We have been slow in the shop so we have been doing a bunch of fun things.  One is building a prototype treadle hammer.    It seems to me that most really lack in power and waste a lot of energy in links and friction.   I like the idea of an inline hammer but I think you get the most efficent blow from the simple two bar solid link.     This hammer has a solid ram and a 400lb solid anvil.   It has full width bronze bushings on stainless pins.   Ram weight is only about 75 pounds but I think you could get more work done with it than heavier hammers I have seen just because it is solid and has a real anvil.

 

Anyway here are a couple of tests we did today...

 

Punched a 1/2" hole in 1" bar and hot cut a chunk of 1" X 2"

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXcRWXJx1Io

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbjvRb5bNrQ

I agree that the most efficient is the swing arm. 

Interesting design.

I like a good swing arm treadle hammer. There isn't anything really wrong with an inline, but they seem generally more stiff.

 

Here are a couple things I would point out. Your springs are not 90-degrees to your treadle. I would think that a 90-degree line of pull from your treadle, would give you maximum efficiency in your spring energy. (I could be wrong, I'm not engineer.)

 

The second thing is, the more your stretch a spring the more the resistance increases. If your spring motion is kept very little, the amount of resistance it produces is more consistent. (I.E. The treadle is not harder to push the farther down it goes.) This one is from personal experience. The inline treadle hammers and a lot of swing arms have the springs attached to the treadle just behind the anvil. On my treadle hammer the spring is attached just in front of the hammer's backbone really close to the pivot point of the treadle. In this way, the spring only flexes a very little bit. This requires a much heavier spring. I used a 16-inch snow plow spring made from about about 3/8-inch diameter steel. You can operate the treadle with your small finger. Mine is lighter as it is build for reppousse work, but you could use two or even three springs if needed.

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/26380-my-new-home-built-treadle-hammer/?hl=%2Btreadle+%2Bhammer

That one works similarly to my shop-built treadle hammer - which is pretty close to the old ABANA swing arm design.  Operator size also helps - I am tall and have long legs so can get a lot of momentum going.  I also agree that a lighter head moving faster does more work due to more strikes generated during a single heat.  My ram is only 60 lbs and the anvil is 350.

I guess that hot cut was made from H13, since the amount of time it was cooled off appeared more to be for lubrication. Evidence of the extreme heating could be witnessed on the penetrating head. BUT it is a good video.

 

Carry on

Looks like a tried and true treadle hammer to these old eyeballs. Like any swing arm type hammers the longer you make the arms the more leg it takes to get up to speed. Long arms are nice for throat but your springs take up a lot of it.

 

Have you looked at the Watt Linkage inline motion hammers like the Grasshopper? They are both inline and swing arm hammers so you don't lose so much energy and can use more precision tooling.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

I noticed in second video you dipped punch in water to cool then into "something else".... Was it a lubricant like bees wax or something else....

 

Dale