October 22, 20178 yr This is a run down on building my forging hammer and my neighbors forging hammer. Not much was bought for this project, most came from our scrap piles. Cutting the steel for the anvil. Cutting the steel for the column. The anvil columns welded to the bases. My beautiful and charming life long love helping me out. Supports for the anvil and column. Basic hammer platform welded up. You can see the pillow bearings and spring attachment Y Cutting the steel for the hammer. A close up of the off set wheel. This was a cut off from a flat plate. a quick shot of the hammer control motor peddle. A number of pictures of the hammer The bearing surface area machined Main column support I have a video of it in operation coming soon.
October 23, 20178 yr Please - before you go any further - remove the hollow tube and use a solid anvil - re-bar, sand and lead do nothing to improve the rebound effect.
October 23, 20178 yr Between 10:1 and 20:1 anvil to tup ratio is best. Higher is better. Homogenious mass prefered. Otherwise looks like a good build. Have fun with it!
October 28, 20178 yr I wonder why many commercially made forging hammers had hollow anvils, yet for the home build a solid anvil is recommended.
October 28, 20178 yr No one builds the same size hollow anvil at home as commercially made hammers had, which is why most people say use solid. Look at the radius of the hollow "cone" that makes up the base of a little giant anvil for example, and then figure on the wall thickness. Most home made power hammers that I have seen might have a 6" or 8" piece of round bar as the anvil. 48" of 6" 1018 is 384 lbs rounded. A cone out of 1" plate that starts at the same 6" OD, and tapers outward to 24" OD, the same 48" tall is 609 lbs rounded. You would have to step up to 7.5" solid bar (7.5" C1018 @ 48") at 600 lbs rounded to get close to that. For comparison 1018 6.5" Diameter .75 wall tube 48" is 184lbs. FWIW, I would run it as is and see what happens. Overall it looks like a good example of this type of hammer. I look forward to the video.
October 31, 20178 yr Bear in mind that though very popular, Little Giant hammers were the low end of power hammers when they were built. Serious hammers were 20-1 anvil to tup ratio, and no, it isn't worth trying it with a hollow anvil. Read up instead. On 10/28/2017 at 1:50 PM, marcusb said: I wonder why many commercially made forging hammers had hollow anvils, yet for the home build a solid anvil is recommended. With one piece hammers, the entire hammer frame adds inertia. There are no two piece hammers with hollow anvils that I am aware of.
October 31, 20178 yr It comes down, in my opinion, to the efficiency of the hammer and what the end user wants out of making their own. Regardless of what "end" LG hammers are on, there are other hammers out there (with the same rated weight) that move metal better or worse. So what keeps LG's from moving metal as well as some other hammer? Is it because they have a hollow anvil? They don't have a 20:1 anvil ratio? Or is it the actual hammer itself, allowing a LG to only impart so much energy into a work piece based off its efficiency of design? By your idea if I welded a 2000 lb block of steel onto a 100 lb LG it should work better than say, a 100lb Beaudry with it's stock 700lb (7:1) anvil? In reality they two have different designs and with all the anvil in the world both will hit the top of a curve where they are imparting the maximum force for their design. Once maximum force is known, you can scale the weight of the anvil to match the efficiency that is required, reducing manufacturing costs. Little Giant has their design, efficiency, and manufacturing cost and other makers have theirs. I forget where the whole 20:1 thing originally came up, I think it was in the Open Die Forging manual, and was further propagated by several power hammer manufactures as the golden standard. These numbers initially came from Closed Die Hammers, which can run up (and probably above) 50:1 ratios - because they do a different type of work and need to be more stable and efficient than open hammers. Many 2 piece hammers ran around 10:1, just look at Nazel literature and do the math. IIRC as well, the anvils on the Bradley's I have are hollow, and that's 2 piece. The leaf spring hammer like above has varying degrees of efficiency. It might not impart enough force to see any gains with a 10:1 anvil, but it will move hot metal easier than a hand hammer, and that might of been the OP's goal. Most importantly out of all this, MG-42 has the thing built, so why tell him to tear it down and "read up"? Would I have used a solid bar? Yes, if I had one heavier than the tube, otherwise I would of done what the OP did and learned something.
October 31, 20178 yr My big hammer has a 12:1 ratio and I gather that was considered pretty good in its day. Commercial hammers were intended to be put on a foundation. So a builder has a couple of options. Build with what they have, and pour a block of cheap concrete or find a substantial hunk of iron for the anvil. As they say different ways to skin the same cat. I have heard Beaudrys also had hollow anvils. Anyone have one and took a peek underneath?
October 31, 20178 yr 8 hours ago, CMS3900 said: It comes down, in my opinion, to the efficiency of the hammer and what the end user wants out of making their own. Regardless of what "end" LG hammers are on, there are other hammers out there (with the same rated weight) that move metal better or worse. So what keeps LG's from moving metal as well as some other hammer? Is it because they have a hollow anvil? They don't have a 20:1 anvil ratio? Or is it the actual hammer itself, allowing a LG to only impart so much energy into a work piece based off its efficiency of design? By your idea if I welded a 2000 lb block of steel onto a 100 lb LG it should work better than say, a 100lb Beaudry with it's stock 700lb (7:1) anvil? In reality they two have different designs and with all the anvil in the world both will hit the top of a curve where they are imparting the maximum force for their design. Once maximum force is known, you can scale the weight of the anvil to match the efficiency that is required, reducing manufacturing costs. Little Giant has their design, efficiency, and manufacturing cost and other makers have theirs. I forget where the whole 20:1 thing originally came up, I think it was in the Open Die Forging manual, and was further propagated by several power hammer manufactures as the golden standard. These numbers initially came from Closed Die Hammers, which can run up (and probably above) 50:1 ratios - because they do a different type of work and need to be more stable and efficient than open hammers. Many 2 piece hammers ran around 10:1, just look at Nazel literature and do the math. IIRC as well, the anvils on the Bradley's I have are hollow, and that's 2 piece. The leaf spring hammer like above has varying degrees of efficiency. It might not impart enough force to see any gains with a 10:1 anvil, but it will move hot metal easier than a hand hammer, and that might of been the OP's goal. Most importantly out of all this, MG-42 has the thing built, so why tell him to tear it down and "read up"? Would I have used a solid bar? Yes, if I had one heavier than the tube, otherwise I would of done what the OP did and learned something. Too many incorrect assumptions to bother with, sorry. This has all been covered in detail in this forum, search, read back or continue in ignorance as you desire. Trying to directly compare a cast machine to fabricated machine just doesn't work, any better than a bolt on top plate compared to a welded on top plate. Other than the lack of a flywheel with a flat belt clutch and a solid anvil this fellow has made a nice machine. It would be a waste of time and materials to not replace the anvil asap. I am a commercial smith so perhaps I don't understand why one would build an extravagant machine to move metal "easier than a handhammer" but common sense tells me any user would want decent performance and since there isn't a sow block there needs be a solid anvil. Finally I would point out that three previous posters suggested the same thing yet you find my comment odd. The most important thing in this is NOT saving the cutting a few welds, it is the creation of a most usable machine not a barely usable machine.. To reiterate: commercial cast hammers have a solid sow block, fabricated anvils use a solid steel anvil post instead. Not a hollow anvil post.
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