[TheForge] Air Hammer Anvil ?

[Washington, Aubrey O.]

Madmike,
 
First let me say I don't own a power hammer and I have never installed one.
 
But, Sid Suedmeier of Little Giant fame was at our annual blacksmithing conference in Perry, Oklahoma this weekend.  He said that a general rule of thumb is that the mass of your isolated reinforced concrete foundation should be at least as much as the total weight of the hammer.

On his website http://www.littlegianthammer.com/index.html he has foundation recommendations for all the different sizes of Little Giants.  These are the original factory specifications, and Sid thinks they might be more than is needed.  For the 100 lb. Little Giant it looks like they have about 1.5 cubic yards of reinforced concrete.  The hammer is very securely bolted to the foundation with a thin (1/2 to 3/8 inch thick) rubber or cork shim or mat in between.

So, Mike, for your French hammer you might need 1 to 1.5 cubic meters of reinforced concrete with a 1 cm thick rubber mat.  The tighter the hammer is bolted to the foundation the more benefit you get from the mass of concrete.

Aubrey
Norman, Oklahoma, USA


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From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net on behalf of GHS
Sent: Mon 10/16/2006 8:19 AM
To: Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Air Hammer Anvil ?



http://phoenixhammer.com/effectiveness.shtml

This article may be of interest.

Tom Troszak who wrote the article above, helped me a lot when I was
setting up my hammer and having trouble with vibrations. 20 feet away a
glass of water was much like the one in "Jurassic Park". I had a rubber
pad, 4X4 's and a cubic yard of concrete beneath it.

After a  long dissertation on frequency modulation, clay soil and the
like it came down to this.

Get rid of the "squishy stuff" except about 1/2 inch, which goes
immediately under the steel. Replace with a steel plate as thick as you
can afford. The concrete when compared to steel is also "squishy stuff "

The sharp short wave blow of the hammer, which doesn't travel well, was
being translated into a long wave which travels very well especially
through the wet clay soil that I have. ( Think gelatin)


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