The 1915 Beaudry No.6 is progressing slowly. The broken cheek for the bronze guide is bolted on and reinforced with a heavy welded gusset back to the frame (removed for the picture) and the previous electrification with homemade clutch is removed. Now the big choices

1) How to build the jackshaft tower and shafting/pulleys arrangement for the 17 inch flywheel

2) What belting/motor/speed reduction to aim for 200bpm (less than the factory suggested 275)

3) Design and make a new idler and idler/treadle connection 

4) The the big looming question I am still scratching my head on is how I am mounting the hammer... For many reasons I do not want to permanently hard bolt the hammer to the floor (the floor is sloped 1/4inch per ft) nor do I want to cut the floor (7 inch reinforced concrete) for an isolated foundation... I got heavy oak timbers to make a raft but not sure how raft and jackshaft tower go together? 

All ears form you guys that love these hammers - I want to do this old girl right and have her running and looking her finest! 



 

It's been a while since we heard from you. I'm not clear on what you mean by a "jack shaft tower."  Well I need some clarification on all of #1. Are you talking about making the hammer run on a belt other than the line shaft it was designed for? 

I did that on my 50lb. Little Giant by building a motor mount on top of the hammer so it now uses multiple short V belts though I could machine another flat pully for the motor and run a flat belt. It has a single step pully to step pully from motor to jack shaft on the same motor mount and a multiple belt pully from jack shaft to drive pully on the hammer.

If that were suitable I'd be mounting the existing motor mount on the curve of the back of your hammer situated so the flat belt misses the (Clutch?) linkage under the main drive pully on the hammer. Is the drive pully what you're calling the fly wheel?

If you need further speed reduction replace the existing large pully with larger. If my above idea worked you'd have enough room for a very large one. My eyeball guesstimate says it's around 8-10" being directly driven by 2" pully on the motor.  for an estimated 345 rpm off a 1728rpm motor. A 12" driven pully would give you 288rpm. A 16" pully would have it down to 216rpm.

Then there is the reduction from the motor flat belt pully to the flywheel pully. I'd need to know the dia of the "drive" flat pully to calc. the reduction to the 17" "driven" flat pully/flywheel.

I mounted my LG on 6" x 14" lam beam beams I got for reasonable from a builder's drops. I counter sunk with a hole saw then ALMOST through drilled each half on each side with a drill the dia of the galvy wood screws. I applied contractors adhesive (I can NOT recall the general name of dang it!) to the joint halves and pipe clamped them as solidly as possible Squeezing as much adhesive from the joint as would come. Then I used my ridiculously long pilot drill matched to the lag screws and piloted into the opposing lam beam. 

Once I had the halves pilot drilled I put a washer that surprise of surprises  JUST fit the counter sinks drilled with the hole saw and put about 3tbsp of mixed epoxy glue in the hole, pushed it all like a syringe plunger till the screw entered the pilot hole in the far half and drove it home with an electric impact wrench. A piece of duct tape poked over the screw held it centered in the deep socket on a 12" extension. 

I kept a can of xylene handy to clean the squoozed out epoxy of the socket and repeated it at the far end of the footing. I alternated sides and ends so it all stayed even..

I inlet two strips of 5/16" x 4" hot rolled into the wood foot with short steel pipes with welded steel caps having bolt holes at the hammer bolt locations so the bolts don't hit the floor. As seen in the pic below.

When upright no steel touches the floor and better still the bottom die is closer to a comfortable height so I don't have to stoop over using it. 

The rubber between hammer foot and wood block in pic 2, is conveyor belt, another drop from a rubber supply I picked out of their dumpster. It REALLY pays to be nice to people.

The motor mount in the pic is the old one I replaced. I also made a brake and replaced guard over the crank and crank arms. Maybe we can talk about those later.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

 

Hey Frosty, yeah it's been about a year and half of absolute madness. I am building Artfire Michigan from scratch, teaching beginner classes every weekend with returning students two nights a week. We're building shop as we go and the complexity of the Beaudry's set up has relegated it to a back burner. These old style Beaudry's are not simple set up like a Little Giants, for one I do not have a clutch. That pulley you see is direct link to the pitman crank, as such I will have to set it up as originally intended with a flat belt to acquire the "slippage" needed for controlled forging. 
If you look these old style Beaudry's up you will see the jackshaft towers I am talking of. A jackshaft tower is a stand in for a shop wide line-shaft system. Consisting of a tower and platform to support motor and pulley arrangement to replicate the "slack hanging belt" of a overhead line-shaft system. It is this slack that creates the clutch for this age of hammer. 

Love the base for your Little Giant! Great ideas with the recessed plates and bolt sockets. I also have a 50 pound old style Little Giant that needs the same treatment once I get the Beaudry going. Thanks for the inspiration! 

 

John, I'm not sure if it'll be of help, but on Facebook marketplace, in Merritt, NC, there is a Beaudry for sale.  It is misspelled as "Baudry" Power Hammer.  I believe the seller is the wife of a retired smith, and they may be able to get you some pictures and/or info.  Good luck the hammer is impressive. 

Also, in this video the guy makes the tower for his Beaudry.

 

A couple comments here. This is just a method of simulating a line shaft slack belt and a tower like this is a really straight forward build and actually not that much different from my above suggestion.

Before I ramble on, would you mind putting your general location in the header so members within visiting distance will know where you are if they find something or wish to get together and maybe help?

The video is a perfect example of why I hate videos sped up to stupid speed. Virtually nothing useful is shown at stupid speed. Does it help to see a blur drilling holes or running GMAW beads backwards? And so on. Of course all that time watching a sped up video looking directly into the arc was wonderfully informative, said ignore most of this . . . stuff.

Using the video to get an idea of what to build is useful if you have decent basic shop and welding skills, disregarding a lot of his "tips" is a better idea, he's pretty shy of passing a fab or welding 101 class. Though I MUST admit I was suitably impressed when he used a TAPE MEASURE when drawing his shop drawings. That was inspiringly . . . Nevermind.

For example, his fine adjustment idea for moving the motor up and down with wedges or some such CAN only disrupt the belt from tracking. The pullies MUST operate parallel through their axles. PERIOD. 

Instead, attach the motor on 4 adjustment bolts that extend through the motor mount plate. Simply loosen the lock nuts, apply exactly the same number of turns to each and retighten the lock nuts. IF there is a tracking issue adjust the back nuts while it's turning to tilt the motor. EZ. PZ. IF you know how to mount a motor properly.

Sorry for the rant. Give a shout if you have questions, I was a professional fabricator and certified welder.

Frosty The Lucky.

I absolutely agree, can't stand trying to learn from video. But seems to be a lot of people's preferred method of sharing today... Happy places like this still exists to get in touch with the wider community 

 

Artfire Michigan is located in Leslie Michigan about 20 minutes south of the State Capitol in Lansing. It's a quickly growing community of smiths started in 2023, we started doing classes a year ago come September. We are busy building shop, getting the hammers running and making metal move. Anyone that wants to join the fun is welcome to our weekly Open Forge Thursday's 6-9pm. For info and directions look up the website and the Facebook page. Artfire Michigan 

 Along with the Beaudry we are also "Whispering" a KB-1 Reiter, suped up an old style Blu 100, and preparing to rebuild a 50 Little Giant. We have a 25 ton hydraulic press and a No.8 fly press, induction forges, grinders and a plethora to anvils in a group setting clustered around a single shared forge. At the far end of the shop there is a gantry crane where we will be laying an end grain block floor to level the surface for the hammers. As I mentioned in my first post the floor is sloped - the building was built as a semi truck oil change in the 1980s and has a hugely thick reenforced sloped drain floor that angles by average 1/4 per foot towards the trench in the center... Floating the hammers on top of the blocks and anchoring down to the concrete is the only way I can easily think of to leveling the space - but then the positioning and attachment of the tower in relation to the hammer becomes an issue...

 

Would love to hear what others have done and had success with, can't wait to get her up and running again!

 

 

A Troll eh? Ayup, I married a UPer, from up Iron Mountain way. 

I approve the way you have your post vise mounted in the first picture. Pretty easy to move and stays put, even if you have to stand on round the plate.

A KB-1 Reiter is a pretty skookum hammer and better there are a lot of them out there. I just checked Althaus used forging equipment listings, There seem to be more 50kg Reiter hammers than the 30kg KB-1. Then again Althaus is a global equipment dealer, trader, etc. based in Germany so it MIGHT not be the place to compare. Parts maybe, if Reiter isn't in business.

Looks like you have a pretty darned nice club(?) shop, awful clean though.

Frosty The Lucky.