[TheForge] Re: Weightless Sledge - Your Feedback Needed

Wed Feb 6 19:45:53 2002

I have been working on a similar idea for awhile myself. mine is a little
more complex than yours. I believe .....
I don't really want to discuss it in an open forum either......but it does
involve a rocket ship and a nazel 5b ....ok that's all I'm going to
say........
----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce Freeman <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 11:46 AM
Subject: [TheForge] Re: Weightless Sledge - Your Feedback Needed

I'm calling on this group for encouragement (or not) on a project I've
started recently and am having some trouble coming up with the enthusiasm to
spend time on.  The problem with enthusiasm has little to do with the merit
of the project, and everything to due with other things going on in my life
that makes me too busy, too tired, or too unmotivated to spend time on it.
Please read the following and give me some feedback on whether you consider
this project one you personally will receive with some enthusiasm - meaning
you'll want to run right out and build one for yourself!

The project is a weightless (sledge) hammer.  Ideally, the result of this
project will be a massive (e.g., 16#) hand-held hammer rendered weightless
so that one man can swing it one-handed.  I want the hammer to be
"swing-able" in virtually any direction, so that it could be used (almost)
as freely as a smaller, hand-held hammer.  There will be no built-in
directional limitations like those of a treadle hammer.  In other words,
you'll be able to grab this hammer, bring it down on work on the top of the
anvil, swing it around and clobber something on the side of the anvil, or
even up against the bottom side of the horn or whatever.  (Watch that your
anvil can take a whack from a 16# hammer, though! � I almost knocked my poor
little Southern Crescent off its stump when I hit it from the side!)   The
catch, of course, is the mass.  You'll never swing a 16# hammer, even a
weightless one, as easily as a 2# hammer.  Still, when it makes contact it
does some >serious< work!

My progress to date is thus:  I've built two prototypes, the second a vast
improvement over the first.  I have at least one more improvement in store.
Using the second prototype, I can swing the hammer up and down and at some
limited angles, at about one blow per second, and can keep it up
indefinitely.  I might not be able to improve much upon that speed, but I
plan to improve upon the versatility of the hammer and the "feel" of it in
your hand.  I plan to make the hammer usable anywhere within a fair working
area (maybe an area of 50 square feet or so), and I plan to make the whole
apparatus portable, so you can move it to a different location in your shop,
or to another shop, with little trouble.  The second prototype weighs about
200# total, but the next should weigh less than 50#, hammer included.

The disappointing aspect to me is that the project turns out to be too
simple.  I thought I had an engineering challenge on my hands, but it's
becoming so simple that it looks like any competent person is going to be
able to build one of these things in two hours time for less than $50.
Frankly, I'm surprised this thing hasn't been invented already.  (Or has it
been and you guys have been holding out on me?)  Because this is turning out
to be so simple, I've abandoned the idea of selling the plans.  If I ever
get my act together on this, I'll send the plans - a few pages at most - to
our chapter editor to be published in the newsletter.

I will >not< discuss the mechanism of this hammer in a public forum.  My
reason for this limitation is some of the negative feedback in my earlier
discussions of the concept of the Grasshopper Treadle Hammer.  Don't need
any more of that crap on a public forum.  If anyone is interested enough to
want to discuss it with me privately, they may email me at
[email protected] (NOT at the address from which I sent this!) and I will
discuss it one-on-one.

(BTW, if anyone doubts my ability to design this weightless sledge, please
settle your doubts by visiting http://
www.monmouth.com/~freeman/bmf/grashopr.htm , where I show a >weightless<
treadle hammer.  The weightless sledge is a >lot< simpler than that!)

Thanks for listening.  Now give me your response!

Bruce

P.S.:  For those not too used to the terminology of physics:  All matter has
mass.  Mass acted upon by gravity equals weight.  A 16# hammer has 16# mass.
On the surface of the earth, we perceive it as "heavy".  In space, it would
be weightless.  But weightlessness can be achieved in effect by artificial
means as well.  This could be done, for example, by a see-saw
('teeter-totter' to some of you).  I am using such a means to remove the
effect of gravity upon a 16# hammer.  Turns out there are more ways to get
the thing to work than you can shake a stick at, some of them >very< simple.
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