Power Hammer Page - FredlyFX.com

Debra and I finished painting the motor stand tonight as well as the pillow blocks for the jack shaft and the flat belt drive pulley that will go on the jack shaft. I also finished cleaning and painting the other side of the hammer body this afternoon. Once things are dry I can begin reassembly. The only thing I am really going to have to wait on now is getting some large square head bolts. I think I found a source in town, but I never got back to him with exact sizes. Now I will have to. I can't wait to actually get started tomorrow putting it together.


Here are 3 views of the painted body. I went ahead and painted the bottom die rather than taping it off to keep it from rusting. When I am done I will take the paint off of it before use.

Here is the motor stand after painting. You can see the shaft and pulley in the vise behind it where I painted it. You can also see the main hammer pulley hanging to the side.	This is a close up of the brackets I welded onto the stand to hold the pillow blocks of the jack shaft. I'm using 3/4" shaft for this. I hope it is strong enough.	Here is what it looked like mocked up before welding.

I went out tonight after work and started putting the hammer together. I found out pretty quick that I wasn't quite as ready as I thought. I had missed painting a set of pillow block bearings I am using for the clutch pivot, and also almost all of the bolts were still sitting in a can of parts dip where I had forgot about them since December. I also found out that the bolts to hold the pillow blocks to the side of the hammer wouldn't actually go through the holes in the bearings. Damn things are probably drilled metric since it was just a hair under 1/2".

So, I drilled out the holes, then painted the bearings and set them aside. I also cleaned up the bolts I will need to assemble the clutch and painted them as well. Then I went on to assemble the jack shaft onto the motor stand. It looks pretty cool in the 3 colors.

After that I decided to set the main shaft and pulley in place just to see what it would look like, and to measure for the bolt length. I plan to put new bolts in the bearing caps and in the hammer guides. After setting the pulley in place I set the bearing caps on and found out I have a slight problem I hadn't noticed when the thing was covered in gunk.

The front bearing looks like it had been poured not too long before the hammer was taken out of service. However, they poured it a little high on the sides and it is holding the top bearing off the shaft. I think I am going to grind it down a little tomorrow because I think it will let the shaft rattle around too much if I don't. I really think that the top bearing should at least be touching the shaft. I don't think it needs to be a real tight fit since there must be room for it to drain down around the shaft, but it must touch to keep it from hopping up off the bottom.


Here are a couple of pics of the motor stand assembled. The only thing left now is to wire the motor, and to drill holes in the base plat to mount it to a foundation. That will be a drag since the base is 1 1/4" thick steel.		Here is a shot of the hammer with the main pulling sitting in place. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get it bolted in.

Here you can see the bottom bearing sticking up.	Here it is with the cap sitting on it. You can see how it holds the top cap up.	Here is another close up of the cap sitting on it. The gap is about a 1/6", and I think it is just too much.

This weekend was very busy for us. We worked on the hammer and the yard all weekend. The crazy rains we had last month left us with 2ft tall grass, so we mowed some, then worked on the hammer, then mowed some more. It's finally starting to come together though.


Here's my high tech bolt painting jig. I took the top of a paper box and cut lots of little X's with my razor knife. I stick a bolt through the box and then get paint only on the head, and not the threads.	Here is a close up of the front main bearing before I ground it down. I honestly don't know if that was the right thing to do, but I just couldn't get it to fit right with the cap sitting up on it.	Here it is after grinding it flush. Before grinding it I couldn't get the top cap on tight and straight. WHen I bolted it down I could still lift the shaft about an 1/8". Now I can tighten the cap so it is touching, but I have to be careful not to over tighten it and bind the shaft.

Here is the clutch mounted. I used pillow block bearing as the pivot to replace the ghetto improv created by someone in its past. They used square nuts with a block of steel welded between and soft 5/8" bar with bent nails through holes in the ends. This is probably over kill, but it looks sharp.	Here you can see the other side of the clutch. I'll be mounting the main pulley sometime this week I hope. We did some detail painting on it, and it hasn't dried. Now my wife still needs to touch up the letters one more time.	Here is a shot from the other side. It's really starting to look like I have something coming together now.

Below is a close up of the front main bearing now that it is mounted. I have had one small issue come up besides the bearings. It seems like the bolt holes are not lining up quite right. The shaft turns freely, but the bolt is obviously in at an angle. It also doesn't seem to matter which cap I place up front, they both do it.


Here is a shot of it with the cap sitting on before I ground it. You can see how it holds the top bearing up off the shaft. I'll take a better finished pic tomorrow.	Here is a shot of it ground and with the cap tightened down. It's a little different angle than the pic on the right, but I think you can tell what I am talking about with the right bolt at an angle. I started looking at some of my beginning pics tonight and I think it was like that before as well.

I installed the main front wheel tonight. It looks great because my lovely wife painted all the raised letters with bright yellow paint making them stand out very nicely. I also took some measurements for the new brake pad I am going to manufacture. Deb and I are taking a bronze casting class so that I can make this part, but I have a bunch of other projects in mind as well. I plan to combine my blacksmithing with the bronze casting to hopefully create some unique pieces.


Here are a couple of bad pics of the front wheel mounted. It looks great. I'll take some better pics soon. My spot lights outside just don't do it justice.

Here is the brake pad that I will cast in class soon. It is laying on a piece of paper with a pencil outline of how I plan to make it.	Here is the other side. You can see where they welded a piece of steel to the top of the worn out bronze pad. This will work to stop the hammer, but it will wear out the main pulley edge, and that would be impossible to replace, so I will make a new one out of the proper material.

I worked on the hammer a couple of times this week. Mostly just doing small stuff, and touching up paint. The square headed bolts I ordered came in on Tuesday and I painted those so I can assemble the front of the hammer.

I finished the wax replica of the brake pad in class tonight and did a spru system for it. Next week I will begin the process where we dip the replica and the spru system in a slurry that will end up becoming the mold. Once it has built up thick enough the whole thing goes in a furnace about 2200 degrees where the wax of the replica and spru burn out to leave me a nice mold for the bronze. I think it will take 2 or 3 weeks to get it all ready and pour it. I will probably end up using the old one to start with just to see if the hammer works. Patience has never been a real virtue of mine.

I still haven't figured out exactly what I am going to do with the top die. I know I am going to try to do a repair on it, but I am still not exactly sure how. Pretty soon, it will be the only thing holding me up.


The main spring will go between the two arms hanging down. There will also be links to the arms on top of the hammer head.		Here are the hammer head guides and the top links. I decided to repaint the links blue to work better within the paint scheme. The guides just got a touch up since they had been around the shop the whole time getting nicked & scratched.

Here are the square head bolts and the nuts and washers all painted and ready for assembly.

This should have gone in with my update of last Thursday since that is the day I actually did the work, but I forgot to take my camera to class. So, today after work I went into the classroom and took a couple of pics of my piece as it stands now. I'm no expert on lost wax casting. This is my first time and I'm taking a class at Mt. San Jacinto Community College so I don't kill myself trying to do this. I suggest anyone interested in doing casting also take a class. Please don't go by the little bit of info I am putting up here as I describe what I'm doing with this hammer.


This is how it will hang while being coated with slurry, and also how it will sit while being poured. The piece that looks like it was wax poured in a cup, which it was, will end up being the funnel we pour the bronze into.	Here I put a shot of the original part over it so you can see what I am doing. I am making the new one bigger than the old one so I can grind it down to shape.	After this is all covered in slurry and forms a hard shell over the wax, we will put it in a furnace that is about 1800 degrees and the wax will all burn out leaving a perfect empty mold of whatever we had in wax.

I took more pictures in class Thursday, but my ISP was running too slow to upload them so it slipped my mind until now. Once I had it the way I wanted it in the pictures above, I had to coat the whole think with mop & glow floor wax. Once that was dry I had to dip it in a tub of slurry, then let that dry, and then dip it in slurry 2 more coats with a very fine sand thrown on afterwards. The next dip used a coarse sand to build up the thickness of the shell faster. When I'm done it will have 8 to 9 coats on it, and will be a large blob. That will be put in the furnace and the wax burned out leaving a perfect empty mold of my part. It's a pretty ingenious process really.

I can't wait till we actually pour. I'll probably be the first one in class ready to cast, so I'll end up having to wait. I'm making some house numbers for a mail box stand I have planned. This keeps me busy while I'm waiting for my brake pad to dry. Hopefully by the time the class is ready to pour I will have them ready also.

The pad is coming along nicely. I snuck in a couple of dips during the week and then got 3 more tonight. I think I will do one or two more next week, and then it will be ready to go.

Below is a picture of what it looks like now after being dipped 7 times. All of the detail you could see before is gone now. The walls are about 1/4" thick now. THey will be just a little thicker when I'm done. It's really getting heavy now too.

Tonight was the first time it hasn't rained since the class started so we were able to pour tonight. It was very cool. I didn't quite have my piece ready, so I will be doing it next week. Hopefully it won't rain. I decided to do a whole separate page on the bronze casting. I think I just picked up another expensive hobby.

Here is what my piece looks like now with 2 more dips and the bolt removed and the top ground off. I've got a nice thick mould that should work just fine. It will be placed in a furnace with this open side down and cooked at 1800 degrees for an hour and a half. All the wax will be melted out. Then it will be placed right side up in a sand box and then the bronze poured in. Go to the bronze casting page if your interested in the process. I have put some really cool pictures of that first pour up there.

I was able to pour the brake pad this past Thursday in class. It came out perfect and I will be doing the clean up on it later today. I'll post up more pics when it is done.


Here it is just after breaking off the mould. Now that I have been doing this for a couple of weeks I am figuring out that I should have just sand cast it and saved a lot of money. I will probably sand cast another one of the final product so I have a spare.	Here is a wide shot of it. The mould material is still in the center.	Here is a shot of what it looked like before putting the mould on so you can compare it.

I don't have much of an update today, except to say that I will be doing a major update in a few days. I've been pretty busy on the hammer, but I've had problems with my camera and my internet connection, so I haven't done any updates lately.

I've cast a second brake pad in class, but this one I did sand casting, so it cost a fraction of what the first one did.

I've also added a second jack shaft to the motor stand so I can step the speed down again. I had figured out that my speed was gonna be around 900 rpm before and that would rip the hammer apart. Now it will be around 225 rpm and that should work just fine. I'll post up some of the calculators I had to use to figure that out soon. It's pretty useful information if your going to do anything with machinery.

Now work will continue on the hammer itself. I've got it mostly put together, but I stopped working on it since the only thing I really need is the dies. I'm kind of afraid to use it with the dies I have now. I have a friend with a machine shop who has offered to make some dies at a very good deal, but I still have to save up to get it done. Hopefully next month I can have them done.

The other thing that will be a major hold up is power. I don't have any 220 out where I want to use the hammer. Right now it is only next to the side of the house near the meter. I have thought about making a cord that will reach, but the cost is pretty crazy for something that I won't need once I get the shop built and permanent power run. I will probably just end up waiting to use the hammer until I build the permanent shop, which I am hoping to do this summer.

After I did the update above about the motor stand I decided to go out and check out the hammer to see where I was and what needed to be done to finish it up. The next thing I knew, I had it all together. It moves very easily and freely. I think it will work out well once I resolve all the other issues. I still have the problems I talked about above; i.e.: no power, and worn out dies. But at least it's together and I know it will move. Now I just have to work on the other stuff.

The hammer is finally up and actually running. I'll post some pics and video tomorrow, but I did actually pound some steel with it yesterday, and today. There is still some fine tuning needed. I think it's really just about me learning its little idiosyncrasies, but that will come with time. Here is video of the first running of it. You can see that it is slightly binding at the top of the stroke. It's fixed now, but seems to come and go as I use the hammer. I'll have to figure out a permanent fix.

I built some shade over the hammer this weekend, and will begin moving the forge and anvil near the hammer this week. Currently I heated up a 1" square bar and then ran over to the hammer, turned it on, and started drawing it out. Definitely not an efficient way to forge iron.

When I post my next update I will include some pics that show some of the issues I have and how I have dealt with them, or not.

No pics today, but a quick update. The hammer was working, but not as well as I wanted. It seemed to be binding at the top of the stroke. I decided to take the guides off and polish them. I had done a pretty sloppy paint job the first time around thinking that where ever it rubbed, the paint would just get worn off pretty quick. I don't think it was working that way though. I think the paint was causing it to bind, so I used some 80, then 220 grit on my orbital sander after taking the paint off with a belt sander. It's much smoother and pretty shiny. I think this will help.

I still haven't figured out exactly how I am going to configure the shop around the hammer. The choices got a little easier when the shade over my old forge area got shredded by our crazy weather last weekend. I had 3 inches of water in the front yard in about 10 minutes. The rain was coming down at a 45 degree angle. It was pretty nuts.

I did quite a bit of work on the hammer over my Christmas break. Although it has been running several months now, I was not very happy with its performance. After more tweaking I realized it had still been slightly hanging on every stroke. I studied it carefully and figured out that the guides that run along the side needed to be tilted out a little. I ended up taking a piece of welding rod and putting it behind each guide near the edge where the ram slides. This was all the space it needed to really run free. Now it runs much smoother, and I am very happy.

I was also having a little problem with the top die coming loose. I just couldn't get the wedge in tight enough to stay. I ended up adding a strip of thin leather between the die and the wedge. It has worked great since then. This picture shows what I am talking about.

During this process I also got the lower die freed up. Whoever had the hammer last had welded the ends of the wedges to the die so they couldn't come out. I had done quite a bit of grinding on the welds before giving up on them during the rebuild. Well, once I was actually using it more the welds broke and the die came loose. This brought up a whole new problem, and explained the reason for the welded wedges. Now, no matter how hard I try to pound them in, the wedges come out after just a couple of heats. I even tried the leather strip trick that worked so well on the top die, but no dice. I pulled out the bottom die and studied the problem. I figured out that they had made the wedges too tall, and it was just riding on the wedges. The bottom of the die is not in contact with the anvil at all. I think this also explains why it doesn't seem to be as solid a hitter as I thought it would be. I will probably end up putting a piece of 12 gage sheet metal under the die as a washer until I have a new one made.

You can see where the red arrow is in this picture that the wedge is taller than the die. In the next picture you can see where the two wedges were welded. I have ground down the wedges, but it turns out that the center of the die is still too short. Whoever made these dies was an idiot.

Once I have the die situation worked out I will probably kick up the speed a notch. I have it geared down as slow as I could get it, but I think it might forge better running a little faster. I'll have to study that closely before I decide.

Well I figured out why they had the bottom die wedges welded in. It's because if they are not, then they keep coming out no matter what I did. It's obvious now that the dies that are in this hammer were made in house, most likely by the maintenance guys at the foundry where the hammer was for its first 80 years of life. Unfortunatly, they didn't get the angles or the height just right. I decided that for the time being I will stay with the large flat die on the bottom, so I welded the wedges back in. I still plan to have a new top die built some time soon.

I also kicked up the speed to the next step on the 3 step pulleys. Wow, what a big difference it makes. This thing runs really fast. Probably a little faster than I would like. I am learning to control the foot peddle a little better so I can slow it down a bit. It definetly does better at forging at the faster speed. I drew out some billets and some welded cable the other day and was very impressed.

The saga is over. I sold the hammer and it is now on its way to Oregon where it should have a nice productive life. I decided to sell the hammer for a couple of reasons. The first was that I needed the money, but the main one was that because of the way my shop is now set up I hadn't been able to use the hammer in the last year. It was pretty much just sitting outside rotting, and I didn't want that to happen. Now it is going to a good home where it will see some use.

Common Sense Hammer No 2 Gunning Model, Schuyler Company, Common Sense Hammer, No 2 Gunning Model, Schuyler Company Common Sense Hammer, Common Sense Power Hammer,


Here is a shot from the side. It's hard to tell, but the pulley on the motor is a two step with a very small 1 1/2" pulley on the inside.	Here it is close up. Everything is pretty much just clamped up right now while I fiddle with it to get everything lined up right.	Here is a close up of the new upper pillow block bearing. You can see a slight gap underneath it, so I will use some ship material to support it when I bolt it up.
		Here is a good shot that shows how I am stepping it down from the motor to the lower jack shaft then back up to the original shaft. I am planning to add a brace from the front edge of this shelf down to the stand itself. Otherwise I think it will flex a lot just hanging out there.


Here is the finished stand. I found a push button switch at a local equipment surplus place. The box under the switch has a plug that I can plug my welder into if I need to.	Here is the side where the flat belt will be hooked up.	Here is the motor side of it.It turned out looking pretty good overall.
Here is a link to some video of it running.	Here is a second video of it running.	I put a yellow stripe on the flat belt pulley so you can tell how slow it is running.


Here it is with my son Cipriano in the pic.	Here is is from the left.	Here it is from the right.
Here is some video of it moving freely.	Here is another video of it closer.


Here is what it looks like after the first 3 coats of slurry & sand. Once it's done, I don't think we'll be able to even tell there are the little blind vents coming off of it.


Here it is all welded and set up. I think it's actually going to work. I did order a new 10"pulley though. THe one in the picture is a cheap cast aluminum one made for a water cooler. I don't think it can take the stress.	Here is the stand after I stripped it down & painted it. I also added the angle brace underneath the shelf to prevent it from flexing. I'm working on the switch & electrical connections now. I expect to be able to fire the motor up this weekend.	Here you can see that brace better. You can also see in this pic that the arm sticking up on the left to support the pillow block at the end of the shaft is not very straight. I didn't notice this till too late, but it doesn't matter because the bearing can pivot in the race so it works fine.