Bweiner13 Posted July 24, 2016 Share Posted July 24, 2016 Hi, I am an amateur blacksmith and was doing some research on power hammers as I would like to build my own. My shop is not going to have electricity so I have a design to make it foot powered with a large flywheel. Although, many of the commercial hammers I have seen have a triangular arm with a spring in the middle.(as pictured below) The top is connected to the flywheel and the bottom to to the hammer. I am wondering what the advantage is to this as opposed to a straight arm with two pivots. Thank you, B Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Cochran Posted July 24, 2016 Share Posted July 24, 2016 Look at treadle hammers, that might be of some use. Who are you going to con kno pedaling for you? I'm not sure how easy it'll be to pedal and control the hot steel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted July 24, 2016 Share Posted July 24, 2016 Welcome aboard, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many Iforge members live within visiting distance. By foot powered you're going to need a pretty heavy fly wheel and a bicycle type pedal to bring it up to speed and then you'll only get a few blows from it. Directly linking the crank to the ram will result in breaking parts of the hammer. The link arms and spring in the above pictures hammer do two things, first it allows for the lateral motion of the crank arm but more importantly provides a cushion between the crank pin and the hammer die. The cushion effect is also two fold, first and most important it prevents direct mechanical contact between the crank and anvil. Secondly the spring allows the hammer to compress the spring on the up stroke this stores the energy (momentum) and releases it against the work. A man driven hammer is possible no question, in the 3rd. world there are metal smiths and wood workers who pay the village children to turn a large fly wheel to power their lathes, etc. What you run into is you need someone else to keep your flywheel up to speed and it'll almost undoubtedly take a team trading off. If it were a practical idea you could find pics and people talking about it on the web. We've heard the idea here a few times, just nobody talking about having DONE it even as a failure. Why don't you have power in your shop? If it's an access problem you might consider using a small gasoline engine to power your hammer. Loud and you'll have to plumb the exhaust outdoors but an easy motor and they're plentiful and inexpensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Cochran Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 7 hours ago, Frosty said: Why don't you have power in your shop? If it's an access problem you might consider using a small gasoline engine to power your hammer. Loud and you'll have to plumb the exhaust outdoors but an easy motor and they're plentiful and inexpensive. You know, Frosty, I might need to find me a birch tree. You always come up with some kind of out of the box suggestion that leaves me amazed. I never would've thought about a gas engine and I've got a 1.5 HP side shaft tiller motor I was saving for a good project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSW Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 Not really outside the box, but more "traditional" thinking. They've run all sorts of belt fed equipment since the age of steam off small aux engines. Your problem with your engine might be engine RPM's. Most of the belt driven gasoline engines I've seen run a fairly modest rpm. heck most of them are antique hit and miss engines and you can count when the spark plug fires on most of them. I'd love to find a small hit and miss engine and run a small Little Giant power hammer off one at the Grange Fair. Heck I could probably get one of the antique engine guys to let me power it off one of their hit and miss engines If I managed to find the hammer and get the belts to run it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 If you look up the possible horsepower of a human you will find that it doesn't match even a fairly small motor over time. You would do much better with a treadle hammer of getting some friends to strike for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 Output RPM is a issue but that's what humans invented gearing for. There are lots of ways to convert HP to torque and vise versa. At one time I was thinking of mounting a diesel donkey next to the shop. Let it generate my 3ph. weld, compress air and pump hydraulic fluid around the shop to power things that needed a big electric motor, the Little Giant hammer for instance. Oh the other nice thing about having a water cooled station engine (donkey) is pumping the coolant through the hydronic heat tubes in the floor. I paid for that heat I don't want it to go to waste do I? I don't think of most of the stuff I suggest I just read a LOT and don't forget much of it. Another aspect of the mind that sees puns in everything is it's free associating everything around it and making connections. That's all I do really make connections. Stay away from the trees though it didn't help. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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