Looking for Fairbanks hammer operating manual...
- Thread starter Mike Krall
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Right now I need to get it on the base that it was previously set up with (1 inch of plywood and a 1.5 inch thick rubber mat) ran that way on a 4 inch slab for years without cracking it, so I'll try the same in my shop. I cant quite get my gantry crane high enough to lift it all the way off the ground because of my rafters, it's front heavy so the back is about 6 inches off the ground with the front just barely dragging. I think I'll use the gantry crane to pick it up like that and then use my engine hoist hooked to the front of the anvil block to lift the front so I can get the base under it and lined up. Once it's down on the base I need to borrow a masonry drill and drill some holes for some big studs and epoxy that I have to keep it from wobbling side to side.
Tomorrow morning I'm picking up the outlets that I need to wire a 3phase twist socket outlet to end of my 2hp VFD so that I can drive the motor. (The local electrical supply warehouse doesn't keep 3phase stuff on the shelf so they had to order it for me) so with some luck I might even get it fired up this weekend.
Tomorrow morning I'm picking up the outlets that I need to wire a 3phase twist socket outlet to end of my 2hp VFD so that I can drive the motor. (The local electrical supply warehouse doesn't keep 3phase stuff on the shelf so they had to order it for me) so with some luck I might even get it fired up this weekend.
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I've got a nice set of combo dies with a large flat area for hammering or use with tooling and a small drawing die section at the rear
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Well, Justin, you got me going... took pictures of our "A" hammer today. When we got this hammer, it had a GIANT 3hp motor on a wood and steel mount on the back end. It's not a self-motored type... the mount is for a jack shaft and the line shaft was below the deck the hammer set on. It's a ship model... or a model that worked best on ships... with the line shaft in the engine room and the machine shop "up stairs" of it.
I understand the rubber mat protecting thin concrete... that's what we did. The downside is every stroke of the hammer compresses the mat a little and every rebound is a ton + trying to jerk free of the bolts. Sooner or later, the hammer wins. If you happen to have access to sulfur, molten sulfur poured into the holes (with the bolts in place) is the original immovable object. Yup, they make epoxy for "all" uses... I'd bet on the hammer, though... =] Anyhow, if I had to do it over again, I'd have built a Fairbanks spec. foundation... concrete and hardwood beams.
I'm going to need help figuring how to get the pictures posted. I don't have a place I can put them that has a URL... just in my computer pictures file.
Mike
I understand the rubber mat protecting thin concrete... that's what we did. The downside is every stroke of the hammer compresses the mat a little and every rebound is a ton + trying to jerk free of the bolts. Sooner or later, the hammer wins. If you happen to have access to sulfur, molten sulfur poured into the holes (with the bolts in place) is the original immovable object. Yup, they make epoxy for "all" uses... I'd bet on the hammer, though... =] Anyhow, if I had to do it over again, I'd have built a Fairbanks spec. foundation... concrete and hardwood beams.
I'm going to need help figuring how to get the pictures posted. I don't have a place I can put them that has a URL... just in my computer pictures file.
Mike
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Double post...
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If you want to email me the photos to justinDOTmercierATgmailDOTcom (just at @gmail.com to my username here) I can host them for you. My goal for tonight is to try to get the plywood and rubber matting underneath the hammer, and to go buy a big concrete drill bit and some epoxy so that I can make some holes once it's in place. (yeah it's kinda backwards but it's how I'm doing it, for lack of shop equipment to move the hammer around with ease)
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I ended up deciding to put it closer to the side door (and closer to the front) because I plan on having the forge in the front and I didnt want to have to move much from the forge to the hammer.
My plan to lift the front with my engine hoist and the back with the gantry crane worked perfect for getting it up off the ground to slide the rubber matting and plywood under it. I then dropped the anchor rods through to keep everything lined up while I lowered it. Now it's off to the hardware store to get a concrete drill bit to drill out holes for the anchors and to get some epoxy to set them in.
Crappy cellphone pics because I didnt have my camera in the garage.
Next up, putting the bolts in the ground, re-mounting the top shaft and motor, and wiring up the VFD
My plan to lift the front with my engine hoist and the back with the gantry crane worked perfect for getting it up off the ground to slide the rubber matting and plywood under it. I then dropped the anchor rods through to keep everything lined up while I lowered it. Now it's off to the hardware store to get a concrete drill bit to drill out holes for the anchors and to get some epoxy to set them in.
Crappy cellphone pics because I didnt have my camera in the garage.
Next up, putting the bolts in the ground, re-mounting the top shaft and motor, and wiring up the VFD
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Good lord the concrete in my garage is tough! I've drilled holes in concrete before with a hammer drill and good cobalt tip masonry bits designed for concrete, and it's always been relatively painless... This is painfull! I dont even have one hole finished after half an hour and I'm scared that I'm burning out my hammer drill! I'm drilling a 1/2" pilot hole, and then going down with the 1" drill bit, and it's soooo slllooooowww. Good lordy. I guess that means the concrete that is my garage floor is beefy as heck though, so hopefully that pad will prevent it from cracking >_<
I also may need to take the face off and add some shims in the center, or to shave a tiny hair off the back of the face, because the ram has a slight amount of forward and back play . I'm not sure how much play there should be, it runs nice and smooth up and down, but it also knocks slightly for and back just a hair, but enough that you can hear it. I've got a set of guards for the hammer which I put on, and they amplify the knock so it's audible when going up and down, which to me says it needs to be shimmed tighter front and back =)
I also may need to take the face off and add some shims in the center, or to shave a tiny hair off the back of the face, because the ram has a slight amount of forward and back play . I'm not sure how much play there should be, it runs nice and smooth up and down, but it also knocks slightly for and back just a hair, but enough that you can hear it. I've got a set of guards for the hammer which I put on, and they amplify the knock so it's audible when going up and down, which to me says it needs to be shimmed tighter front and back =)
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The concrete under our "A" is 6"+ thick, and it took a lot of drilling with a big hammer drill. I did it in three steps... 1/4", 1/2", 3/4". I wish I had thought of the idea for the base you are using. I guess I could jack the hammer up and put some wood in, but I'll probably wait until the system I did (straight on top of rubber belting) fails.
Our hammer has the adjustable bronze front. The adjustment description I got from Sid at LG was to only back out the bronze guide until the hammer moved freely. It's surprising, but the tolerances on these old machines were quite tight... 0.005" being an outside tolerance. It would be interesting to see the inside of the hammer guide... both front and back... looks like. A person might learn something about where the wear is. Some would say... "Just run it... add lots of oil and/or grease and run it". Everybody has their tolerance for tolerance... =]
Mike
PS-- Any picture is better than no picture, Justin. Thanks for putting them up.
Our hammer has the adjustable bronze front. The adjustment description I got from Sid at LG was to only back out the bronze guide until the hammer moved freely. It's surprising, but the tolerances on these old machines were quite tight... 0.005" being an outside tolerance. It would be interesting to see the inside of the hammer guide... both front and back... looks like. A person might learn something about where the wear is. Some would say... "Just run it... add lots of oil and/or grease and run it". Everybody has their tolerance for tolerance... =]
Mike
PS-- Any picture is better than no picture, Justin. Thanks for putting them up.
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Here are 2 pics of Bruce's dies, and here are the 3 pics that Mike sent me of his A =)
And now the A
And now the A
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Thanks for dealing with our pictures, Justin... =]
There are a few things we did on "Betty" that are different than what a person normally sees... some things done to replicate original engineering... some things done to work around realities. I've probably mentioned some of these earlier in this thread.
That's a funny motor mount...
Normally would have been a jack-shaft with two flanged pulleys on the mount and a belt running off the rear one, either down through a deck or floor to a line shaft, or up to a line shaft (I've seen pictures and drawings of both). One thing about a low drive-pulley configuration is its relationship with the mounting position of the idler/clutch pulley. There is a limited amount of swing when the idler/clutch pulley is mounted on the back of the hammer... quite a bit less than an over-head mounting position has. If the drive pulley is higher, the belt is shorter, and though the idler/clutch pulley is further from the belt, there is a reduction in total amount of slack (belt not touching a pulley) and the shorter throw of the idler/clutch is worked around. (The mounting bolt and nut of the idler/clutch pulley hits the frame and limits the swing arc). Our mount set-up approximates the drive pulley height a person would find on a self-motored model.
A person can see the jack-shaft is mounted on shim stacks. That lets a belt be continuous instead of spliced. We got lucky in that there was enough bolt length to both add and subtract shims (total height of stack to accommodate eventual 4% to 5% max. belt stretch). Even though I followed Western Belting's measuring instructions carefully, I needed to move the jack-shaft up another 1/4" to keep from smoking the belt and the hammer trying to run on it's own when it was supposed to be idling. For awhile, I intended to run a flanged pulley as the drive-pulley (like Bruce does). The 1/2" steel fingers either side of the belt near the 5" drive pulley is what makes this hammer run on a flat-belt pulley without hair pulling and fussing with alignment re-adjustments. The "fingers" are an "F" and the long leg is captured with a set-bolt, so the fingers can move both front/back and swing. Despite there being engineered-in flexibility of shaft alignment, these hammers (maybe just ours) can be picky about it.
There is an X,Y,Z alignment. Z is the hammer shaft (my view from the rear). The jack-shaft needs to be parallel to the hammer's shaft on all three axis. It can be left or right on the X, but left moves the belt closer to the idler/clutch pulley and maximizes amount of slack taken out for total amount of swing available. The jack-shaft bearing blocks have oblong bolt holes and that is the parallel alignment for X. The jack-shaft collar-stops align the drive pulley under the hammer-shaft pulley on Z. If a person looks at the cast mount under the box beam the jack-shaft sets on, there are shims visible between the motor mount and the back of the hammer frame. The mount, in theory, aligns the jack-shaft with the hammer shaft on Y by simply bolting it on. Everyone knows, "in theory" means not really. I've no way of knowing if our hammer is "peculiar", but no amount of fussing with jack-shaft alignment let our hammer run consistently without having the belt come off either the front or rear of the drive pulley. We fussed with shims under the top bolts of the mount until is was "best" and built the fingers to act like a flanged pulley and still be able to use a continuous belt... which we already had... along with already having the 5" flat pulley.
Why so much problem with the belt coming off? (Not the nature of flat-belt engineering, by a long shot). My guess is: Our hammer is nearly "out". I dial indicated total up-down play at the front hammer-shaft bushing and it was right on 0.025"... a number Sid at LG gave me as dividing line between "run it" and re-bush it ("Betty" gets a LOT of grease!). We believe the rear bushing is a lot tighter than the front bushing (not indicated, though we could have if I had thought of it, but it "feels" a lot less). Still, as our hammer runs, the hammer shaft at the front is in a lot of different places... the reality of which is it is never parallel X,Y with the jack-shaft, and what's a poor flat-belt drive pulley going to do about that? The fingers solve the "random alignment" problems. The belt doesn't run on the fingers... they keep the belt from moving around on the pulley as much as otherwise (most movement coming during start and stop). When running, the belt does what it's suppose to... climbs up the crown of the drive pulley and self-centers.
One aspect of our motor/jack-shaft mounting system is everything is part of the hammer. Originally I was going to mount the motor on the floor. I don't know if doing that would have expanded alignment problems or not... in theory, not... but... =].
Anyhow... that's a lot of yap for "Quick Reply". I'm happy to yap more if there is something my yapping might help.
Mike
There are a few things we did on "Betty" that are different than what a person normally sees... some things done to replicate original engineering... some things done to work around realities. I've probably mentioned some of these earlier in this thread.
That's a funny motor mount...
Normally would have been a jack-shaft with two flanged pulleys on the mount and a belt running off the rear one, either down through a deck or floor to a line shaft, or up to a line shaft (I've seen pictures and drawings of both). One thing about a low drive-pulley configuration is its relationship with the mounting position of the idler/clutch pulley. There is a limited amount of swing when the idler/clutch pulley is mounted on the back of the hammer... quite a bit less than an over-head mounting position has. If the drive pulley is higher, the belt is shorter, and though the idler/clutch pulley is further from the belt, there is a reduction in total amount of slack (belt not touching a pulley) and the shorter throw of the idler/clutch is worked around. (The mounting bolt and nut of the idler/clutch pulley hits the frame and limits the swing arc). Our mount set-up approximates the drive pulley height a person would find on a self-motored model.
A person can see the jack-shaft is mounted on shim stacks. That lets a belt be continuous instead of spliced. We got lucky in that there was enough bolt length to both add and subtract shims (total height of stack to accommodate eventual 4% to 5% max. belt stretch). Even though I followed Western Belting's measuring instructions carefully, I needed to move the jack-shaft up another 1/4" to keep from smoking the belt and the hammer trying to run on it's own when it was supposed to be idling. For awhile, I intended to run a flanged pulley as the drive-pulley (like Bruce does). The 1/2" steel fingers either side of the belt near the 5" drive pulley is what makes this hammer run on a flat-belt pulley without hair pulling and fussing with alignment re-adjustments. The "fingers" are an "F" and the long leg is captured with a set-bolt, so the fingers can move both front/back and swing. Despite there being engineered-in flexibility of shaft alignment, these hammers (maybe just ours) can be picky about it.
There is an X,Y,Z alignment. Z is the hammer shaft (my view from the rear). The jack-shaft needs to be parallel to the hammer's shaft on all three axis. It can be left or right on the X, but left moves the belt closer to the idler/clutch pulley and maximizes amount of slack taken out for total amount of swing available. The jack-shaft bearing blocks have oblong bolt holes and that is the parallel alignment for X. The jack-shaft collar-stops align the drive pulley under the hammer-shaft pulley on Z. If a person looks at the cast mount under the box beam the jack-shaft sets on, there are shims visible between the motor mount and the back of the hammer frame. The mount, in theory, aligns the jack-shaft with the hammer shaft on Y by simply bolting it on. Everyone knows, "in theory" means not really. I've no way of knowing if our hammer is "peculiar", but no amount of fussing with jack-shaft alignment let our hammer run consistently without having the belt come off either the front or rear of the drive pulley. We fussed with shims under the top bolts of the mount until is was "best" and built the fingers to act like a flanged pulley and still be able to use a continuous belt... which we already had... along with already having the 5" flat pulley.
Why so much problem with the belt coming off? (Not the nature of flat-belt engineering, by a long shot). My guess is: Our hammer is nearly "out". I dial indicated total up-down play at the front hammer-shaft bushing and it was right on 0.025"... a number Sid at LG gave me as dividing line between "run it" and re-bush it ("Betty" gets a LOT of grease!). We believe the rear bushing is a lot tighter than the front bushing (not indicated, though we could have if I had thought of it, but it "feels" a lot less). Still, as our hammer runs, the hammer shaft at the front is in a lot of different places... the reality of which is it is never parallel X,Y with the jack-shaft, and what's a poor flat-belt drive pulley going to do about that? The fingers solve the "random alignment" problems. The belt doesn't run on the fingers... they keep the belt from moving around on the pulley as much as otherwise (most movement coming during start and stop). When running, the belt does what it's suppose to... climbs up the crown of the drive pulley and self-centers.
One aspect of our motor/jack-shaft mounting system is everything is part of the hammer. Originally I was going to mount the motor on the floor. I don't know if doing that would have expanded alignment problems or not... in theory, not... but... =].
Anyhow... that's a lot of yap for "Quick Reply". I'm happy to yap more if there is something my yapping might help.
Mike
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So the weather finally warmed up enough for me to epoxy in the hold down rods, so today I got my Fairbanks wired up with the VFD and running for the first time ! This was during my lunch break so I wasn't going to fire up the forge and heat some steel, so I found a 1x1 piece of lumber instead.
As you can see in this video, there is no brake. The factory brake is broken and I need to replace it. I've fitted to it a pair of guards (provided with the hammer) and need to put something across the front to catch the spring in case it ever lets go.
Lastly I need to shim the head slightly, as it has a little back and forth play, which is what causes the 'ringing clunk' when using the hammer (you dont hear it without the guards, but the guards act like a bell and amplify it greatly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31EEmpkODC8
[video=youtube;31EEmpkODC8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31EEmpkODC8[/video]
As you can see in this video, there is no brake. The factory brake is broken and I need to replace it. I've fitted to it a pair of guards (provided with the hammer) and need to put something across the front to catch the spring in case it ever lets go.
Lastly I need to shim the head slightly, as it has a little back and forth play, which is what causes the 'ringing clunk' when using the hammer (you dont hear it without the guards, but the guards act like a bell and amplify it greatly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31EEmpkODC8
[video=youtube;31EEmpkODC8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31EEmpkODC8[/video]
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That's great, Justin. I wish our hammer picked up and ran soft, as it looks like yours does...
Mike
Mike
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So I'm going to do some thread necromancy again and hope that some of you guys with Fairbanks / Dupont hammers are still around =) I poured a new foundation for my hammer and moved it to its new home just this morning.
To move the hammer I had to remove the topshaft, motor and other various parts. Now I've decided that I'm not going to put it back together as it was, and want to fabricate a motor mount down low off the back like the original motor driven fairbanks were configured. One thing however that I am missing is I have no tensioner arm. I can fabricate an arm, a pivot and a pulley, but one thing that I would like to get is the measurements for the arm from someone who has one (preferably a B model, but I think they used the same casting on A through C )
I'm looking for a 2 or 3hp 900rpm motor currently, as they're still available, just a bit more costly. The original spec motor was 900 rpm and mounts simply without any need for counter-shafts. With a 13" top pulley diameter, 350BPM rating and a 900rpm motor, I'd just need a 5 inch drive pulley for the motor and a tensioner arm and I'll be all set.
I need to fix my brake situation still too, since I've only got 2/3rds of the brake ring, but all the other parts are still there. This is another reason for moving the top shaft and motor, because the mounting hardware and frame for the shaft would not have allowed me to put the brake back on, as the counter-weight wouldnt be able to swing down.
To move the hammer I had to remove the topshaft, motor and other various parts. Now I've decided that I'm not going to put it back together as it was, and want to fabricate a motor mount down low off the back like the original motor driven fairbanks were configured. One thing however that I am missing is I have no tensioner arm. I can fabricate an arm, a pivot and a pulley, but one thing that I would like to get is the measurements for the arm from someone who has one (preferably a B model, but I think they used the same casting on A through C )
I'm looking for a 2 or 3hp 900rpm motor currently, as they're still available, just a bit more costly. The original spec motor was 900 rpm and mounts simply without any need for counter-shafts. With a 13" top pulley diameter, 350BPM rating and a 900rpm motor, I'd just need a 5 inch drive pulley for the motor and a tensioner arm and I'll be all set.
I need to fix my brake situation still too, since I've only got 2/3rds of the brake ring, but all the other parts are still there. This is another reason for moving the top shaft and motor, because the mounting hardware and frame for the shaft would not have allowed me to put the brake back on, as the counter-weight wouldnt be able to swing down.
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Since you're pouring concrete
Why not set up a frame and plate that pre spaces the threaded studs and set them in the concrete instead of drilling into it later ?
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If you look above, because of the low rafters, I cant pick the hammer up more than a couple inches off the ground, meaning I cant clear cast-in-place studs to put the hammer over them, and rather than fussing with casting 'holes' in place, i'm just going to drill them tomorrow since the hammer's in place now.
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Nice, Justin. I wish our hammer had a foundation like that.
I'll get over to our shop today and get you some measurements. I'm thinking there are two diameters involved, but may find out otherwise.
Mike
I'll get over to our shop today and get you some measurements. I'm thinking there are two diameters involved, but may find out otherwise.
Mike