Yet another power hammer build question

[Michael Cochran]

I've been putting off building a power hammer after my failed start last year simply because I got caught up in research mode again.

Now I've sourced some scrap steel that I can use for some of the parts of the hammer including the rail I just recently acquired. I'm looking at the 'Rusty' hammer and thinking that I can manage that easily enough with the scrap I have managed to scrounge. 

If you were me and haven't managed to source any large solid pieces, would you take the 6' length of rail cut it into 24" sections and cut the head the head off two of the pieces and weld them down the length to the third piece making the anvil from that? That will give me an anvil of about 200 pounds which limits me to about 15-20 pounds I can use for my ram weight if I remember correctly. I have enough random pieces of scrap steel in the 24" range that I can weld to the rail to help bring up the mass if I have to. If I go this way I can use some pieces of 10"x10" timbers I have under the base plate to raise the height to a comfortable level.

I have some pieces I can use for the upright, the connection from the flywheel to the spring, a motor, a (cast iron?) flywheel, and a couple pulleys and belts. That leaves me still searching for the hammer/ram, the leaf spring, and the base plate (unless I use the 3/8-1/2" plate that I have).

I might've overlooked some detail while trying to type this so if I did please call me out on it. I look forward to any response so long as we don't start discussing air vs mechanical hammers again  

[setlab]

You'll wind up with a junk hammer, did that with my first junkyard hammer when I was young and ended up with a hammer more suited as yard art than forging. Apparently the hammers energy gets absorbed instead of rebounded when stacking metal used for the anvil horizontally.

[Michael Cochran]

I'm not stacking up, I'm planning on nesting the head from two rails behind the third on the web. The rail will be in an upright manner. If I added any extra steel to beef up the anvil it too will be vertical and will run solid from the top of the anvil to the base plate.

[setlab]

You're talking about railroad rail right? You have 6' of that and will cut in into 3 24"sections and welded up in a bundle 24" tall? Would work better than what I originally thought you had in mind. But unless the goal is extreme penny pinching I would hold out for a different option.  If it were me,  before I put that much of my time and effort building something I'd be sure to o overbuild it as much as possible. If you want to brave the drive to Atmore, Al there is a scrap yard there that has a piece of maybe 4"x5" solid bar that's maybe 8 feet long. I think he sells stuff for $.32 a lb, I'd call first and ask if you can cut it into smaller pieces though before the drive. 

[Michael Cochran]

Thanks for that suggestion. I'll look into that. I need to check my local yard again since I'm sure that the selection has changed some.

[Michael Cochran]

So other than finding a large solid piece for the anvil nobody else has anything to say? I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing lol. 

[mfkerr]

Do you have a basic design you could post. I made a hammer and I have a lot of lessons learned I could pass on to you if your design is anyway similar to mine.

Here is the link to some pics, hammer pics are about half way down in this long post.

Feel free to give me some pointers as well.

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/47990-kerrs-forge/

 

[Michael Cochran]

I have no proper plans. I have ok pictures of others and I'm borrowing them as design options. Overall it's going to be similar to yours. I'm looking at about 6' tall at the center support where the picture makes yours look much taller. 

Im tearing down my old shop today but I'll try to get back on later and post the picture of the one I'm liking the most. 

 

You asked for input on yours, I would have to find a way to get more steel on that anvil. Bring it out from that long front to back rectangle to something a little more square with your striking surface. That's all I saw in the pictures I didn't like right now. I'll look again later after the work day is done. 

[mfkerr]

Here is my original design. Probably drew months before building.

I used it as a guide mainly to keep me focused on the end goal.

As you can see it in reality, it is conceptually similar. 

[Tubalcain2]

your quite the artist. you should sell that to a art museum.

[Michael Cochran]

It's lunch time and I thought I'd check in and share that picture before I forgot. Like I said before I'm thinking this is more along the lines I'm going to end up going with mine but there are several examples of the same basic principle all over the net.

Truth is I'm going for as cheap as I can safely and reliably go due to a very limited shop budget. I'm hoping that with the addition of the powerhammer I'll be able to start producing things often enough that require a striker that I might be able to make some money. Then I can maybe build a bigger better powerhammer if I need to.