Shaw & Justice dead stroke power hammer

[Happy Hammerer]

I have a Shaw & justice dead stroke power hammer In need of rebuilding. However I can not find much information on it. I want to know if these were good machines and worth fixing or if it would be a waist of time and money? Any information would be helpful. Thanks.

[njanvilman]

Do you have all of the parts?  Could you lay them out to show us what kind of mechanism it is?  All all of the parts intact?  No breaks?  It is probably worth rebuilding if all parts are there.  The frame could be made into something else if the rest is missing.

 

Where in the world is the "Happy Hammerer"?  It always helps to put your general location in your profile.  Always surprising who might be nearby who could lend a hand.

[kubiack]

It looks like part of the left side ram guide is broken. Its hard to tell from the picture but it looks like it is part of the frame. If that is the case I would look for a different hammer in better condition as a starting point. This hammer could still be made to work but for the time and expense it would take I would not do it.

[ThomasPowers]

You mean that piece of wood to the left of the bolted on ram guide? Looks like the ram guide is there; but the right hand side one is missing---not a hard part to get made.

This set up looks a lot like a champion powerhammer you might find more info under them that could be tweaked for your hammer and it looks well worth re-building to me!

[Geoff Keyes]

According to "Pounding out the Profits" the S&J is a crank actuated strap hammer, the tub is suspended from a leather strap attached to the spring ends.  It works more like a pile driver than what most of us think of as a powerhammer, the tup is in free fall and delivers all of it's energy before starting the next cycle.  It was not designed for light tapping blows.  That said, it would be a simple conversion to a toggle arm design.  There is a bunch more in the book about S&J, the most interesting is Shaw's design for a gunpowder driven pile driver.

 

Geoff

[kubiack]

Perhaps it is a piece of wood but I'm not sure why you would bolt on a piece of wood and then paint it the same color as the frame. Looking a the second picture if looks like it is part of the frame to me.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Happy, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance.

 

Try a patent search, you should be able to find a model or even patent # to help. It isn't likely to give you art numbers but the abstract and prints will tell you enough to help a LOT. Most any good machine shop can use the drawings to make the parts.

 

A quick Google search yielded : http://tinyurl.com/nbjt89n

 

It's not really what you're looking for but it can't hurt to have a pic.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[HWooldridge]

According to "Pounding out the Profits" the S&J is a crank actuated strap hammer, the tub is suspended from a leather strap attached to the spring ends.  It works more like a pile driver than what most of us think of as a powerhammer, the tup is in free fall and delivers all of it's energy before starting the next cycle.  It was not designed for light tapping blows.  That said, it would be a simple conversion to a toggle arm design.  There is a bunch more in the book about S&J, the most interesting is Shaw's design for a gunpowder driven pile driver.
 
Geoff

 


Sounds like a short stroke drop hammer.

[Judson Yaggy]

Looks like a broken ram guide casting to me, fairly clear in photo #3.  If it has all the other parts it's a medium difficulty repair on a very rare hammer so worth a rebuild in my book.  $$ and time will be required thou.

 

 

According to "Pounding out the Profits" the S&J is a crank actuated strap hammer, the tub is suspended from a leather strap attached to the spring ends.  It works more like a pile driver than what most of us think of as a powerhammer, the tup is in free fall and delivers all of it's energy before starting the next cycle.  It was not designed for light tapping blows.  

 

Geoff, have you run a hammer of this type?  The bow spring and leather strap linkage can be found on many hammers like the Scranton, Williams and White, Diesel and Eisenhart (sp?) and some Bradleys and Beaudrys.  All very well regarded industrial hammers that can indeed deliver a light tapping blow if in good working order.  The leather is just another part of the linkage, drivetrain and spring do the work just like on a Little Giant.

[Geoff Keyes]

Don't have the hammer, all I have is the book.  Pounding out the Profits, Pg. 136 "...was offered as the "Dead Stroke" Power Hammer.  This term referred to the fact that all of the energy of the descending hammer ram was transferred to the work before the crank and it's linkage lifted it upward."  I believe that this means that the preload let the tup rest on the bottom die at BDC.  The Bradleys and Beaudrys preload the tup so that the springs are actuated before the tup reaches BDC.  It was done intentionally in the S&J and may have had something to do with Sharp having designed trip hammers and pile drivers before taking up a forging hammer, which the book goes into at some length.

 

I do agree that this is a rare hammer and restoring it is a good idea.  However, in it's original configuration it may not be the best forging hammer.  They were considered the preferred hammer for open die forging and were very robust.  So it depends on the kind of forging one is doing.

 

Geoff

[NeatGuy]

Here is a scan of Scientific American I own. '>

 

brad

[maltesehunter]

I would have an interest in taking on this project if you decided you wanted to skip.

 

I know of one other hammer like this, except it is probably a few years earlier. You can see that this must have been a common problem with the guides blowing out on these hammers.

[Dodge]

Here is a scan of Scientific American I own. '>

 

brad

 

The link seems to be broken. 404 error :(

[Happy Hammerer]

Thanks for the information. Sorry I haven't responded. I didn't realize there had been any activity on this topic. I haven't done much other than move it to new spots when it gets in the way of some other project. I haven't been able to justify the time and money to do the restoration. I had hoped to be doing more paid blacksmithing jobs which would give me an excuse to restore her. The blacksmithing hasn't profited enough so she will have to wait.