January 5, 20206 yr Author The latest with my hammer is an upgrade to the clutch. There is virtually no literature on the 250 so I am not sure how common it is, but the clutch tod runs inside the frame. It connects to the treadle by means of an arm on the underside of the frame. Adjusting clutch throw requires getting both arms inside the frame, with wrenches, from underneath. The parts are ancient and well worn and I hate to have turn a 7-9000 pound machine on its side for adjustment. So I added an external rod. The funny thing is, it looks mighty similar to a normal little giant clutch rod. A lot of its funky behavior settled down with this modification.
April 10, 20215 yr Author I got some factory info on this guy. It is serial no S 208, sold July 3 1920. I am missing the name plate that would have the number, but how many first generation 250 pound little giants could there be in Columbus indiana?
April 10, 20215 yr It's a beaut. I'd love to give it a go. I've only gotten to use a power hammer once and it was a pretty small LG. It was fun though. I'd love to have one. Even a small helve hammer would make life easier on the joints. Pnut
April 10, 20215 yr There is a good reason they modified things as time went on. Now your part engineer as well and no reason not to do these little changes that make the hammer more functional. If the next owner wants to restore it to original I'd imagine the parts would be there to do so.
April 14, 20215 yr Anyone interested in owning one of these, circa 1920, my local makerspace in Colorado xxxxxxxxxx link removed has one for sale. Contact me via PM for details, video of it running.
July 23, 20214 yr Author I like the cut out in the front plate. This green hammer looks to have suffered far less abuse than mine.
October 4, 20214 yr Author My spring is ok but I would like to have a fresh one in the hammer. Does anyone know where Clifton got his oversized springs made? I will probably make different arms for it. If nothing else I can get one from little giant…
November 12, 20214 yr Are you located in Indiana? I’m a member of the IBA and would love to see this thing sometime.
November 15, 20214 yr Author Yes. We have meetings at my shop. Not sure when the next will be as I am working out of town for a bit
May 19, 20224 yr Author A question for anyone familiar with 250# little giants. Should there there be a centering pin here? This hammer has none. My dovetails do need some attention but have OK contact with die and key. I still get a tendency for the dies to shake loose from time to time. I am making better keys. But am wondering if I need centering pins.
May 20, 20224 yr Jason: I've been watching hoping someone would answer your question but couldn't resist wading through the Little Giant Powerhammer book. I don't see any mention of a centering pin, either in the section about machining new dovetails nor on the parts lists. I'll still be watching to hear from someone who knows more about the beasts. I have a 50lb and haven't been too successful with my dovetails for bolt on interchangeable dies. I had to tack a stop to my male dovetails to align the dies. I'm still not sure what I did wrong but it's a TBI thing and no surprise anymore. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky.
May 20, 20224 yr I had problems with my 30 pound Star dies working loose. I found out the dovetails on the dies were worn almost smooth so the keys wouldn't hold them tight. I reground the dovetail deeper and forged new keys which corrected the problem.
May 20, 20224 yr From what I have seen the centering pins did not exist on nearly all early hammers.. some of the info out there now is there only needs to be 1 dovetail.. The other can be straight.. I don't know how I feel about it, simply because I have no experience with it.
May 20, 20224 yr The Star has only 1 dovetail for each die. I don't know if this from LG will help. 2018-Useful-Information LG.pdf
May 21, 20224 yr Author As far as I am aware the 25 and 50 pound hammers never had them. I have seen them in some 100# hammers ( 2 of them but may have been added by an end user) My Bradley and multiple other Bradley hammers I have gotten to work on did not have them. The beaudrys , Fairbanks and chambersburgs did have them. I am curious if it was an age issue or just a manufacturer quirk. Wondering if it is even worth putting one in, and if so, how big?
May 21, 20224 yr Author Yes. The clutch rod runs inside and is near impossible to adjust without turning the whole machine on its side. As inconvenient as that would be I circumvented it by adding a new external rod.
May 24, 20224 yr I saw a couple with those beaudry hammers had the same problem, one hammer had a hole hacked in the side.
July 6, 20223 yr Author I got the nameplate off the motor, and it is only 3 hp. It has been running and this motor has been on this hammer for a very long time. I timed it today, and it doesn’t just feel slow, it is slow! 110 bpm is way too slow for this hammer. Doing some math on the gearbox/ pulley/ motor combo and it should be running 210-230bpm. Since the four belts arent slipping, that means I am dragging the motor. That’s not good, and explains why it stalls out so easy. Today I began working on installing the new motor mount. I am shooting for around 220 bpm and the 7.5 hp motor should take the load better
July 6, 20223 yr The LG website says it should run around 150 to 190 BPM and specs an 1155 rpm motor.
July 19, 20223 yr Author Motor in place and wires run. I couldn’t locate my wire strippers and had other items to get to today. I have about an inch of take up in both belts. I would like more but that’s acceptable. I have a proper starter for it, but am half committing to this since it ran with the old motor, albeit slow, and with a lot of stalling. I will wait to take the old one down until I see it run on the 7.5 hp. At that point I will switch over to a proper starter. I am baffled why I didn’t mount this switch here to begin with though…
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