Tire hammer

Over the last several months I have prepared for a trip to North Carolina to participate in a power hammer workshop. The plan was to build 19 power hammers in three days. I helped obtain material for the build as well as helping pre-fab one of the parts.

The workshop was this past weekend and went very well. No one got hurt and all 19 hammers were completed. The designer of the hammer was present to oversee the workshop. We all had a great time.

Dad and I made the trip together. I had wanted to document the trip closely, but I forgot the camera. In consequence I have just a few pictures of the build and then a couple of the hammer in my shop.

A guy I had met before, and I worked on drilling and tapping holes for the first day and a half. Our job consisted of hoisting the aproximately 800 pound frame pieces into position, marking the location for the holes, drilling through 1.5-inches of steel with a 1/4-inch diameter drill bit, then drilling with a 27/64-inch bit, then tapping with a 1/2x13 thread tap. Once this was complete, the hammer frame was shifted a couple of inches and the entire process was repeated. The hammer frame was then hoisted off of the drill machine and moved into line for assembly.

Here the hammer frames are in line and ready for the rest of the assembly process.

Here are the hammers after quite a bit more assembly. A couple other guys and I mounted all of the motors on the hammers.

The shop owner's wife hosted everyone's lunch!

And we'll skip ahead! Here is my hammer in the back of the truck.

From the back of the truck to the shop floor was an interesting trip. We have no rig for picking up a 1200 pound piece of equipment, out of the back of the truck. So, we hooked up our flatbed trailer and took it up to the steel yard. They took one of their forklifts (capable of lifting 8000 pounds,) and transfered the hammer from the back of the truck to the trailer. We came back home then. From there, we used our animal hoist, that fits in the truck hitch, to lift the hammer off of the trailer and onto some rollers set up across our shop floor.  Then it was just a matter of rolling the hammer across to my side of the shop. Sounds easy huh? It is just sitting in the shop until I can get a pad poured for it and get it mounted.

I made all of the hammer treadles which is the piece that my foot is on in this next picture. The piece I delivered down there is the large round piece. I took over 19 pieces and each one weighs between 400 and 500 pounds.

Once I get it set up and running I'll post a video of it in operation.