[TheForge] The perfect score?

[Jerry Frost]

After reading your follow up I started to reply off list then reconsidered. 
I have nothing to say on the side I wouldn't on list, about power hammers 
and Bob Bergman anyway. <grin>

I have very little power hammer time, maybe a few hours total. Most of my 
time is on a Kuhn, K40 (I think) all of a couple hours almost 9 years ago. 
About 2-3 minutes on a 25lb Champion mechanical. Then last summer at the 
ArtMetal Shindig we took a road trip to the Postville Blacksmith shop.

The Shindig road trip caught Bob at a bad time (for us, good for him) as he 
had a family do starting up so we only got a quick tour. He did invite any 
of us back during the work week for hands on with his hammers. Deb and I 
made the run the next monday and he let me give his Nazel 3B and 200lb 
Bradley a try.

It's been a long time since I ran the Kuhn and it was a sweet hammer but not 
anywhere near the same leage as either of the ones I ran at Bob's. The 3B 
was love at first stroke. I grew up running machinery and know it doesn't 
take any skill or quality to slam something full power and see what happens 
so I spent the first couple minutes seeing how lightly I could kiss hot 
steel with a 300lb Tup.

With as little time as I have it was EASY to just burnish the bar, giving it 
a little more treadle and it drew it down with exquisite control and one 
pedal to the medal stroke turned 1 1/2" sq into a cartoon mashed thumb about 
1/16" thick.

The Bradley was a mechanical but just as smooth to me anyway with plenty of 
poop to draw the same bar and keep the heat. When Bob demoed he had to work 
a lot more of the bar to keep from overheating it. Of course he's a LOT 
better at it than I but how much bar he worked seemed to depend on not 
overheating it.

Okay, that sounded weird. The way he was working it if he worked less metal 
he would've had to stop once in a while for it to cool back down to working 
temp.

New or old hammer is a GOOD question and I'm not the guy to ask. I hear good 
things about Anyangs or whatever the ones coming out of China are called 
this week. I hear good things about the ones coming out of eastern europe 
too. I also hear they take sometimes major tweeking to get working. I also 
hear they don't have the options older and or higher dollar hammers have.

I've also heard nobody uses the clamp function but most folk would prefer 
the tup to be up at idle. Those with hammers who idle with the tup down say 
it doesn't bother them at all.

I just don't know.

What I'm willing to do though is this. Once I retire I will gladly sacrifice 
my time and travel around the country, probably have to do the whole darned 
world and try different power hammers. You can't judge after trying just one 
of a type, there're wear, maintenance, etc. issues that differ machine to 
machine. Anyway, I'll need to try a number of each type. Once I've done this 
I'll write up a review and post it here.

All I need is a little help with travel expences, making the mortgage and 
overhead at home, somebody to take care of the animals while Deb and I are 
on the road and a little walking around money.

This is a real good deal guys, wouldn't you want a definitive opinion of 
which is better a 300lb Nazel or Chambersburg?

I'll have Deb set up a web site where you can make donations and read the 
results. Heck, I'll even Blog it as I go. How's THAT for a deal?

Seriously though. What I do know is Bob is a good guy and knows his hammers. 
If he says it's good to go it is.

And lastly, if Andy shows up here with a Nazel of any size I'll marry him.

Retiring soon.

Frosty
-------------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.

From: "Justin Fellenz" <sunironworks at yahoo.com>


> Hey, Frosty
>
>  I'm seriously considering a Nazel 2b from Postville Blacksmith. It's 10 
> grand to my door because it had a big corrosion rot hole in the drive cyl 
> that they fixed with plastic steel. It's the same price pretty much as a 
> new hammer. It's a huge amount of money and if it goes down in the middle 
> of a job I'll be hard pressed to feed my family, but it's a really, really 
> cool hammer. I think it's enough better than any of the new ones, but then 
> I might be crazy. I do need a hammer of some kind. Curious if you have any 
> thoughts about depending on an old machine like that, on the Postville 
> Blacksmith guys (if you've dealt with them), on plastic steel in sliding 
> applications...etc. Basically I'm casting around to the smart guys I know 
> to see if anyone says something that talks me out of it. This is kind of 
> the only time I could get something like that because of the hassle of tax 
> and duties and such going into canada once I've moved there. Any thoughts 
> welcome.
>
>  BTW, once again I dropped off the map mid-conversation after you sent me 
> pics of the shop. It looks great. I didn't see the twisted purlin in the 
> pics you sent me but I believe you--but how did it get twisted? I've 
> pretty much settled on stick-framing my shop because shipping a steel 
> building is killing me--it's cheaper to build out of wood with a 
> foundation high enough to prevent sparks from getting under the plates. 
> Anyway, nice work and thanks for the pics.
>
>  How do the goats do in the cold, by the way? We've been hearing that you 
> can stick em in a barn with a light burning. You're colder up there than 
> we will be in Kamloops, BC., though.
>
>  Getting close. We move in may. Then it's shop building time.
>
>  Cheers,
>
>  JRF
>