Hammer foundations.... | My Shop | Forum

Kinda agree, Kinda dont....

think of it like a forging press, you have an elastic circuit in the frame which should be tight and rigid - the energy goes into the workpiece, not stretching the frame or tie rods un-necessarily.

So (to my mind, might be wrong of course!) at the moment of impact of the hammer ram there is a 'circuit' created (loop?) with the hot metal in the closing of the loop.

Within reason, so long as the anvil is supported under its base (ie cannot deflect downwards) , and the hammer is pinned down the elastic circuit is fine. The upwards motion of the hammer frame on striking a blow can be fairly easily calculated (air pressure x surface area of head of ram = upwards force on hammer frame) hammer hold down bolt diameter, quantity and length can be calculated withstand this loading.

If the hammer is set square the ram is effectively 'floating' so its only action on the hammer frame is minor friction and air pressure.

so, to cut a ramble short there is a law of diminishing returns on concrete (mass) under the anvil, but there is a point for mass under the hammer that the hammer frame can not lift, ie a definitive cut off point in usefull mass. Even if the hammer frame lifts the whole inertia block / anvil they remain in the same 'loop', very little loss of energy to the work piece...

am I way off the mark here? discuss 😀

haddnt considered that John, Nothing to do with the forging efficency of the hammer, but all the energy of the ram flying upwards being stopped dead!

I wonder what the 'spike' in air pressure would be in that situation ?

Well, I ran my 200 pound Chambersburg 1-piece sitting on the floor on timbers. Might have been giving up a little.

Joe's hammer is a real 500 pound 4-B and has a 10,000 pound anvil! 22 yards might have been over-kill, but hey, mud's cheap.

The hammers that were at the old BHP steelworks here in Newcastle Oz were steam hammers that had been modified to run on air. Basically they had an air buffer fitted in place of the top cover and had the trigger removed. The guys that drove them would in order to get a bigger blow would drive the hammer up into the buffer as a starting point to get the rod moving quicker in preperation for their blow.
We have gone with the recomended foundation size in Massey literature, which has been adequate for our ground situation with our 5cwt. I think we used about 10 cubic metres of concrete under our 5cwt, not sure how that converts to cubic yards.

Phil