Got my new power hammer set yesterday.

I did not build it myself, just helped with the design a little for my particular hammer.

We went with an 8"x8" anvil with vertical stacked plates and used an 1-1/4" thick base plate.  I'd say that the hammer weighs somewhere between 1,400-1,500 lbs.

It's powered by a 1-HP motor.  I ran a dedicated 30-amp circuit to it using #10 wire.

It's sitting on a 5/16" thick rubber vibration isolation pad and bolted down with 7" x 5/8" concrete anchors.  My garage slab is 6", 5,000 psi concrete with rebar so I feel like it's going to hold up fine. 

The mounting is very solid and the hammer does not move a bit.  The center portion between the anvil and motor post is filled with about 50 lbs. of sand.

It's definitely smooth and hits hard and I can't wait to use it this week.

I've got my smithy set up in-line so we can still park vehicles inside, my gas forge rotates so I can angle it toward my anvil or power hammer with a light push, so it all works good for me.

 

 

 

 

Looks nice and solid!

That is a nice looking hammer. I really like some of the additional bracing. My tire hammer was built about 9 years ago, use it almost every day. 

I can not explain the level of jealousy I have for your setup there, very nice man. If you are willing, you should post a video so we can oogle some more . 

WOW!! That's a sweet looking piece of machinery! 

Nice work, outstanding piece. 

How does your lower side die integrate, is it a bolt on? I thought of a quick change arrangement but I need to see it set up. I have a Clay Spencer and I use it a lot. The tooling is mostly clamp on and lift height between the dies becomes the governing factor. 

Peter 

29 minutes ago, petere76 said:

Nice work, outstanding piece. 

How does your lower side die integrate, is it a bolt on? I thought of a quick change arrangement but I need to see it set up. I have a Clay Spencer and I use it a lot. The tooling is mostly clamp on and lift height between the dies becomes the governing factor. 

Peter 

Both the top and bottom dies are bolt-on.

Nice!  love how stout it looks.

Very nice hammer I like the beer keg cooling pale. I am starting to build my hammer very soon I have most of the materials. What did you use for the hammer weight and I see you have a access port between the anvil and main support is that dead space filled with something, I filled my hollow anvil stand with gravel and it seems to keep the noise down.

thanks

Nice looking hammer. I look forward to the video of it in action.

Frosty The Lucky.

Jonah K....the hammer head is filled with lead. There is a void space filled with sand in the lower portion. Those plates are about 1/8-inch thick and also offer a ton of additional bracing to strength the hammer frame overall. 

Never thought of casting lead into square tubing thats a good idea. Its quite hard to find solid square stock bigger than 2". Is that what the clay spencer hammer has the ram looks similar.

My local scrapyard had tons of 4" solid sq stock; I believe I posted a picture of it here once.

I dont live very close to a scrap yard so i dont get to go often but i do get quite a bit of scrap from work. A couple of weeks ago i got a 7' piece of 10' wide flange with 7/8" flange and  1/2" webbing should make a really good main column it weighs about 450 lbs.

I'd guess the overall weight somewhere in the 1,400 - 1,500 lb. range.

Decided it was time to beef my hammer up a little.

I upsized from a 1-HP, 120V motor to a 2-HP, 1,750 HP TEFC motor wired at 240V.  Also added about 12ish lbs. of lead to the tupp and increased the couterbalance weight by about 2 lbs.  I increased the motor mounting plate from 1/4" thick to 3/4" to avoid any plate deflection due to the heavier motor.  So now it's closer to a 65-lb hammer.

I'm amazed by how much more responsive the hammer is now and the noticable increase in striking force.  I can definitely feel the difference in my 6", 5,000 psi concrete slab for sure.  The main thing I was worried about was loss of finesse since I work with a large size range of materials, but I honestly think I have better control now than I did with the 1-HP motor.

Also took the time to install an industrial grade switch that's lockable since my grandson (toddler) has all of the sudden taken an interest in the "powahamma"  .

I like the switch idea. Whenever I start populating my shop with power tools like that I'm going to have to do the same. My 3 year son loves to do anything he sees others doing and we all know how dangerous that can be in a shop. Truth is if he is in there nothing is on so there's less for him to get hurt on. 

Very nice.