Funny how things sometimes turn out...

[beammeupscotty]

As it happens, I shoot in a Skeet league every spring.  I shoot in the duffers league as opposed to the serious shooters league. I guess I have been shooting on the same team for four years now.  Year before last I discovered to my great surprise that the father of one of the guys on my team owns the last two industrial forges left in the S.F.  Bay Area, one in Berkeley and one in Emeryville.  I don't get over to that side of the hills very often any more but I had to drive to Brisbane to buy some coal today and as I was also heading into Berkeley to buy some decent bread at Acme Bakery, I decided to see if my Skeet buddy was at work today.  Turns out he was and he was able to give me a complete tour of the facility.  Needless to say, it was AWESOME.  

 

I took a very short video with my camera.  I have never posted video before so I hope this works. This hammer hits so hard the entire floor shakes.  The hammer is driven by steam.

 

 

This is the part they are making. 

 

 

 

I believe it is a tooth for the tool on the back of one of these:

 

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These teeth are forged out of 187 lbs. chunks of steel, heated in this furnace.  You can see a couple of the billets lying on the ground in front of the forge.

 

 

 

Fork lift loading a billet into the steam hammer die.

 

 

Sorry the images and video are not of better quality.  This place is really astonishing to actually be in.  Hot material everywhere, you really have to be on your toes and alert every second to avoid disaster.  

[DSW]

Thanks. Really cool seeing that sort of stuff.  I wonder what that big flywheel shown in the picts is for.

[beammeupscotty]

Thanks. Really cool seeing that sort of stuff.  I wonder what that big flywheel shown in the picts is for.

The two hammers shown in the short video are very high power steam hammers…my friend told me at one time what the power of them was… I want to say in the million pound range.  They also have several lower power hammers (by comparison, anyway) that are flywheel driven and that is what you are seeing in that picture, the large flywheel.   I do not know the power of them for certain, but back  in the day I used to have a job maintaining dies for use in punch presses and in setting up those dies.  The were mainly to make parts out of sheet metal.  All of the punch presses we had operated on the same principle…a large flywheel that rotates constantly storing significant amounts of centrifugal energy.   A clutch system  engages the flywheel with something like a single piston crankshaft type of joint… something that changes the direction of the stored energy from rotational to vertical.  That drove a piston like thing that in turn, crammed the dies together, stamping out parts.  These presses at the forge however, were WAY bigger than the ones I worked with. In the shop I was in the presses were rated at 5 tons.   If I had to guess strictly based upon size I'd have to say these were at least 50 ton, perhaps even 100. 

[njanvilman]

If you ever have a chance to get a good video camera and spend some time there, I am sure that all on this site would love to see that operation in action.  Heavy industry like that is getting rarer all of the time, and a video record of what and how they did it would be great.  (Think about the b/w chainmaking film that is posted on this site.  I have watched it many times, and always go back for more) 

 

Thanks for posting what you did.  Neat stuff.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

I drove past those two shops for decades when I lived in CA. Every once in awhile a door would be open , and you could see hot iron. Most of the time all you saw was steam venting out the roof.

I wish I could have filmed the hammers in action during the family day at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo CA. Like you said, the ground shook every time they did big hits. Years later they were sold off with the rest of the yard after it was closed down. I still have the auction sheets from that sale.

[beammeupscotty]

I drove past those two shops for decades when I lived in CA. Every once in awhile a door would be open , and you could see hot iron. Most of the time all you saw was steam venting out the roof.

I wish I could have filmed the hammers in action during the family day at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo CA. Like you said, the ground shook every time they did big hits. Years later they were sold off with the rest of the yard after it was closed down. I still have the auction sheets from that sale.

Oddly enough, I learned the basics of blacksmithing from a retired gentleman who was a smith at that very shipyard.  I also worked at that yard for a little while myself during Desert Storm when they were recommissioning some of those ships from the Mothball Fleet to carry material to the Gulf.  There was at one time a fairly large forge right down at Jack London Square.  I was working in the area when they tore the building down and the old hammers were just sitting there out in the weather for several weeks until they finally got rid of them somehow.  Berkeley has been trying to shut down the Berkeley Forge for years.  I doesn't fit in with their 21st Century image of themselves and they want to put up apartments instead.  So far however, the forge has been able to resist their efforts to shut them down.  

[macbruce]

Great stuff, thanks for posting.......... B)

[ptree]

Those are I believe Erie steam hammers. From eyeballing I would guess 10,000#. They are rated not by tonnage as a press  or punch press is but rather by the dropping weight. That would be the ram, die,pistom rod and piston. Steam on the top of the piston will accelerate the ram faster than just gravity. These are probably Heavy duty drop hammers, a class of double column Erie hammers. At the valve shop I worked at we had many, the 5000# being our most common, some 7500# and a 10,000# a 15,000# and a 25,000# all running on 145# steam.

[beammeupscotty]

Those are I believe Erie steam hammers. From eyeballing I would guess 10,000#. They are rated not by tonnage as a press  or punch press is but rather by the dropping weight. That would be the ram, die,pistom rod and piston. Steam on the top of the piston will accelerate the ram faster than just gravity. These are probably Heavy duty drop hammers, a class of double column Erie hammers. At the valve shop I worked at we had many, the 5000# being our most common, some 7500# and a 10,000# a 15,000# and a 25,000# all running on 145# steam

Wow! I am surprised to find someone who actually knew about these hammers.  Thanks for that input.  

[ptree]

There are many across the world. Those Eries and Chamberburgs and others forged the parts thatmade the US. Not as common as they once were, but there are many still in daily use. Many are now running on compressed air, instead of steam.

[ptree]

Here are a couple of links to you tube video's of steam hammers in operation:

[beammeupscotty]

Here are a couple of links to you tube video's of steam hammers in operation:

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[Frosty]

Here are a couple of links to you tube video's of steam hammers in operation:

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[ptree]

I was seeing Awhat looked like some steam leakage at the rod on the bigger hammer. Newer style rod packings are far better at sealing then the old hemp rope with tallow once used. BUT, I noticed that the rams were NOT tupping. I have never seen a big drop hammer not tupping to maintain the steam flow from the steam generator and to keep the lines hot and dry. I deduce air operated and the "Steam" puff from the rod was condensate from the air.

Steam is no more or less "Bouncy" then compressed air, since they are both a compressed gas.

I suspect that the hammer does not notice the difference, The valves usually have to be reworked to seal better to avoid leakage but the hammer gets little to no changes otherwise. Many old steam hammers have been rebuilt to compressed air.

[ptree]

A properly adjusted valve linkage can give an experienced hammerman anything from a tiny tap to all she has.

In our shop at the valve company the billets for the big hammers were "Round corner square" a rough ground semi finished bar. For the big hammer often 11" square. To save material and time the 1500 to 2500# billet was pulled from the forge and an edge was rested on the die. The hammer man would tap out a 4" tong hold drawing 11" square to 4" square with a 25,000# hammer. Couple of taps rotate couple more back to start and tap and then push onto the die and remove the big tongs. A locking 4" set of tongs was clamped on. The hammer man and crew who used pry bars moved the billet over the impression and greased the upper dies. Then all save the hammerman retreated around to the sides where the columns would protect them and the hammer man would hit the treadle for a HARD blow. Air blows from 2" pipe blew the smoke,fire and scale away from him and out the back of the hammer. He was about 3-4' from the ram when it hit. The crew would pry up the billet and blow scale from the bottom die, and then retreat. Again a hard blow often several. Then flip into the second impression grease and repeat. Where all this gets exciting is when the forging sticks in the upper die. The experienced hammer man holds the tongs with his hands and wrists UNDER the tngs, and no portion of his body over the tongs.

On really hard to forge shapes often there were 3 impressions per set og dies and it took 2 or 3 stes to progress through and get a finished forging. So we had 2 forges, out of the first, forge, return to 2nd forge. when all are in second forge change dies and reverse and repeat till finished.From memory the 25,000HD hammer had a 6' by 8' die but I may be off a little. The die wedges were in the area of 6' long. The inlet for steam was a 8" pipe from a 82,500lb/hour boiler. That is 800 Hp for those who like those units. Took a 5 man crew.