3,000 lb Chambersburg

[RailForgeWV]

[Mod note: the following was originally part of the discussion on the Navy Hammer sell off thread.]

On 12/31/2018 at 10:13 PM, Sharp tungsten said:

I know this is an old post but what ever happened in this sale? Did anyone buy any hammers and what were prices like?

Well to my knowledge, one idiot from WV bought the only larger hammer sold, a 3,000 lb Chambersburg, and after almost 5 years of on and off work, I have managed to get it back to life at my rail track shop.  We are making some dies, flat for now, and should be forging before we hit the 5 year mark.  If anyone is interested I will share more.

[JHCC]

Yes, please! Salem Straub had a lengthy thread about his restoration of a 300 lb Beaudry*, and it would be great to see something similar about your monster.

 

*Alas, many of the photos of which were lost during the great software "upgrade" of 2017.

[George N. M.]

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming.  Glad to have you.

Yes, we'd like to see more pictures of the process and details such as how it was transported, how the base was installed, how much concrete was poured, how large a crew did you have, how much of a budget, if and when you will actually have it running and hitting hot metal, and what do you intend to produce with it.  Are you a public or private museum?

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Oh YES, please we'd love to see more, lots more. George has laid out the basics but we'll sponge up whatever you wish to show/tell us. 

The first pic shows the tup being lowered onto the frame, how far did you have to break it down to move it? Do you have steam or are you going to run it off compressed air? Nice to have a bridge crane isn't it?

I take it by the pics and your login name this isn't a hobby shop. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Welcome from the Ozark mountains. Absolutely do share the journey of the rehab. We love stories about restoring old machinery and of course pictures. Now that's about as fine of a foundation I have ever seen for a power hammer, should last a lifetime or two. Looks like you will need a taller ladder too.

[jlpservicesinc]

Yes, please do.. Love to hear about the auction price, rigging and such..   

I was shocked at the rigging price Hallamore  wanted originally..     I heard that there was a real lotta red tape and kinda not being able to make up the gov minds. 

I'm glad this hammer ended up in our hands.    

Looks like you did it up right.  Can't wait to hear all about it. 

[Frosty]

May we have a photo shop tour? I'm seeing evidence of some serious machining in the background, just the hopper of cutter shavings says you generate a lot. There's probably not much chance I could come give your new power hammer a try if I were in town is there? <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

[anvil]

awesome hammer. Keep us informed

[RailForgeWV]

Finally got the ram driven onto the rod, that took a lot of toothpick making out of railroad ties.  Put the top die in and checked out the idle with it in.  Need to make the alignment dowels for the top and bottom dies.  Need to work on keys for columns getting it all situated.  Right now the dies are just flat, may whack some round bar to see if we are getting the energy out of it as expected.  Then we will mill impressions in the dies and see if we can make some parts.  Progress is slow when doing it all in house.  April will make the 5 year mark, lol

[RailForgeWV]

On 1/14/2023 at 1:12 PM, George N. M. said:

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming.  Glad to have you.

Yes, we'd like to see more pictures of the process and details such as how it was transported, how the base was installed, how much concrete was poured, how large a crew did you have, how much of a budget, if and when you will actually have it running and hitting hot metal, and what do you intend to produce with it.  Are you a public or private museum?

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Concrete was 119 yards, foundation is 10' deep x 15' wide x 25' long, i think, pretty much from Chambersburg manual.  We did install the VibroDyanmics vibration pads under it which expanded the budget to about $200k, it is operation now, working on adjusting the column keys and need to make dowels for the dies.  Use the dies flat to hit some hot metal in next couple weeks.  Maching in impressions into the dies and hopefully make some parts in Febraury. 

We plan on producing parts for the rail industry that we either make with other processes like milling or parts we are purchasing import that are currently cast.  But everything we do is for rail track in some way or another.  From amusement parks, tunneling, transits, overhead crane runways, and yes railroads.

Well we are not a museum, ha, an actual business.  My dad started it in 1986, so it feels a lot like a museum, some days I would like to turn it into one, after graduating with mechanical engineering degree from Case Western in 1999, I did some auto engineering and ended up coming back to good ole WV, dad retired in 2008 and its been my mess ever since.  

 

On 1/14/2023 at 3:16 PM, Frosty said:

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Oh YES, please we'd love to see more, lots more. George has laid out the basics but we'll sponge up whatever you wish to show/tell us. 

The first pic shows the tup being lowered onto the frame, how far did you have to break it down to move it? Do you have steam or are you going to run it off compressed air? Nice to have a bridge crane isn't it?

I take it by the pics and your login name this isn't a hobby shop. 

Frosty The Lucky.

The picture that you are referring to was the removal, it isn't an overhead crane, you can see the mast going across the very corner of the picture, on removal it was all frozen so we removed the top as one piece, took it apart and rebuilt it in WV.  Had to put top on the columns to get ram knocked off the rod, then set it all back to continue the rebuild and then set it all back on top with a forklift.  Our plant doesn't have overhead crane either.

Running it off compressed air.  When I first got it up and running, we only had a 40 hp rotary screw compressor with no regulator to operate it on, so long story short couldn't run it very long, but that was expected, worked on regulator and then purchased a 150 hp Sullair out of an auction in MI during covid, so got a good deal on it, bought old regulator off ebay, rebuilt it and installed a 3,000-5,000 gallon air tank bought at the same auction for a few hundred dollars.  Today we put top die in and during idle the compressor is definitely keeping up.  Some where between idle and full on hammering we may run out of air, but there is another 300 HP Ingersol compressor I bought out of the same auction that I still have to throw at it.  Part of this whole journey is determining the operating cost.  So far it is looking like we did ok on the rebuild and air consumption will be about what we thought, 500-1500 cfm at 85 psi depending on how hard you are hammering.  

Not a hobby shop, can see some background on my other post earlier, but pretty small, have 4 employees in production, another mechanical engineer and mother doing accounting, sales, etc.  Trying to build my forging capabilities with projects I pick up at auction and do them on the cheap when I have time.  Have done just about everything on the hammer.  Also working on a 2-1/2" Ajax forging machine / upsetter.  but it is slow progress, have to get the revenue parts done first and then we can work on stuff for the extra projects.

[jlpservicesinc]

Awesome, thanks for the update and info. 

What did the hammer end up costing in Boston between auction and rigging? 

[Frosty]

You're playing with awfully large stuff not to have an overhead crane. How often to they come up at auction? 

When you're doing your air consumption calculations are you calculating based on the consumption numbers for steam? 500cfm of 85psi steam does many times the work of the same volume of compressed air. As soon as the piston begins to move with injected steam the increased volume causes a slight drop in psi which causes the steam to expand exponentially seriously spiking the pressure. 

That's about what I recall from reading lay level tech manuals. I owned a 1/3 interest in a 300lb Chambersburg steam hammer and got an earful from the station blacksmith about it. He said a 17hp boiler was plenty to get full performance but would crazy money for a commercial high volume compressor to get close.

Frosty The Lucky.

[George N. M.]

This is very cool and is a different perspective than most of us have.  Most of us are hobby smiths or small commercial shops and the heavy duty, industrial forging is unfamiliar to us.  Your setup reminds me of the machines, etc.  When I worked for Inland Steel and US Steel in the Chicago area in the '60s.

I have heard that running equipment originally designed for steam with compressed air often has the problem that seals dry out with compressed air.  I have heard this from minimg museum folk here in the West who will run the old steam engines, etc. with a compressor.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[RailForgeWV]

5 hours ago, jlpservicesinc said:

Awesome, thanks for the update and info. 

What did the hammer end up costing in Boston between auction and rigging? 

Hammer was $4k,only bidder was the house, once they got it above scrap they let it go

Rigging was $25k

Environmental ended up being $5k, at first they said I couldn't take the base out, auction terms, blah blah, sorry fellas but nothing in terms that said base wasn't part of sale, and after about five months of WV fight, they finally said fine if I paid for environmental, the concern was contaminated water below the base, I didn't think it went into the ground as far as they said, in the end no water and after testing, it came back clean, so they refunded $10k on the environmental deposit. Sometimes you get lucky. 

Also ended up being able to purchase another complete sister hammer, except the base, for spare parts, 

 

4 hours ago, George N. M. said:

This is very cool and is a different perspective than most of us have.  Most of us are hobby smiths or small commercial shops and the heavy duty, industrial forging is unfamiliar to us.  Your setup reminds me of the machines, etc.  When I worked for Inland Steel and US Steel in the Chicago area in the '60s.

I have heard that running equipment originally designed for steam with compressed air often has the problem that seals dry out with compressed air.  I have heard this from minimg museum folk here in the West who will run the old steam engines, etc. with a compressor.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Thanks, well you may be right about the seals, but for one thing there aren't that many in it, a little packing here and there, I think three sets, we used graphite lubed packing, will flood it with plenty of grease and oil and see what happens, if we get seriously forging, we can always put a hydraulic top on it, another thing, out west it is a lot more dry than in good ole WV right along the Ohio River, so things probably don't dry out as badly, I don't think it's anything plenty of oil can't take up for. Probably only take a couple hours to replace all the packing anyways. So far I am pleased with the seals and air leakage, time will tell how it holds up. Another thing, when you have no serious forging equipment, a 3k Chambersburg with leaky dry seals is better than nothing, ha. 

 

 

[Frosty]

If you put an inline oiler on the air line it should take care of it running dry. Use a seal friendly oil, there are lots available now days.

Frosty The Lucky.

[jlpservicesinc]

When I had spoken to Erie about the steam hammers they flooded me with information. 

 

Nearly all the wear parts are available new and from all I read, they used oakum for shaft seals. So switching over to graphite should in theory increase service intervals.

The hammer you purchased did not come with the oiler? 

From what I remember there were Oilers on many of the hammers.

Not directly on the hammers but on the lines leading to the hammers. 

Also Erie said there are no modifications needed to run the hammers on air. 

I'm sure you were in contact with them to get the information for setup and running. 

I was stunned at the small size steam boiler needed to run the 1500lb hammer which is what I wanted. 

With building the school it zapped all my funding. 

I figured the hammer would run 3-5k. Haullamore wanted 6500 to rig it and load it out to my shop. 

They then said the rigging on the delivery site would be extra and depending could run between 2 and 10k. 

Simply no way I could afford the hammer, transport, rigging. And then the 2 or 3 compressors needed to run it. 

Only a 13hp steam boiler was needed to run the hammer at full tilt. 

I was shocked it didn't need bigger. 13hp is tiny.  

Anyhow after all the $$$ for a school hammer while a once in a lifetime deal there was no way. 

I did get some great photos and was really wonderful seeing the forge shop and test bench. 

Thanks so much for sharing all the info. 

[Frosty]

I looked "boiler horsepower" up in the Engineering tool box, largely because from past reading and experience I know for a fact a 13hp. boiler is NOT a tiny power plant. Not large physically but the output is incredible. Below is the definition of, "One boiler horsepower." Watts. is the easiest number for me to digest without having to hit the books. So, yeah running a 1,500lb steam hammer full tilt would be nothing for a 13hp. boiler.

Frosty The Lucky.

Boiler horsepower - a power unit from the 19th-20th centuries - was  used to rate the capacity of a boiler to deliver steam to steam engines.

A common definition of one boiler horsepower is the amount of energy required to produce 34.5 pounds (15.65 kg) of steam per hour at pressure and temperature 0 psig (0 bar) and 212oF (100oC) - with feed water at pressure 0 psig and temperature 212oF. One boiler horsepower is about 33479 Btu per hour (about 9812 watts, 8437 kcal/hr).

[jlpservicesinc]

As I mentioned.  Its tiny. I didn't say tiny compared to a VW beetle, or pickup truck.

 

Just tiny in size compared to 3 or 4 air compressors and tiny compared to a 15, 20, or 25.  

Steam can do a bunch of work multiple times. 

Didn't say it wasn't dangerous either. A 13HP boiler isn't much larger than 2) 55gal barrels stacked up the long ways.

If you get into super heated steam they get even smaller.  As long as there is a large enough condenser unit to return water, or dump downstream for heating the building and put an auto injector in. 

What ever it was/is, I won't be getting one in my lifetime.  Maybe the next.

[Frosty]

Nah, you didn't say anything like that. Boilers just seem to be tiny for the amount of work they can do. We had 17 HP boilers in the steam thaw trucks I sometimes used thawing drains, culverts, ice dams, etc. on the road system. Not being a certified boilerman you aren't even allowed in the part of the truck with the boiler itself. When you opened the back doors to the box van you could look at it, you had to be able to see in the sight glass and confirm water before lighting the the fire and that both were working before putting it to work. It was a step by step procedure. I'm trying to think of something for a size comparison, we could look in at the top standing on the ground and it was on the bed of the truck box. It was maybe almost the size of 4 small hay bales stacked. . . maybe. You could've put it in a VW bug if you pulled the seats.

One of the old hands did a little demo of what kind of power and how dangerous it was by using the "stinger" a strait steam pipe hose nozzle we used to clear things like manholes and curb inlets, to push the boiler truck. In a flat parking lot next to the blocked drain he put the truck in neutral and blasted the back bumper with steam, then he sat in back and used it like a rocket engine and it rolled easily. You had to be really careful with the stinger if it was in open air it'd shove you like you were nothing. Put it in the ice and it just melted it and went down. 

Thawing drains was an enjoyable satisfying duty. The foreman would get a call, the road was flooded, water was running into people's basements, B A D things were happening! We'd show up, one of us would fire up the boiler while the other located the problem and unroll the hose. We'd do our thing until water started flowing, shut the boiler down, when it cooled off we'd go to the next problem. You should feel the good rush, standing knee deep in a flooded intersection with cars backed up in 4 directions when the drain pops and a whirlpool starts. The flowing water actually clears the drain it just needs a little path and away it goes.

We even got cheers on occasion. The downside to owning a power boiler is all the regs you have to meet. You have to be a currently certified boilerman and I think a power boiler needs inspection quarterly maybe? MUST be serviced more regularly, etc. etc. Buying one is cheap compared to owning one and if you're a hobby shop, it's all on you.

Frosty The Lucky.

[jlpservicesinc]

I've looked into owning a boiler for 30+ years..  None of it is impossible or else no one would own one..  Steam cars, steam boats, steam traction engines, etc, etc. 

Like anything worth doing there is always some learning involved as well as a cost..  

Like any good piece of equipment they need to be taken care of and serviced regularly..   Tubes replaced, etc, etc.. 

Hydro tested them is the norm and that should be done at least once a year but a good boiler person keeps this all in check. 

[George N. M.]

Jennifer, you will appreciate this:  Some years ago Martha and I took her mother to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario ( a resort town just across the Niagara River from NY state) for their Sweet Corn Festival.  On one street corner was a fired up large steam traction engine.  A steam line was connected from the boiler to a 55 gallon drum full of sweet corn.  The world's largest, most complex, and most expensive corn steamer!

GNM

[jlpservicesinc]

LOL.. That is so cool. Must have been amazing to see..    Did you have an ear or 2? 
 

[RailForgeWV]

I live, got sidetracked with a new rolling project the first of the year.  But we have managed to finish machining our first die.  Progress is slow, we are using the same mills as we do for production and that takes priority.  First up is a single piece rail clip, number 62, 5 to the platter, they are about 1" thick x 2-1/2" x 2-3/4".  Need to work more on die / hammer alignment and die temperature.  Having a time at getting it much above 200 degrees on the preheat.  Continue to work on anvil / column keys and vees.  Don't want to tighten it down too much and end up loosing energy on it.  But overall progress, attached pictures and video.  First attempt was a few days ago, got it down to within about 1/2" closing.  After working on die preheat with a bigger torch, or weed burner now, that seems to have helped.  Also got the part heated more but still have work to do in that department, not up to the 2300 degrees or so we need.  But today's attempt we got to under 1/4" flash thickness, should be down around 1/16" on flash, so about 3/16" more to go.

[jlpservicesinc]

I am so envious.  

I met one of the Hallmore guys that pulled all the machines out of the Navy shop after the auction few days ago.  

Of course everything happens as it's supposed to or else I would have a 1500 open frame hammer. 

I'm happy for you though and maybe on my journeys I can stop by and see it in action.  

Thank you so much for rescuing this hammer..   And also thank you for posting information about such a wonderful historical item. 

that is awesome. 

Fantastic job on mounting it.. 

How much clean up did it take?  cosmoline and such? 

[Frosty]

Beautiful! I do so love big machinery.

Frosty The Lucky.