[TheForge] Home built power hammer question

[Wesley Marquart]

Greetings Gentlemen (& Ladies)

 

I've been working on my own homebuilt power hammer for some time.

 

Its gone thru a couple of iterations and it does seem to work but its just
not putting enough force into the blows.

 

The head is a 28 pound lead filled piece of 2"x4" steel tubing.  The tooling
I've made is bolted up to the bottom of the head.

 

The arms supporting the head are spring loaded to assist them to returning
to the upper position.

 

The arm is pulled downward by a linkage attached to a steel wheel which
rotates at about 1 RPS.

 

The linkage is spring loaded to allow the wheel to keep turning when the
tooling stops out on the anvil.

 

Here is the problem:  even though the hammer does slightly flatten the
heated stock it does not do very much on a heat.

 

I suspect that the problem is in the rate of the hammer blows. essentially
what is happening (I believe) is that I'm basically just tapping the metal
out because of the slower speed not allowing too much inertial to be built
up.

 

If I increase the rotational speed of the wheel that would cause the hammer
head to be traveling downward faster, thus increasing the inertial power of
the strike.

 

Do any of you think this might help!

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Wes/William the Tinker