Need help building drop hammer

--IIRC there are plans for a foot-activated drop hammer thingy available from ABANA. I'm no blacksmith, but I got to see on in action in Goleta, CA; it was mooey impressive!

Sounds more like you want a coining press rather than a drop hammer. The smallest hammer that I've ever seen has a die area of about 28"x

36", was over 21' tall and pushed the scales at over 82,000 pounds without the rubber base. It would be a bit costly to run in the home shop too, as it required a 4" feedline at 150#'s of steam just to raise the hammer.

Craig C.

Opinionated sexagenarian curmudgeons can indeed be a challenge.

How about a (fill in the tonnage) hydraulic (or otherwise, but hydraulic is easy to cobble yourself, or your father's self) jack/press?

I've struck coins with a treadle hammer. Clay Spencer's plans are strongly recommended ( snipped-for-privacy@brmemc.net is I think current). I've made both the in-line version and the swing-arm version. Both work, the in-line seems to hit a little harder (10-20%?). The swing-arm is a bit simpler to make. Don't go for a treadle hammer with a hollow tubing base--these don't hit as hard. You will want about 3' of 5" round solid steel for the bottom anvil, or build it up out of 2" or something.

In our experience with treadle hammer coining, they were a lot more successful in pewter than in silver. I think we had to heat the silver to get a good strike. The dies were fairly detailed. But if you're successful now with a 12 pound sledge, using a treadle hammer with a 60 pound head should work.

Another option is a flypress, but it takes a pretty large machine. The #5's coming new from (India?) are well made, but I'm not sure they would be large enough. I'd suggest trying a flypress out before committing to the expense. Unless you come up with one of the really large ones intended for coining...

Steve

K.Mutcher wrote:

We tried using a 60 ton hydraulic press and since it was so slow moving it didn't do well on the striking, we could get a better impression with one blow of the 12 lb hammer than we could maxing out the 60 ton press. The silver or copper needs a quick hit to make it flow into the dies.

The treddle hammer sounds interesting, and doable, Thanks for the suggestion.

I make tokens in copper, silver and gold in a range of sizes. I've made a few out of pure tin and played around a bit with some pewter, the tin and pewter are easy to strike. I cast my silve into a ball mould and then hammer the balls flat, when I do a smaller silver piece we usually just srike it cold from there, and the larger ones I anneal first, clean in an picklin solution then stike. After annealing and pickling the larger silver (approx

18g) will fully strike up in two hits with the hammer.

Budget is limited, we have to build something from my dad's "Iron Mine" as he calls it, good thing he was a packrat and has lots of bits and pieces of all sorts of machinery, pipes and doohickies from the last century. Besides, building is more fun then buying and gives ample time for father son bonding :).

Thanks, Kyle.

That's odd, we regularly get good strikes in silver with a hand swung hammer, usually either a 4# or 6#. It does depend upon the size of the coin though.

There is a moneyer out of (i think) the czech republic that showed his fly press in use for coining. It wasn't all that big.

jk

Ive a shitload of long stroke pneumatic air cylinders..some with strokes up to 18"

Are airpowered drop hammers possible?

Gunner

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

In the past few decades, a peculiar and distinctive psychology has emerged in England. Gone are the civility, sturdy independence, and admirable stoicism that carried the English through the war years . It has been replaced by a constant whine of excuses, complaints, and special pleading. The collapse of the British character has been as swift and complete as the collapse of British power.

Theodore Dalrymple,

Kyle; Gold Machinery has several nice old drop hammers. Check out their site. You could make one based on the design of the old ones. Several guys who do ren faires have home made drop hammers doing exactly what you want to do. Jim

Technically, No, that would be an air hammer :)

jk

Not even when you use air to lift the hammer..and let it drop?

Gunner

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

In the past few decades, a peculiar and distinctive psychology has emerged in England. Gone are the civility, sturdy independence, and admirable stoicism that carried the English through the war years . It has been replaced by a constant whine of excuses, complaints, and special pleading. The collapse of the British character has been as swift and complete as the collapse of British power.

Theodore Dalrymple,

We were doing coins just a bit over 1" diameter. Maybe we were too stingy on the silver (thickness)?

We were using my #3 (whatever that means). It weighs about 300 pounds. It didn't do nearly as good a job as the treadle hammer.

Steve

example

Steve who is still th>>

didn't do nearly as good a job as the treadle hammer.

Fly press sizes are generally the long tons of force they can generate over about a 20 thou travel with a reasonable pull on the handle. The force can change dramatically depending on the operator!

Mark Rand RTFM

Is an air hammer like an air guitar?

tschus pyotr

P.s. I've been listening to David Lee Roth's latest album. "Runnin' with the Devil" done Bluegrass style leads to thoughts of "air mandolin contests."

Tuned to a different key.

Its fascinating to watch the rockers who are now doing Country. Bon Jovi has a pretty good country hit at the moment

Gunner

"If I'm going to reach out to the the Democrats then I need a third hand.There's no way I'm letting go of my wallet or my gun while they're around."

"Democrat. In the dictionary it's right after demobilize and right before demode` (out of fashion).

-Buddy Jordan 2001

Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but Gunner wrote on Wed, 19 Jul 2006 16:57:38 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking :

Ah, probably B flat, most likely.

tschus pyotr