

Mr. Hammer, this was clearly evident when I saw the video of the 1st time you fired up your rebuilt hammer. It's a lovely hammer.