Slyfox Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Hay guys, so I've kinda fabricated myself into a bit of a corner with my new toy. Just finished building myself a new style kinyon power hammer with a 125# head that's getting its paint job at the moment. I'll put a pic below of its unpainted self. My issue is the floor of my shop. The whole hammer weighs around 1400# according to my CAD sofware and was walking around while i was testing it out, and making a pair of damascus knives I had to rush for Christmas gifts. The obvious solution is to bolt it down which I intended to do. But now that the time for it has come I'm not so sure I want to, or can. The typical solution from what I've read is to cut a hole in the floor and dig a few feet down to pour a larger foundation for the hammer that's separate from the main floor. The problem, my shops floor has heat pipe running through it to keep it warm during the winter. The floor is about 6" deep but I'm sure that's not nearly enough. So far the best option me and my father have thought up would be to pour another cement pad roughly 48"x30"x10" that the hammer and sit up on and be bolted to. This would be a temporary solution as the hammer's final resting place will be under a large car port on the side of the shop that hasn't been built yet. But would this idea work very well? Would the floor have a problem with it? Would the pad just start sliding around with the hammer? Are there other options we've not come up with yet? Thanks for any input you guys can give Bren Leach Slyfox Forge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilyeag Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Nice Looking machine! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy k Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 A non destructive way would be to raise it up/tip it back a bit and put a finger sized bead of silicone around the perimeter of the base plate about an inch or two in from edge of the base plate. Be sure to clean the bottom of the base plate and the floor. Carefully set it back down and let it set for a few days to cure. - No drilling in floor and can be cut at a later date if needed to move. An infra red heat gun can also be used to find the heat runs (shut off the heat and let the area cool down so it calls for heat with a cooler floor you can find were the temps are different as it trys to warm itself up). Looks like it will be a fine hammer when its all done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latticino Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Typical radiant heating tubing is set between 2-3" below the finished floor and can be anywhere from 6-12" on center. While IR pictures may give you an idea generally where it is located in the floor, you may have a bigger issue. As I understand it, one of the reasons you use a large, deep, independently cast concrete block to mount a power hammer is to avoid damage to the existing slab from the repeated impact of the hammer on the slab. In your situation if the slab cracks and the part under the power hammer settles (how well compacted was your subsurface, and did the contractor install the below-slab insulation more often than not required, which can also compress under extended impact and loading?) there may be damage to the PEX tubing used for the radiant system. Coincidentally my local club has just started using a Big Blue 110 on top of a radiant slab commercial floor, also without an independent pad. I'm not sure how things will work out there, but will post if someone comes up with a clever idea (mine was to install it properly in the first place...). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy k Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Latticino - has a great point I forgot about - possible cracking of slab. A footing would be the answer but would be a tedious job. Ask a local heating guy that works with heated floors about the possibility of putting in a footing and splicing and re routing tubing. Or - spread out the base foot print so there is not so much impact per square inch to lessen the chance of cracking the slab. That said - all slabs do crack and they say that, that tubing is tough, but how much of an offset shearing does it take to break the tubing is the question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustAnotherViking Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Would it work to throw down a full sheet of thick plate to spread the load? Thin sheet of rubber, or silicone between the plate/floor, and then bolt the hammer foot to the plate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 3 hours ago, Latticino said: In your situation if the slab cracks and the part under the power hammer settles [...] there may be damage to the PEX tubing used for the radiant system. My concern exactly. 3 hours ago, jeremy k said: how much of an offset shearing does it take to break the tubing is the question. It's not just a matter of offset shearing, but a crack in the slab will create a sharp edge. Further vibration from the hammer will likely cut into the tubing over time, as that sharp edge slowly nibbles away at the PEX. With the strong caveat that I am NOT a power hammer guy, if I were in your shoes, I would think seriously about some kind of large base that is both shock-absorbing and weight-distributing. Your goal is to keep vibration from getting from the hammer to the slab. With that in mind, I personally would consider a heavy timber base on top of a thick rubber pad, something like a horse stall mat. It would be somewhat less rigid than a solid concrete base (and therefore would cut down on the efficiency of your hammer), but since you're only looking at a short-term solution, that may be an acceptable compromise. However, I defer to the experience of the people who have worked with power hammers a lot more than I have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Richter Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Hi Bren, Happy new year and welcome to this incredible forum. Know the situation. My PH (little brother of yours and 800lbs) did the same as your hammer (going on the walk) The foundation of my studio is made from 6.5inch fibre reinforced concrete and also very worn able. Until the new location of the hammer is ready I’m agree with JAV and advice to spread the load with a thick plate or an sandwich panel (honeycomb structure) or wooden beams (JHCC). I also fixed his position with two pins driven through the concrete plate in to the ground (locating the route of the heating tubes by IR first of course). Working now about 4 months with this setup and mention no cracks in the concrete till now. Let us know what’s your final decision. Cheers, Hans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slyfox Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 Thanks for all the advice guys. I suppose I should give a bit more info about the floor since almost every thing about the shop we built ourselves except for the concrete pouring itself. After the stem walls were poured we spent a couple weeks pulling a compactor sled around the area for a few hours each day and filling in low spot. The shop itself is 40'x80' so it was a pretty large area to cover. It wasn't until after this though we decided to actually have the heated floors so we ended up scraping away the top few inches for the foam then compacted again but I don't think we spent as much time on the second round. The ground was already pretty hard I think, its been three or four years now so I don't remember exactly. Next we laid out all the high density foam, I want to say it was 3" thick though it might have been 4", then we stapled the PEX hose straight to it so the heat pipe is all the way at the bottom of the slab. We did that because we knew we may end up needing to bolt machines down, though a power hammer probably wasn't one of the planned machines. Not sure that there is much to do to determine where the lines run since the heat might be too dispersed by the time it reaches the surface, but we have a AutoCAD file somewhere that should show the relative layout of where all the lines are run. Just got to find it. Actually though, looking at Hans' machine and its base I might have come up with an idea. A similar wooden base, though perhaps thicker and wider for my machine, but instead of bolts going down into the floor the base runs up against and then uses brackets to bolt to our stem wall which is a foot and a half tall and 6" thick with rebar running through it. The wood platform would help cushion and spread the impacts and bolting to the stem wall could prevent sideways movement. Does that sound like a workable solution? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy k Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 I have 2, 1/2" bolts holding my hammers in place with only about 1" sticking into the concrete loose drop in bolts in the 2 front corners of the plate. It does not take much to keep them from walking, my Little Giants are on a piece of 1" plate w/ 3/4 " plywood under the 1" plate(allows for head of bolts holding the hammer to plate. Also 1/8" cork sheet between hammer and plate. My slab is roughly 4" thick. Plate and plywood are approximately 36"x48". This is temporary until I do pour proper footings(no floor heat here). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokey07 Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 I had a 300 lb chambersburg (10,ooo lbs) in my old shop on a 6 in. floor. had 8 in. of oak timbers under it. 3 in. lags and shields w/ angle iron tabs, 3 on each side into the slab. no walking and no cracks after 14 years of use. there was not any infloor heat to worry about. Smokey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arftist Posted January 5, 2018 Share Posted January 5, 2018 On 1/4/2018 at 3:59 AM, Slyfox said: Hay guys, so I've kinda fabricated myself into a bit of a corner with my new toy. Just finished building myself a new style kinyon power hammer with a 125# head that's getting its paint job at the moment. I'll put a pic below of its unpainted self. My issue is the floor of my shop. The whole hammer weighs around 1400# according to my CAD sofware and was walking around while i was testing it out, and making a pair of damascus knives I had to rush for Christmas gifts. The obvious solution is to bolt it down which I intended to do. But now that the time for it has come I'm not so sure I want to, or can. The typical solution from what I've read is to cut a hole in the floor and dig a few feet down to pour a larger foundation for the hammer that's separate from the main floor. The problem, my shops floor has heat pipe running through it to keep it warm during the winter. The floor is about 6" deep but I'm sure that's not nearly enough. So far the best option me and my father have thought up would be to pour another cement pad roughly 48"x30"x10" that the hammer and sit up on and be bolted to. This would be a temporary solution as the hammer's final resting place will be under a large car port on the side of the shop that hasn't been built yet. But would this idea work very well? Would the floor have a problem with it? Would the pad just start sliding around with the hammer? Are there other options we've not come up with yet? Thanks for any input you guys can give Bren Leach Slyfox Forge Nice work on the hammer. The only solution I can see is to pour the proper block where it needs to be. Build a partial shed roof over it for now. In the meantime stop running it over the heated slab, you are courting great expence and difficulty. By the way, you will want a larger block. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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