Working out tire hammer build, need a car guys help.

[setlab]

So I'm working out what axle/bearing to use for my hammer build. I'm deviating a little from Clay's plans and making an adjustable head similar to the dp120 pictured below, however I'm not a car guy so I don't really know what to look for or ask for at a junk yard that will work. On this particular hammer in the pictures the axle/hub bearing are from the rear of a front drive car but so far my Google searches haven't really narrowed down my search any. Basically I'm looking for an axle that I can bolt on instead of weld on. Can someone point me in the right direction or maybe a year and model car to look for so the guys at the junk yard don't look at me like a total idiot when I tell them what I need?  

[Daswulf]

I couldnt say exactly what bearing to get other then maybe a front bolt on bearing for???? but i can say that you should probably go new. bearings from a junk yard could be... well... junk. and if you do end up with one that works well for you, if it goes out you can replace it. most bolt on bearings bolt to the knuckle with 3 or 4 bolts.

[Frosty]

Go to a trailer supply and buy a trailer spindle. There are a number of different types some slip into round axles, some into square, some bolt in some weld on. Get the hub to match at the same time. You'll need to know the wheel's bolt pattern and size to get the correct hub. You can take the wheel with you if you don't know how to measure, they're used to it, no sweat.

This isn't complicated but there are a number of ways to screw up and get the wrong parts. Go to the supply, look at the different spindles and decide which looks the easiest to work with and buy the whole set. It'll prevent the chance of forgetting what one you bought later on and picking up a hub that doesn't match.

In case that doesn't make sense, a trailer spindle and assembly is what the tire attaches to, the spindle attaches to the trailer axle, the hub attaches to the spindle and the wheel bolts to the hub via "lug nuts or bolts."

Frosty The Lucky.

[Frozenforge]

The square type trailer spindles rated for a 3500lb axle fit very nicely in 2x2x1/4 wall square tubing. Its a tight enough fit you need to radius the corners and grind a groove to accommodate the weld seam on the tubing.

With a couple of holes in the  tubing to make rosette welds and then welding the end up it is very secure. These come in a 4 on 4.5 and 5 on 4.5 bolt patterns.

[Frosty]

You can carve the weld bead out of the sq. tubing with a sharp single bevel chisel a LOT easier than grinding a grove in the spindle. They're meant to cut the bead off welds among other things, like rivet and bolt heads, without cutting into the base metal.

Heck, you could check with a trailer shop and see if they have any drops off a 7,000lb axle, then you don't have to worry about welded tubing. Axles are mechanical tubing and significantly thicker.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Vwfinatic273]

I'd like to see more photos to get a better understanding of what you need but an old VW beetle has a stub axle assembly (I have some) that could be used. It also has a spline you could run the brake drum and wheel if you needed. Also, trailer axle would work as well like mentioned. 

[VaughnT]

19 hours ago, setlab said:

...making an adjustable head similar to the dp120...

Ha!

I've just started acquiring parts for building something like the DP120, too.  I guess great minds really do think alike.

My build is still a good bit away, so be sure and post lots of photos for me.  I need someone to live vicariously through!

[Frosty]

There are lots of places to find wheel spindles and other ways to mount the tire for a tire hammer. Some of us love picking through scrounged materials and parts. That's a large part of being a blacksmith.

However there's a LOT to be said for just buying off the shelf components. You don't have to figure out where to find one or how to use them. Most importantly you don't have to wonder if they've been damaged in a way that can cause a catastrophic failure. There's been a lot of advice to beginning bladesmiths about using new steel rather than old springs. Old springs can and do have micro fractures that can show up at the worst possible time where new steel is clean and unstressed. This is true for other used and scrounged steel and parts. do you REALLY want to be standing 2' away from a spinning wheel and tire with a home made crank and crank arms attached to say a 50lb ram when the spindle snaps at an unseen hairline fracture some teenager did to it when he hit a pothole at 60mph?

Forget the time and effort necessary to remove, adapt and reattach to your home made power hammer, just visualize the tire and link arms coming off the hammer with YOU standing within touching distance. Hmmm? I'm just a safety first kind of guy, it's one thing to take calculated risks, blacksmithing is nothing but calculated risk in an inherently DANGEROUS craft. But I'm a BIG believer in avoiding unnecessary risk if at all possible.

Frosty The Lucky.

[setlab]

Oh yes frosty, my days of scrounging from junk piles and cobbing stuff together have long past me by minus an exception here and there. I take it you're not a fan of shop built power hammers frosty?

 

I'm just collecting parts right now too but I'm getting close. I'll make sure I take plenty of pictures too.

 

[setlab]

Thanks for all the response, gave me some different Google search ideas and found this: possible bolt on axle candidate once Monday comes I'll stop by a local trailer fab shop too.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Most tire hammers use an economy spare or "donut" spare, the reason that the rear wheel hub assembly is recommended is that the center diamiter of the wheel pilot and the hole in the center of the wheel match up, keeping the wheel centerd even if the lugs are loose or walloed out. Most newer front wheel cars use a bolt on hub assembly, so ask your salvage yard for an economy spare and a bolt on hub assembly to match. Don't specify, as they may have one with the  right rear near tore off, but the left is good and the spare is in the trunk. This way you don't buy the whole axle (even if they only hand you the one hub) and they sell what is otherwise useless. 

This typicaly gives you a lighter assembly than a trailer tire and matching hub, and may (or may not) be easer to align, depending on how you design your hammer.

depending on your application 4 lug tend to be smaller than 5 lug so this effeccts the flywheel effect as well as the "gearing" (relitive diamiter of the drive wheel on the motor) to get the RPM/BPM you want.

Used to be an ASE mastercertified Autotech, back in my dim past

[Frosty]

2 hours ago, setlab said:

Oh yes frosty, my days of scrounging from junk piles and cobbing stuff together have long past me by minus an exception here and there. I take it you're not a fan of shop built power hammers frosty?

 

I'm just collecting parts right now too but I'm getting close. I'll make sure I take plenty of pictures too.

 

I don't have any problem with home builts, I'm only advising there is a point of no returns where scrounging vs. time and risk management is concerned. If you're not considering the risk in your behavior I'd be jumpy around anything you built. The you isn't the Setlab you, it's the great "THAT guy" you.

I also cited a worse case scenario for a failure point and seeing as that's the part under discussion I felt it was appropriate to consider. I have a 50lb. Little Giant in the shop and Champion didn't put a scatter shield over the spring nor lock wire nuts on critical failure points. I did.

Frosty The Lucky.

[setlab]

Oh definitely, I would be sure to find a fairly nice one from a junkyard to use. Might even buy one new if I have to.

[Charles R. Stevens]

A new hub for final assembly may be a sound investment, just make shure you know know what car the econo spare came from (no spence buying them knew, as if it's still in the trunk and not on the ground it has probably never been used

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Northern Tool sells trailer stub axles and spindles for inexpensive prices. 

I would go beefy as possible. My concern is the pounding the bearings get. Ball bearings can get Birnelling which is when small dents are created in the races by the balls when impacted. They lead to failures. Needle bearings can do the same, but they spread the weight over a wider area than a ball does. The old hammers used bushings which spread the load over the most area, and are pretty unaffected by pounding as opposed to ball or other roller bearings.

 

[Frosty]

1 hour ago, BIGGUNDOCTOR said:

Northern Tool sells trailer stub axles and spindles for inexpensive prices. 

I would go beefy as possible. My concern is the pounding the bearings get. Ball bearings can get Birnelling which is when small dents are created in the races by the balls when impacted. They lead to failures. Needle bearings can do the same, but they spread the weight over a wider area than a ball does. The old hammers used bushings which spread the load over the most area, and are pretty unaffected by pounding as opposed to ball or other roller bearings.

 

I haven't checked spindle and hub prices at the local Six Roblees in quite a while but IIRC it was around $40.00 for a 4,500lb set (spindle, hub, bearings and seal, the bearings even came packed. 

Wheel hubs are good for tire hammer apps because they are designed to take a serious hammering on the road and last a long time. I figured I'd put a "Bearing Buddy" on a hammer hub myself so I wouldn't have to even think about packing the bearings. . . EVER. I'm lazy that way you know.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Frozenforge]

You usually only see birnelling when a bearing has seen direct impact. Seeing as the ram is suspended by the linkage and spring, that would probably isolate the bearing enough maybe? I'm not sure how much of the impact force would be transfered thru the frame though. Probably depends how the assembly is mounted to the floor.

I'm way out on a limb here with having zero power hammer experience! Just relying on mechanical, automotive and aeronautical and life experience.

With numerous tire power hammers being used if it was a serious issue I would have thought we would hear about it. If the bearing is making some noise due to the birnelling it probably won't be heard anyway!

[Frosty]

You're right about the spring linkage keeping the crank pretty isolated from impact shocks ball bearings are plenty safe, especially automotive wheel bearings, they're designed to take much worse. Have you used Pat's power hammer? I finally got slips to stay in the upper dove tail on mine so it's back up and functioning. Come on out and give it a try.

See you at Jim's the 19th?

Frosty The Lucky.

[Charles R. Stevens]

My suggestion (as an old mechanic) is to grab the wheel once in a wile, one hand on one side , one on the other and push one and pull with the other to check for rock and then push and pull with with both hands to check for end play. Shouldn't be any noticeable. If it's a rear hub assembly they usualy are not adjustable and you need to replace it, if you use a trailer hub and tire, clean, inspect, pack and adjust the wheel bearings. Just another car guys opinion on servicing that particular component. 

[Frosty]

Excellent tip Charles. What do you think about putting the tire behind the frame on a shaft with the crank in front? 2 pillow blocks, shaft keyed on both ends, rubber drive wheel and crank arm about $150.00 new parts and no inventive crank arm on a space saver wheel? About the only real inventivenes a person gets to exercise is a counter balance on the crank arm. The rest is straight forward fabrication.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Frozenforge]

I would prefer the tapered bearing setup due to ease of adjustment, ability to easily  maintain lubrication and when and if they do wear out they can be easily obtained.

Frosty, I would love to try your power hammer out sometime although my only worry is the envy that would follow! I'm sure I would seriously look into building a tire hammer after that.

I am planning on coming to the next meeting at Jims. Anything I need to bring?

[Charles R. Stevens]

KISS, Frosty...

the bolt on hub assembly is designed to last a long time (warantee period) with no adjustment, often lasting the life of the car, and bolting it to a flat serface makes for no chance you will be out of true like welding in a stub axle. so, zero maintenance, lighter wheel and ease of fabrication?

Ding, ding, ding....

we have a winner! Lol

Frosty, your half way to a helve hammer, lol

[swedefiddle]

SetLab,

Look under the back end of a bunch of vehicles, at home - work - Car Lot - Mall parking lot.

Almost all front wheel drive vehicles have a bolt on rear spindle. All the VW family have, earlier models have 2 taper bearings.

Neil

[Frosty]

12 hours ago, Frozenforge said:

I would prefer the tapered bearing setup due to ease of adjustment, ability to easily  maintain lubrication and when and if they do wear out they can be easily obtained.

Frosty, I would love to try your power hammer out sometime although my only worry is the envy that would follow! I'm sure I would seriously look into building a tire hammer after that.

I am planning on coming to the next meeting at Jims. Anything I need to bring?

Thrust bearings have a lot of advantages but you can buy pillow block bearings with races that lock to the shaft and are positively oiled either sealed from the factory or with oil cups or grease fittings. What I like is keeping the tire away from my head and minimizing the rather Micky Mouse tom foolery of building the crank onto a spare tire wheel. You can buy bolt flanges for any shaft size and can simply drill, tap and bolt the crank at whatever throw distance you like. Drill tap and bolt on a balance weight across center and it's golden.

Give a call and come on out, we'll play with fire and hammers. Mrs. Jim usually cooks up something REALLY good for lunch but a side, beverage or something to snack on is good to bring there's nothing formal about it though.

See you there, you can remind me of your name then.

Uh KISS Frosty Charles? Thanks but no thanks, Deb would talk. spindle and hub assemblies are used all over industry, there are too many to even list by general type, you can buy catalogs of them. The automotive, trailer versions are just the most commonly available to the home builder and they're more than robust for tire hammers.

Frosty The Lucky.

[will52100]

I bought a Clay Spencer tire hammer about 6 years or so ago, can't remember off the top of my head.  Wanted to build, but was working offshore and overtime they had a build I was on the water.  Anyway, Ray Kirk was upgrading to an air hammer and sold it to me.  I've been running it with no mercy for the entire time I've owned it and no real failures.  Well, except for a bunch of welds breaking.  Whoever did the welding on some of the assemblies needed some more practice.  Luckily an easy fix.  Oh, and the motor brackets I had to weld to the motor housing, the spot welds broke off pretty easily, basically a wet rag wrapped around the housing and a fast pass to the base, and a brace.  

A buddy of mine recently looked at mine and built one, with some minor changes.  He used a trailer stub axel and trailer tire for the clutch.  I've noticed the trailer tire is a bit softer than my donut tire, and maybe his runs just a bit slower due to the larger tire.  The tire should harden with age, maybe a different sized drive wheel would compensate for the slightly larger tire.

If I was to build one now, I'd probably go the rout of the Anvilfire X1, except I'd probably put large pillow blocks and the tire at the rear with a counterweight and the toggles in the front.  Not a huge fan of the linkage mounted direct to the tire rim, but I've had no issues with it as of yet.  Other than making sure the tire's got air!