[TheForge] Trip Hammer Report (Longish)

[Washington, Aubrey O.]

Greetings All,

This is an up-date on my attempts to get my new/old Mayer Bros. 25# trip hammer up and running.  My daughter's house burned down on Thanksgiving day (night), so that took me away from the hammer for awhile.  But, in the meantime I've corresponded a little with Sid.  The main problem is that timing is off with the  bang-tap-miss thing going on.  Sid says there are about 200 things that can cause this, but the first thing to consider is that the spring is either too loose or too tight (most often too tight, in his experience).  So, last night I finally got back into the shop to monkey with it some.

I started by loosening the spring in increments, but that seemed to make it worse.  Next I tried tightening it.  It seemed to get a little better, but still not right.  Then it occurred to me that the fact that the hammer was walking, hopping, and rocking all around the shop while I ran it might be contributing to the problem.  (Duh.)  I'm not ready to bolt it to the floor of the shop, so I made a wooden platform 2' X 4' X 3" to bolt it to.  The next problem was how to lift the hammer onto the platform since I don't have any kind of hoist in my shop that will lift 900 pounds (with the motor removed).  What finally worked (barely) was a lift boom on the 3-pt hitch of my 1948 Ferguson tractor.  That was the absolute limit of my tractor's lifting capacity at the 6 foot level (though I could probably lift more closer to the ground).  By the time I got the hammer wrestled onto the platform, it was cold, dark, and dinner time.  So, it will be this weekend before I can get it bolted down and try again on the adjustments.

I have ordered Dave Manzer's DVD on trip hammers from Anvilfire, but it has not arrived yet.  I can't wait!  In the meantime, I'll entertain all speculation about how to fix my problems.  (No, not those problems, Frosty!)

Aubrey