so i found this video on youtube of what seems to be a power hammer with a linkage made of two leaf springs. it obviously works but ive never really seen a linkage like this and was wondering how effective it would be vs a more common linkage. it also looks like he is using the pre existing holes in the springs to connect every thing together. 

 

That isn't really different than that on a Little giant type mechanical it just has twice as many springs as it needs.

I like it, it's simple the simpler a device that does it's job well the higher the tech and better the engineering. Cupcake is a lightweight hammer, in the 10lb. range at an eyeball guess but she's pretty smooth, nicely responsive and has a BPM to make up for her weight.

I like Cupcake, she's a working darling. I wonder what he used her for, I think he had something in mind that needed a light fast hammer. It's just too easy to make a heavier hammer the same way to make a light one accidentally.

Cool link, thanks.

Frosty The Lucky.

I've seen pictures of, and drawings of, the same mechanism in turn of the century hammers.  The Little Giant type of mechanism provides more bang for the size I believe but has the danger of a breaking spring departing the scene in the operators direction.

im glad to here that this is a sound design, i wonder if the weight of the hammer was just a product of him wanting to make it out of what he had available. i really like the simplicity of the design, reminds me of some of the "mini" power hammers ive seen only a lot taller.

Not too far off from the Japanese hammers with the rubber banding.  Light, fast blows would be good for knife forging.

Not a bad design, and certainly something you could fabricate with a couple of golf cart springs.  The only negatives I see is the complete lack of weight on the thing.  He really needs to add some sand and oil to the tubing that makes up the body just to help absorb some of that jumping around.

For a knifemaker, I can see the thing being handy.  If you ever wanted to step out of that world, though, you'd want more weight and a larger throat so you could get tooling in there.