Making a Power Hammer Anvil

[r smith]

If you're talking about loose junk metal and sand I can't get on board with that. concrete,exoxy, molten lead all would make the pieces parts one homogenius mass which will give density to the anvil. I picture loose material within the pipe/tube settleing and jumping with each blow. No bueno. Whatever it is it should be solid imo.

I have to think that anything put in a tube and held together with epoxy concrete etc will eventually turn to sand and loose bit under hammer impacts.
May take some time to destroy the bond holding it all together but I think history has shown that there are no working examples of old hammers with concrete etc anvils. If they worked there would be some. No doubt they are cheaper and if they worked everyone would have one.

[mudbugone]

I have to agree on the cement composition anvil...I seriously think the repeated cycles of impact would eventually pulverize the concrete. Woodsmith clearly states it hits like a 50# LG and I'm certainly not going to dispute his observation.

If anyone noticed there is a huge chunk of steel on top of the filled post anvil which probably weighs a 100# so the filled post acts as a heavy mass under that anvil structure.

No one is saying that a totally solid anvil isn't the best option...only that it obviously isn't the only option. I'm looking forward to Woodsmiths action video of the hammer in operation. He stated he's used it to draw 1-1/4" rod and was happy with the ability of his hammer... I could live with that ability.

I didn't know the anvil was a composite post until this morning... I'm glad to see someone else is thinking outside the norm and I'm very interested in what he's done.... especially if it works.

[Will. K.]

Isn't the lower anvil portion of the frames on the Little Giant hammers a hollow cone?

[mudbugone]

That fact seems to be omitted from most conversations on the subject.... Any thoughts as to Why.?

[macbruce]

I have to agree on the cement composition anvil...I seriously think the repeated cycles of impact would eventually pulverize the concrete.

If concrete/lead/epoxy is totally enclosed within heavy steel pipe/tube with some goodies trown in and capped top and bottom so it doesn't take direct hit or shake I can't feature it turning to sand....but I'm not building any hammers to prove it either.......... :lol:

[mudbugone]

LOL... I don't know it might be an interesting experiment... Having done my share of de-construction when much younger I know several instances where we attempted to remove plain concrete (no re-bar) from pipes using sledge hammers and jack hammers... we gave up the folly.

Giving it some thought...If you continually hit the side of the pipe filled with concrete "then" the concrete might start to breakdown(slightly) ,but if the impact were to be from the top of the column onto a steel plate...How long would it take to cause breakdown ? will we live that long ? to notice a difference in performance.

The whole discussion is giving my idea of using this granular material more validity instead of less. I'm thinking the concrete weighs less than steel so the block would have to be much larger than even cast iron which is lighter than steel too.

I'd still be interested in an explaination of the Little Giant void and why that doesn't impact (no pun) the ability of those machines to function considering the lack of mass under the die itself ??? When you consider the harping generally associated with making an anvil for use on a power hammer this fact sorta blows that thinking sky high. There sure seems to be a great deal of assumptive thinking associated with this matter rather than actual knowledge supported by facts.

[JNewman]

Isn't the lower anvil portion of the frames on the Little Giant hammers a hollow cone?

That fact seems to be omitted from most conversations on the subject.... Any thoughts as to Why.?

I would say there are a couple of reasons. While a solid anvil would be better from a mass point of view, just like today price was often a deciding factor in purchases. Cast solid would have been much more expensive. These hammers were made from cast iron, much more brittle than steel, If the anvil had been made cylindrical with a wide flat plate like most home built hammers the wide flat plate necessary to keep it from falling over would have been very weak unless it were made quite thick. Finally when a casting goes quickly from a heavy section to a light section like the flange is you can get shrinkage problems, This can cause cracking or holes in the casting, I would guess that the wall section gradually tapers from thick to thin below the solid section of the anvil.

[dan_m]

The anvil on my scranton hammer is also hollow. It's a single piece of cast iron, with 1" thick walls and a solid 5" thick block on top of the hollow portion. The base is not open, and im not aure how thick that section is. There are two large holes in the backside. I'm on my phone so cant add a picture, but you can see what it looks in the scranton scramble thread (the pictures are of it installed, not laying down).

[mudbugone]

I'm sure those are all valid points and reasons why the casting is hollow... What I find interesting is the general demand that the anvil "MUST" be a solid mass directly under the tup while in reality that demand was obviously circumvented with the Little Giant design and considering the quantity still in use it surely didn't seem to cause a problem.

Makes one begin to think that the general thinking on this matter is more hogwash than reality when dissected and examined with logical thinking.If the Little Giant can function without the mass directly under the tup...then there is no reason any other design couldn't function just as well if designed in a similar manner.

Yes..the heavy cast iron hollow housing is tapered and this probably aids transfer of the impact to the mass of the base,but it in no way alters the fact that the base is as hollow as a log.It would probably work better if filled with concrete or scrap steel.

[JNewman]

LOL... I don't know it might be an interesting experiment... Having done my share of de-construction when much younger I know several instances where we attempted to remove plain concrete (no re-bar) from pipes using sledge hammers and jack hammers... we gave up the folly.

Giving it some thought...If you continually hit the side of the pipe filled with concrete "then" the concrete might start to breakdown(slightly) ,but if the impact were to be from the top of the column onto a steel plate...How long would it take to cause breakdown ? will we live that long ? to notice a difference in performance.

The whole discussion is giving my idea of using this granular material more validity instead of less. I'm thinking the concrete weighs less than steel so the block would have to be much larger than even cast iron which is lighter than steel too.

I'd still be interested in an explaination of the Little Giant void and why that doesn't impact (no pun) the ability of those machines to function considering the lack of mass under the die itself ??? When you consider the harping generally associated with making an anvil for use on a power hammer this fact sorta blows that thinking sky high. There sure seems to be a great deal of assumptive thinking associated with this matter rather than actual knowledge supported by facts.

When I built my Kinyon hammer I used a 280 lb block of steel as the anvil with a 1 1/4" steel plate for the base plate and a 50lb ram. Using it for a couple of years in my shop it smashed the 5-6" reinforced concrete under the hammer up pretty well. the hammer was mounted on oak boards with conveyor belting under it. I would guess that a concrete filled anvil would break up pretty quickly.

After a few years I made the ram 100 lb, When I did so, I increased the anvil to an 800lb block of steel increasing the ratio as I had found the approximately 1-6 somewhat lacking. Even higher would have been better but money, throat clearance, and quickly available steel restricted me to the 800 lb block. it is now mounted to a 1000lb portable steel and concrete foundation and still shakes the shop as much as the 600lb Massey with a bigger anvil and proper foundation.

While there is a cavity under the center of a little giant the hollow conical iron piece is still a lot of mass. Look at an industrial hammer like a Nazel, Massey or Chambersburg. The anvils are either an inverted t shape or sort of an inverted mushroom shape to get more mass in the anvil.

[macbruce]

Well Mud , If you build the thing with concrete/ rebar inside and steel pipe w/ caps and it works, will ya open it up and see if there's powder in there before I die, It would mean allot pal,,,,,,, B)

[Bentiron1946]

One of the reasons that your 6" of reinforced concrete floor broke up if from flexing of the floor. If you had cut through the floor all around the hammer it would still probably be good. When the whole floor in the shop is acting as one big mass send out a sine wave starting out at the point of impact it will soon break at the point of impact. If the sine wave is short then it takes much longer for the concrete to break up. This is one of the reasons that you see isolation pads for heavy equipment or equipment that generates vibration, to eliminate the movement of sine waves through the concrete which will lead to transmission of noise, vibration and cracking and ultimate failure of the concrete flooring.
As to the hollow base of a LG, the walls are very thick and the and the force of the blow is transmitted through these massive walls to the supposedly equal mass of concrete, timbers or other material upon which the machine rests. If you look at some of the suggested designs for these hammers the foundation is as important as the mass of the anvil. Your 3-1/2" thick garage floor at home just doesn't cut it. When I first saw the Kenyon hammer it was demonstrated in his home garage and the floor was bouncing up and down under our feet with each full blow and if you were standing outside his garage it was visible to the naked eye, perhaps as much as 3". A firm foundation was required to get the most out of this machine as it is for any power hammer.

[mudbugone]

LOL... I'm not planning on making one out of cement even though I think it would work with a thick enough top plate. With a top plate around 100# and a filled pipe under it I think it would function,but that's just my opinion and I'm not advocating that anyone should do it that way.

This whole discussion started about using the granular cast iron particles and finding a way to solidify that material into a mass to use as an acceptable anvil for a power hammer. I've seen nothing that would preclude using this material for doing just that. Actually if anything I think it's been proven that this stuff can be solidified and will make as good if not a better anvil mass than even a Little Giant hammer... at least it'll actually be a solid mass directly under the tup.

I'll make you a deal though... I'll build a pipe anvil filled with re-bar and cement and fix whatever hammer I fabricate so the anvil can be swapped to try out such an anvil and we'll all see what happens to it. I've got the pipe and I'm willing to gamble some re-bar and a bag of cement to experiment a little. I intended to make the hammer anvil a bolt on assembly anyway. Worst case it'll make a super vise stand...LOL

[JNewman]

One of the reasons that your 6" of reinforced concrete floor broke up if from flexing of the floor. If you had cut through the floor all around the hammer it would still probably be good. When the whole floor in the shop is acting as one big mass send out a sine wave starting out at the point of impact it will soon break at the point of impact. If the sine wave is short then it takes much longer for the concrete to break up. This is one of the reasons that you see isolation pads for heavy equipment or equipment that generates vibration, to eliminate the movement of sine waves through the concrete which will lead to transmission of noise, vibration and cracking and ultimate failure of the concrete flooring.
As to the hollow base of a LG, the walls are very thick and the and the force of the blow is transmitted through these massive walls to the supposedly equal mass of concrete, timbers or other material upon which the machine rests. If you look at some of the suggested designs for these hammers the foundation is as important as the mass of the anvil. Your 3-1/2" thick garage floor at home just doesn't cut it. When I first saw the Kenyon hammer it was demonstrated in his home garage and the floor was bouncing up and down under our feet with each full blow and if you were standing outside his garage it was visible to the naked eye, perhaps as much as 3". A firm foundation was required to get the most out of this machine as it is for any power hammer.

I did cut the floor around the hammer. But I did use the hammer pretty hard. Day after day of running flat out.

I agree a proper foundation is important. That hammer now has 12" of concrete under it and the Massey has 5'6"

[mudbugone]

All that mass addresses Mac's question earlier about the foundation mass being part of the equation of the anvil mass. The solid concrete mass under the hammers naturally adds more mass to the hammer itself.

Those are both rather large hammers and beyond the scope of a 50# homebuilt hammer ,but the general concept of the base adding to the hammer mass is valid.

This explains why the old power hammers gave directions for massive foundation blocks for installing these hammers. 5'6" of concrete is a substantial mass and 12" ain't tiny...anyone that's poured concrete knows this.

[ThomasPowers]

Design it so that it can then be used as an anvil for a treadle hammer which has a much easier life than a powerhammer anvil does.

The neat thing about blacksmithing is that generally the toys do not replace each other---you need at least one of each!

[MLMartin]

I don't think I would vote for the anvil filled with the metal dust, But if you make a home made hammer that has a hollow frame I would definitely poor the metal dust into the hollow frame, maybe leaving the top of the frame open so you could add more filler because over time the vibration of the hammer will make it all settle down to the bottom pretty tight. A vary heavy hammer frame is a nice thing. I know some of the self contained air hammers out there are made to have the frame filled with sand. I herd one of them being run once without the filler and it sounded like some one beating on a drum.

[JNewman]

100lb is not that big a hammer. Lots of guys are building homebuilt 75-100lb hammers. If you look at the hammer test thread you will see that the heavier built hammers with similar sized rams perform much better.

[mudbugone]

I didn't say the anvil would be filled with iron dust... The chemicals described back a couple of pages causes a reaction that solidifies the mass... not the same as fluid powder. The resulting anvil would be a very solid mass that would not compress,breakdown,or pack.

[r smith]

Even a one piece nazel 3b has a cone shaped hole on the bottom of the anvil. I am sure it is for casting purposes as JNewman said earlier. But the machine weighs in at almost 11,000 lbs

[peacock]

My Bradley hammers also have hollow anvils. The sow blocks on the new style Little Giant hammers are also hollow. I don't think the void is a problem. My thought is the loose filler is the porblem. If you can make it one piece and keep it one piece I think it will be fine. I know concrete in a pipe will break up over time, I have done that one already. If I were to try this I would weld a plate on the end of a pipe fill it with the iron chips, fit a heavy plate to the inside of the pipe put it in my 60 ton press squeeze it as hard as I could and weld the plate to the ID of the pipe. Make sure to leave a vent, a pipe threaded hole to be plugged with a fitting woud be the correct way. The fitting would give you a place to add water so it could rust to a soild mass without the problem of salt eatting it up.

[pkrankow]

Some questions: for a 25, 50, 75, and 100# mechanical hammer -

typical BPM at full speed
approximate total travel of the ram
can I assume that the die+ram+moving linkages are the specified ram weight

I am probably thinking too hard, but can follow through some material science stuff and see where I end up.

Phil

[Mainely,Bob]

Here is what I can tell you about metal that is subject to corrosion/oxidation and having that process turn it and everything around it into a single solid mass;
There`s expansion involved and if you think a heavy wall pipe will not be affected you`re wrong, it`ll deform and sooner or later blow out somewhere. Usually near a weld as that`s where the most stress is concentrated. Think about how that capped pipe assembly would react if it was hydraulically tested to failure, that`s what you`re setting in motion with your composite assembly bonded thru corrosion here. It`ll deform and fail,the question is not if but when.
Once corrosion/oxidation has started working the only way to stop it is to remove all traces of oxidation completely and seal the piece from any further moisture. folks have been trying to do this for centuries with not much luck if you live anywhere except a desert environment.
These observations are based on real world experience of over 2 decades dealing with corrosion and it`s repair in shipyards.

The other thing that strikes me about this overly extended conversation is that Mud is cherry picking in his facts and engineering and continually fails to acknowledge, never mind see, the big picture. The hollows in the anvil/frame castings are there because physics, engineering and characteristics of the material used demanded it at the time. He`s been shown pics and videos of how to make concrete based hammers successfully and yet he holds fast to this iron/steel/rust bonded theory. It would appear he doesn`t want a real world solution, he wants us to agree that his idea will work.
Tel ya what Mud, build it, use it for 15 years and then compare it to the ones in all the videos posted here even though they will have far more mileage on them by then. If yours is still as viable as they are then I`ll be the first to shake your hand and buy your a beer to celebrate your success.

I had a co-worker who wondered for years why some cast iron flat belt pulleys had curved spokes and some had straight. He went thru dozens of theoretical solutions to this mystery in his head and shared those theories all with us whenever we would allow it. After a several years I just couldn`t stand it any longer and in just a couple of days I found the answer for him. The curves spoke pulleys were older than the straight spoke ones. When they first started casting these pulleys the ones they tried casting broke thru the spokes because of the stresses and shrinkage involved between the heavy hubs and rims and the weaker spokes. So they went to curved spokes to allow the spokes to flex a bit rather than fracture. As the process and technology of post casting heat treatment progressed and the materials were developed to better meet the needs of industry they found ways to cast straight spoke pulleys because they were easier to make patterns for, quicker and easier to cast with less flaws and rejects and more importantly used less raw material.
Amazing what you can find by doing open minded and objective research, asking experts who work in the field such as engineers and lab techs at universities (just like Thomas suggested) instead of wasting all your time theorizing,eh?

[ThomasPowers]

"The resulting anvil would be a very solid mass that would not compress,breakdown,or pack."

"Won't Pack"; I can see but where did the won't "compress,breakdown," come from? I'd think that mix would be subject to at least breakdown or we would see a whole lot more of it in the historical record!

I'm sure one could build a wooden anvil for a light duty powerhammer and it would be better than hand hammering; just not even in the same league as a proper steel anvil.

However I'm all for experimentation---as long as you control the variables so the results actually address the question---I've judged Science Fairs for years and the biggest problem people tend to have is designing an experiment that actually tests what they are trying to test.

But as Sam has mentioned are you interested in the experiment; or are you interested in the iron pounding?

[nonjic]

I can prolly add a little to this thread, its not sciencey, just based on experience of running a few hammers over the years, and some idle mullings...

Any hammer : anvil ratio will squish a nice juicy big hot piece of steel. Only a hammer with a 'proper' anvil will effectively work thin cooling stock. Not enough anvil and you just bounce off the work piece. I get asked a lot by blacksmiths 'whats the biggest stock you can work under 'x' hammer.' its the wrong question! 'can I work a piece of 1" wide x 3/8" thick stainless to 1/4" thick stainless'? is a real indicator to the effectiveness of a hammer / anvil set up.

I think the 'hollow' anvils (L'G's , Chinese 'C-41' series one piece hammers etc) work quite well as the shape of the 'anvil' is basically a cone, with the middle missing. Ie, if you start from the top (pallet) every iron or steel atom is supported solidly by more underneath it - (Think 'house of cards' or Eiffel tower) , I think they would be more effective solid but casting technequies and ecconomics come into play (law of diminishing returns).

I think anvils filled with 'filler material', (lead, iron resin, rusty iron shot) with a steel or iron 'anvil cap' are basically worth jack. They might weigh more, & deaden sound and vibration but are not bringing anything to the party anvil wise. If the anvil 'cap' deflects 0.001" with every full blow of the hammer against it, and the anvil filler material has bedded or worn, or pulverised to leave a 0.002" gap under the anvil cap it may as well not be there. Show me a non monolithic " solid " material that I cant wollop down a few thou in a week with a sledge hammer..

To my mind (and, coz I get bored easily) a real out of the box 'anvil' would be a piece of rubber trapped in a solid steel tube, with a plate on the bottom, and a semi floating die holder. You cant compress rubber, only displace it.

Or how about an anvil filled with a non newtonian liquid ? spring support under the die holder so it does not sink when not under load. Yup, a custard anvil :D this would give a variable energy absorpion rate depending on the force of the hammers blow... sounds daft, but we use semi-viscous couplings in massive counterblow closed die hammers.......

I will build both of these anvils one day, they might work, they might not ? but they will be more effective than a tube filled with sound deadening material im sure!