January 9, 201115 yr Well I did the test, took a couple pictures.... but didnt right down the numbers.. I'll have to post them tomorrow.. One thing I can tell you is the KA did not do much, the Nazel was the best show... unless you take the "narrow"die saymak run.. So the end two are both the 60KG hammer... done on the real flat dies is the second one, done on the narrow dies which look flat but are not that are shown in the picture is the first one.. I do remember the 10 hit on the narrow dies was .051 When I get in the shop tomorrow I'll post the rest of the numbers Nit,nit.......I think the bar on the left (the say mack right?) shows the problem, the matieral has squidged out the back. You can't measure the end, flawed test. The same is true if the bar is if the bar end is placed past the back of the die, as in 2" wide dies.The dies on that hammer look like what I call gentle drawing dies, not flat. Maybe 1 1/2"would work work better, and accommodate hammers with narrower dies, but you can't go much lower. ....mb
January 9, 201115 yr yeah your absolutely right, those dies could be called flat by someone... but they are not, they are just as you said soft drawing dies... and you can see the result in the metal, same hammer for those two chunks
January 9, 201115 yr Ok the numbers. The KA15O. .691 in 5. .636 in 10 The Say Mak. Real flat dies .462 and .248. The narrow dies .241 and .051 and the 3b .321 and .203
January 9, 201115 yr Ok the numbers. The KA15O. .691 in 5. .636 in 10 The Say Mak. Real flat dies .462 and .248. The narrow dies .241 and .051 and the 3b .321 and .203 What wt is the smack?
January 9, 201115 yr Best in 5 blows: Nazel 3B - .308 Say Mak 60KG - .320 Anyang 88# - .430 Larry's Say Mak - .462 Sahinler 110# - .543 Say Mak 50KG - .583 IronKiss Octagon 100 - .586 KA150 - .691 Big Blu 155 MAX - .705 KA75 - .773 1909 MacGowan and Finnigan "Perfect" 80# - .825 Little Giant 25 - .873 Kane and Roach 85# - .877 Don S's Rusty hammer 34# - .906Best in 10 blows Nazel 3B - .155 Larry's Say Mak - .248 Say Mak 60KG - .260 Anyang 88# - .300 IronKiss Octagon 100 - .360 Sahinler 110# - .397 Big Blu 155 MAX - .475 Anyang 55# - .545 KA75 - .565 1909 MacGowan and Finnigan "Perfect" 80# - .630 KA150 - .636 Kane and Roach 85# - .721 Don S's Treadle Hammer 66# -.780 Don S's Rusty hammer 34# - .832 Little Giant 25# - .835 Here is the list as it stands now, Macbruce I need to know your blow count to the dimensions you got on your hammers. <br>Results on shop built 250 w/bull controls: 5 bl .500, 10bl .280.........A little better than jan. 7 , I used lighter dies and more pressure....125 psi. The 90 is off line..........mb
January 9, 201115 yr This thread has been very interesting and if I take anything away from the results, it is that there is large variability between performance of the different hammers and that hammer weight or size does not 100 percent correlate to forging performance. There are some smaller hammers that are outperforming larger hammers. I would like to see the test expanded to larger stock that is forged for a longer time. I don’t want to be perceived as critical, but it is analogues to determining the performance of a car in a 1/8 mile race when maybe the test should be a 5 mile run at the Bonneville Salt Flats. The 1/8 mile race is important, but there are other tests. If we all put our brains together, maybe we could come up with an expanded set of "standardized" tests to stress the real life forging capabilities of each hammer? What I would like to see is more video’s showing actual forging of larger pieces… maybe taking standard size stock like 2X2 or 3X3 on medium size “75 to 100 pound" hammers. Hammers in the 55 lb range should be able to draw tapers on 2X2 stock. Hammers in the 150 pound range should be able to forge 4X4 stock easily. To me, what is important is how much work a hammer can do in one heat. I have found that on many forgings, I can actually input enough energy from the hammer to eliminate or reduce the number of heats required to finish a piece of work. If I can eliminate heats because of the energy input of the hammer, I can save fuel and time… and produce more work for less input (fuel and time). As I have time, I will be doing more video’s that demonstrate one heat forging of large stock using flat dies. I would like to see the owners of the various power hammers do the same and then we can get a good understanding of the true capabilities of the options that blacksmiths have. I have attached a video of some of the larger stock (2X2 and 1"X4") that I have forged with the Anyang 55 lb hammer. I am not attaching this video to spam this thread but to show the capabilities of the hammer working larger stock. It would be good to see similar sized hammers working the same stock in one heat (with flat dies). The actual forging is towards the end of the video. http://www.youtube.com/user/jamesrjohn#p/a/u/0/FZP8Bhv8rcY
January 9, 201115 yr Big Blu,s website list flat die size as 1.75 wide. No way they were forging 2" of stock. The second set of dies look like what they use in the test, they call those radius side dies. Even so they are only 1.75 wide.
January 9, 201115 yr James, I agree, the late Tom Clark proposed the same kind of test you are talking about in july of 2008 to be done at Quad states. No other hammer dealers showed up. What a shame.
January 10, 201115 yr James I think your way overstating what should be expected out of a hammer... 4X4 stock is a lot to ask of a 150lb machine.. Not to say its not possible to do some forging but its not reasonable to expect a 150 lb machine to make short work of 4 X 4.... I have the factory Nazel literature There chart says you need a 3B (about a 270 lb tup) or a 400lb steam hammer to "successfully handle" 4 X 4 stock... I have forged 4 X 4 in my 3B and can tell you its a chore... My feeling is its not going to do extensive harm to the machine to exceed its reasonable work envelope occasionally but to imply a 150lb hammer is expected to "easily" work 4 X 4 stock is misleading.. In a real world situation I think its a lot to ask of a 270lb hammer.... Forging means being able to joggle, isolate full dimensional sections with tooling, cut, punch, upset or anything else you need to do with the stock.... I dont think you could even get most tooling you would use with 4" stock in a 150lb hammer, let alone have enough power to effectively use it..
January 10, 201115 yr James I think your way overstating what should be expected out of a hammer... 4X4 stock is a lot to ask of a 150lb machine.. Not to say its not possible to do some forging but its not reasonable to expect a 150 lb machine to make short work of 4 X 4.... I have the factory Nazel literature There chart says you need a 3B (about a 270 lb tup) or a 400lb steam hammer to "successfully handle" 4 X 4 stock... I have forged 4 X 4 in my 3B and can tell you its a chore... My feeling is its not going to do extensive harm to the machine to exceed its reasonable work envelope occasionally but to imply a 150lb hammer is expected to "easily" work 4 X 4 stock is misleading.. In a real world situation I think its a lot to ask of a 270lb hammer.... Forging means being able to joggle, isolate full dimensional sections with tooling, cut, punch, upset or anything else you need to do with the stock.... I dont think you could even get most tooling you would use with 4" stock in a 150lb hammer, let alone have enough power to effectively use it.. I agree.....mb
January 10, 201115 yr I've forged tapers on 4" with my 500 pound Nazel and I didn't think that was any too big a hammer for the job. Trouble with some of these proposed "tests" is they depend a lot on the operator. That's supposed to be the idea of the test - to eliminate as many of the variables as possible.
January 10, 201115 yr Hey, when we did the power hammer test as we stated, we did it 2 different ways. We ran the material in parallel and perpendicular to the dies. By looking back through the archives, it looked like some times the test had been done one way and some time another. Nothing would please me more than to see a standardized test with rules posted under this forum. I love this sort of forum for encouraging debate (thanks IFORGEIRON.com).This helps advance the community and is a valuble tool for me. We strive every day at BIG BLU HAMMERS to make our hammer the best you can buy. I feel the hammers I go to work under every day are the best. Since I first started forging under a power hammer, I have always sought to improve the machines that help me do the work I love so much. This is one of the reasons I love working for BLU. Don’t get me wrong, I am only one guy on the BLU team and don’t hold a candle to the 14 years they have been making hammers. But we are all encouraged to give our input and the BLU hammer continues to grow with the blacksmith and metalworking community. I don’t say this as representative for BLU but as a blacksmith that loves his job and feels pride in the machines I get to help make. Our dies are 1.75” X 5” ( don’t even get me started on how I feel about flat dies) but that doesn’t stop our machine from moving some metal. We made the youtube videos so that there wouldn’t be any question about how we did the test. Here are our results in print. If you have any question about the power hammer test of the BLU, watch the video and if that doesn’t answer your question, then I’ll do my best to answer. 155 pound hammer on 140psi: Parallel o 0.529 @ 5 hits o 0.258 @ 10 hits Perpendicular o 0.374 @ 5 hits o 0.081 @ 10 hits 110 pound hammer on 110psi: Parallel o 0.587 @ 5 hits o 0.294 @ 10 hits Perpendicular o 0.448 @ 5 hits o 0.138 @ 10 hits 65 pound hammer on 90psi: Parallel o 0.735 @ 5 hits o 0.572 @ 10 hits Perpendicular o 0.622 @ 5 hits o 0.387 @ 10 hits
January 10, 201115 yr what I was suggesting was to use 3" or 4" stock to test the capabilities of the larger hammers. I did not intend to imply that if you were going to mass produce forgings of 4" stock, that you would use a 150 lb hammer. I have forged 3X5 material with my 165 and in my last hammer-in at my shop and it handled the work nicely. If you are talking about being able to encorporate tooling, 4" will be a stretch for that size hammer... or if you were going to produce tapers on 4" stock 10 hours a day, that a 150 lb hammer would be the "hammer of choice". My thought was to suggest that we go to larger stock and see the capabilities of the various hammers on the larger stock. The intent is to create more of a "structured" test of capabilities. I am very busy now but as I have time, I will take some of the larger stock and produce video's where people can see what is possible on the hammers that I have. Other blacksmiths can do the same on their hammers and then we can get a comparison of hitting power. Peacock, I would love to have the various hammers at a conference where blacksmiths could test each of the hammers with standard sized stock... Let's set it up...
January 10, 201115 yr I've forged tapers on 4" with my 500 pound Nazel and I didn't think that was any too big a hammer for the job. Trouble with some of these proposed "tests" is they depend a lot on the operator. That's supposed to be the idea of the test - to eliminate as many of the variables as possible. Operators do vary, but having truly flat dies, and dies that are wide enough, gets a couple of variables off the table The graph by Sam is looking like it could yield some useful stuff, especially now that some of the flawed results have been excluded.Try as we might, It's probably impossible to make a test that will accommodate every hammer.............mb
January 10, 201115 yr Larrys Saymak 60 is no different than mine or numerous others around the country. How do you account for the differences? It seems to me that any variable is more likely in the operator rather than the hammer. JE
January 10, 201115 yr Different heat? Unless the bars all come out of the same forge this is a huge variable. Rob
January 10, 201115 yr Different heat? Unless the bars all come out of the same forge this is a huge variable. Rob I think there are too many variables for this test to be accurate or descriptive of a particular hammer. If all the hammers were in the same shop, the steel was heated to the same temp, and the same knowledgable person was operating each hammer, then a somewhat reasonable, though still not accurate conclusion might be reached. john
January 10, 201115 yr Larry did mention he had a 1,700 pound slab of steel under his. sandbagged again! Actually, I have two feet of concrete beneath mine...
January 10, 201115 yr yeah and I really do think that makes a difference... But I also pulled my bars out of the forge and "nuked" them just a bit with the induction machine to make sure they where as hot as they could get... and my 3B still did not match up with Bam Bam... And my 5 hit was under par... What ever... like I said, its "kind of" information... it really does not mean a thing in the real world, its just fun.. I would be all for a practical test that could be repeated with some accuracy... I just dont think its practical to compare apples to egg plants...
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