[TheForge] Frozen down/helve hammer

[Jerry Frost]

Good story Mike. The little thing I said is something I heard about 40 years
ago. I was doing my, "just moved to Alaska and going to live in a cabin in
the woods," year. A neighbor on the back lake had visitors and an open
invite went out for a dinner party. The guest celeb's wife, a proper city
lady was going on in outrage at the very IDEA of an outhouse. The 15 year
old resident gal, call her Sue, replied in loud shock. "I can't believe
ANYBODY would eat in the same place they $#1t! End of diatribe. It was a
public thing of beauty, a real Kodak moment.

I've given similar thought to an air driven treadle hammer but air cylinders
just use too much air. What I'd come up with some years back was a helve
driven by truck brake cans. Then Bruce introduced us to the Grasshopper and
I started trying to put the two together. It was a tougher application and I
never got around to it so now it's a memory, I don't even have the CADD
drawings I did back when.

I did come up with a solution to the most critical danger of brake air cans,
fine control. Retract is via spring brake can, control air brake control
valve, the brake pedal. That was a serious head slap moment when it finally
occurred to me.

I don't know about old fart blacksmiths but I've always been a tool, device
and equipment tinker kind of guy.

Jer

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer
Sent: Saturday, March 8, 2014 3:34 PM
To: theforge at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [TheForge] Frozen down/helve hammer


Jerry wrote:

> I do prefer inside plumbing but I do have to wonder about folk who go 
> to the toilet in the same house they eat in.

Forty-five years ago, my then-sixty-something neighbor had given up farming
for truck driving but still kept a team of horses and a few head of cattle.
So he let me have all the manure from his dung cellar that I could load with
a fork.  And he apologized for the occasional piece of toilet paper that
turned up.

The explanation: He had installed an indoor bathroom only a few years
before.  His ninety-something father said, "I never done that in the house
in my whole life and I ain't goin' to start now!" and continued to use the
outhouse. In an attempt to persuade him to the contrary, my neighbor stored
some heavy farm machinery parts in the outhouse.
After that, Pop just went out to the barn.

ObIronwork: I recently got a couple of scrap-yard air actuator cylinders
working.  I'm toying with the idea of using one to power a helve hammer.
Present candidate is a railway spiking hammer with its original wooden helve
-- long head with a narrow face, 7 or so pounds. Fasten the helve to the
spring-lift part of a defunct abrasive cutoff saw.  Might serve about the
same as a treadle hammer?  Just have to jigger the air valve to be
knee-operated, auto-release at impact and protected so's not to risk
accidental, finger-eliminating blows.

Gee, do all old blacksmiths end up tinkering with tools instead of beating
iron? Just last summer I turned an old gas station sign post into a jib
crane for the A&O air hammer, got an ancient chainfall fixed so's to adjust
workpiece heigh just right.  Have a piece of truck helper spring machined to
become a bolt-on die, fixed up a portable forge to take longer-length heats.
Still haven't *made* anything with the damn monster.  RSN, eh?


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
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