John Larson Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Friday I had my buddies Dave Hammer and Rob "Deker" Dekelbaum over to run the Octagon 150 and the custom 200 for filming for near-future showing on YouTube. The 150 ran pretty much as these guys expected, having run this size of my machines before. On the 200 their eyes widened as it handled Deker's billets in one heat where the 150 used two heats. They each gave it a thumbs up. Not only is the falling weight bigger, the cylinder is a 5" bore instead of a 4" bore for greater pneumatic effect. Usually, I've been told, a 200 is rated to do 4" stock. So I had a 4x4x4 chunk on a long handle and took it to 3x3x7 in one heat. It could have gone longer but I accidentally hurt the handle and had to stop. There was very little fish mouthing so that it was hitting penetrating blows as desired. The dies were 6.5"x2.375" S7 Brian Russell combination dies, the biggest he makes for Sahinler. Had I used full length fullering dies the outcome would have been more impressive. I also did a rr spike "knife" and at the end held it edgewise vertical lengthwise with very light taps to demo the super control of this machine. Even Nazel guy Dave Hammer was impressed. This work was done using only my 20 HP Quincy shop air compressor with the regulator set at 80 psi and it ran sustained at 50 to 60 psi. That is almost the low pressure territory of the old steam hammers. Fearing the pressure would drop below 40 psi, I had a 10 hp auxilliary compressor running, but I had forgotten to turn on the ball valve into the main line. Hence the finding on the adequacy of the 20 hp Quincy was serendipitous. When the video material is accessible I'll be letting you know. Being that this 200 is a new size for Iron Kiss, I'm a very happy guy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Salvati Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Very cool John!!! I look forward very much to seeing the video! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Einhorn Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Excellent work as always, John! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blacksmith Johnny Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Sounds awesome , cant wait to see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Larson Posted March 11, 2012 Author Share Posted March 11, 2012 One important additional point to make. When you guys watch the videos note that the machines are pretty solid in their stance. Neither one budged all day. Heck the 200 hasn't budged ever since I set it down weeks ago. I firmly believe in the 20:1 mass ratio and the rather firm 3/4" plywood between the base plate and the concrete floor. Dave has mentioned he'll be finishing the video editing and formatting work over the next week or maybe a bit longer. I'm as anxious to see them as you guys are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillon Sculpture Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 Aww, you tease! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monstermetal Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Thats cool John... The market needs a 200lb utility hammer... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Larson Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 Dave finished the video production work and has them on youtube. I don't know the IFI policvy on posting addresses, but you should be able to look for iron kiss hammers to find the bunch of them from last Friday, plus others. The 200 is awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Larson Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 I folled my own advice and it didn't work. So try http://youtu.be/Z7GPBam0Gx4 and you'll find the other 5 videos from Firday there as we... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Larson Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 Duh! Here are the other addresses in a sequence of posts.http://youtu.be/Od68oAofqbs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Larson Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Larson Posted March 14, 2012 Author Share Posted March 14, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Larson Posted March 14, 2012 Author Share Posted March 14, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkunkler Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Impressive, looks rock solid and hard hitting. Great job John and great job on the videos Dave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Backwoods Blacksmith Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Man. Great hammers. Now I am going to be so bummed pecking away with my home built 75. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuge Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 That 200 is the boss. Those vids are a bit quiet, I wanna hear some of that carnage! Amazing. And thanks for your blog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel.85 Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 What would you need to run in continuously? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trinculo Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Looks great John. I noticed the 200 doesn't seem to have the tup up at idle. Is the control different on this than on your smaller hammers? Congrats, is this now going to become a standard model? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonjic Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Good work John! I can appreciate how much effort must go into building your hammers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Larson Posted March 14, 2012 Author Share Posted March 14, 2012 This 200 doesn't have tup-up-at-idle. I use a little Humphrey 3-port valve to actuate the feature and it did not flow enough air for this hammer's trigger circuits. Also, I wanted the initial light reciprocation when the treadle is touched lightly and that would not be there with tup-up-at-idle because the throttle valve would be opened slightly to exhaust upper chamber air when the treadle is released to actuate a bigger version of the Humphrey valve. I decided it is not a needed feature; I built hammers for a long time before I added the feature. A 20 hp Quincy reciprocating air compressor drives the machine for continuous forging. The 5" cylinder is large enough to permit top performance at 40 to 60 psi. All the lines are 1". I tested with an auxilliary compressor on several occasions. Before I installed the poppet valve and was using a large spool valve it used much more air and the auxilliary compressor was needed. The poppet valve is a much faster acting valve and the inherent stroke length of the hammer head is shorter, hence using less air per blow. The 150 uses a spool valve, but smaller than the one I tried on the 200, and as you can see it works great. It would not work with the much bigger cylinder on the 200. Much, much time went into development of the 200's air system. The 200 can be available if anyone else wants one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peacock Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 I did notice 1 huge problem with the 200. It's not setting in my shop. You need to work on that John. I could be persuaded to be your midwest demo site. You know they could compare with Lillle giants, Bradleys, SayHa, and Iron Kiss at one location. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Larson Posted March 20, 2012 Author Share Posted March 20, 2012 I shipped the Octagon 150 today. I also received word that the 200's customer has located a tall enough box truck to be able to ship it standing up on the heavy duty pallet (crated). Most of the weight is in the bottom 3 feet, so stability is not much of an issue. This project has definitely been a long one, but when several waiting for parts and research episodes are deleted the construction time is quite reasonable. Nevertheless, big hammers take much longer than the Octagon 50s and 75s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmike Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 What a lovely beast :wub: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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