Power Hammer

[Perry Holbrook]

A couple of months ago, I asked for help in finding a 14" pulley for a power hammer I was planning to build. Thanks to Tom LaRussa, I found one and have completed the hammer.

A power hammer is basically a motor driven hammer that operates via a flywheel/cam. It is usually used by blacksmiths and is rated at between 20 and 50 pounds. Mine is much smaller because I need it to do more detail hammering on the roofing copper that I use on my boxes. I'd say it's about a 5 pound hammer.

It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but my hammer uses an electric clutch/brake controlled by the foot switch. The anvil is an 8" H beam with 3/8 plate welded to enclose it and is filled with concrete. That table weighs about 400 pounds. Except, for a void holding the clutch, it's solid concrete inside the plywood.

I know this may not be of interest to all, but thought some may like to see it.

Perry

[Mark Hulette]

Perry-

I always like to see new things that can be associated with WWing! Good thing that table is on wheels!!! :D :D :D

Thanks for sharing... I'd like to see some of your copper-lidded boxes, too.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Perry,

It is nice to see other's ingenuity used to solve a problem. Be sure to post a box like that is a result of your new tool!

Jeff

[Jim Becker]

Interesting, Perry. Can you post some detail pictures of where "the rubber meets the road"? I think that would help explain what it does and the resulting effect. TYIA

[Frank Pellow]

Thats quite a hammer. I bet that you are really really careful when operating it. Thanks for showing it to us.

[Charles McKinley]

Hi Perry,

Where did you get the plans? I would like to build a larger one for doing blacksmith work.

Thanks

[Perry Holbrook]

To answer a couple questions. I modified plans by Jerry Allen @ 304-745-3886. He is a blacksmith in TN and calls his Rusty.

I just took a more detail shot of the actual hammer. Before I built the power hammer, I used a small ball pein hammer to pein the edges of the copper tile by hand at the anvil. Some tiles got up too 1000 hammer strikes. A couple of hours at the anvil can get pretty boring and tiresome. Add to that, my decision to go to market with a line of copper faced ceramic tile later this spring and you see the need for the motorized version.

Because I wanted to keep the same hammer pattern, I designed the power hammer head so I could use the same hammer head as you will notice in the picture.

Anyway, the power hammer is used to add the rough pein to the roofing copper. I then do the embossing detail in another process, which I'll share at a later time. If you would like to see the tile on a box, some of my boxes are on my out of date web site kopperwood.com.

Perry