on an earlier post i had shown my home built small helve hammer, (

)

I was going to ask if anyone had experience with tuning leaf spring helve hammers and if perhaps there were any links to information on the subject. ive been having a world of trouble replying to said post but i figured this was a good subject to start a new post about anyway. Ive searched here and elsewhere and came across something about tuning light sheetmetal forming helves but it was pretty sparce on details. The hammer is striking fairly well with the treadle half depressed but it seems to miss a beat when all the way down, and i feel like a hammer with a 15+ pound head should be striking much harder than it is.I can do as much work with a 3# hand hammer at the moment...

Any help is greatly appreciated and sorry in advance if im not able to respond to this post, the site doesnt seem to want to let me post replies for some reason

 I was sorting thru some old papers this morning and came across this article I had printed many years ago -

link is still active even - http://www.fergusonsculpture.com/helve/helvearticle.html

here's one of the original helve article - http://www.fergusonsculpture.com/helve.html

Thanks for posting that Jeremy

jeremy k,  That is an excellent analysis and great posting   really deserves to be permeant part of this forum.