Henry11 Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 Has anyone or known of anyone who has used a Da Vinci Pile driver as a power hammer? I Saw the design for it online and figured I should give it a try, but I wanted some advice before I actually started work on making it. I figure that at 20 feet in the air an 80 lbs weight would be enough to move metal for hammer making fairly quickly. I also read that this method was used in older blacksmith shops, but I couldn't find any examples...any help would be much appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason L Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 I wouldn't worry about trying to make it. It looks like a simple enough design but it appears to be operated by winching the weight up with a rope and pulley system. That would require an extra person to operate the mechanics and it looks like most of your time would be spent waiting for the weight to go up. A treadle hammer would be more efficient as it's operated by a single person and the weight automatically returns to the up position as soon as you take your foot off the treadle. You could try a trip hammer if you want massive amounts of weight and fast operation, but it's a lot of work to build something that probably won't offer a major advantage. A treadle hammer could be built with scrap materials that you may already have on hand and could theoretically be operational in the same day depending on how simple you make it. Just remember, the more complex something is, the more things can go wrong with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 The problem with gravity driven machines like Leonardo's pile driver is the low speed of blows. You would get about one good blow per heat. This is the problem with using a log splitter ad a hydraulic press, they tend to have slow recovery times. As John says, a treadle hammer is a better choice. The advantages of a treadle hammer is that it hits hard, fairly fast, snd each blow hits exactly where the previous one did. "By hammer snd hand sll srts do stand." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry11 Posted October 20, 2023 Author Share Posted October 20, 2023 Thanks for the Help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 Welcome from the Ozark Mountains. If you scroll through some of the pages here, there are a lot of threads about building hammers and Oliver's. One unique build is just a little below yours "Power Hammer home built. I really like the ingenuity that went into the design. I would call it a powered treadle hammer or Oliver. Lots of good ideas in this section. I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s. Semper Paratus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swedefiddle Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 Good Morning Henry, Look up 'Drop Hammer'. Neil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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