Vote for a hammer.

jdm61

jdm61

itinerant metal pounder
Joined
Aug 12, 2005
Messages
47,357
The options for small/medium powers hammers aren't quite what they used to be. Iron Kiss is gone as is Phoenix apparently. Iron Kiss would have lilley been my top choice in the 75 and under range. Anyone remember when the 50 was going for like $3800 7 or 8 years ago!?!?! :eek:. What is left in the under $10K range are the following.
Anyang 33 at around $6.2K (I remember this one being more like $k not all that long ago)
Anyang 55 At around $8.1K
Big Blu BLU MAX 65 at like $6K plus an appropriate compressor.
Ken Zitur MZ 75 $5.5K plus appropriate compressor

The MZ 75 looks to be the best deal as far as price to weight ratio, but that assumes that ti does not need a beefy of a compressor as the Big Blu. Of these three brands, I have only used a Big Blu 110 briefly and it was way out of tune, so I was not all that impressed.
What do you guy think? Which would you buy?
 
Anyang 55 followed O’ so closely by Kens mz75. It has incredibly control.. either would be awsome..
Yes I remember when you could by one of Larsons hammers for like $4k. Wish I had
 
i got to play around with the 33lb anyang and gotta say it was absolutely amazing for how small a footprint it has. Plan on picking one up myself sometime down the road. And yeah it's price did go up a lot recently thanks to the fatty naval orange.
 
LOL. Remember when you could get a press and a 2 was the first number of the price? Hell, remember when you could get a 110lb Say Mak for slightly under $10k? ;)
Kentucky said:
Anyang 55 followed O’ so closely by Kens mz75. It has incredibly control.. either would be awsome..
Yes I remember when you could by one of Larsons hammers for like $4k. Wish I had
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I already have a smallish press which needs some more dies. The hammer would be for forging blades, and for speeding up the process of making damascus when things get thinner. The 33 would work IF what people say is true. I have heard some folks say it pretty much hits like a 50 lb LG and that was what I was told was the USDA minimum requirement for iron in your diet. :D I have also heard that the 33 is a bit more neighbor friendly than the bigger hammers.
Aidenag said:
i got to play around with the 33lb anyang and gotta say it was absolutely amazing for how small a footprint it has. Plan on picking one up myself sometime down the road. And yeah it's price did go up a lot recently thanks to the fatty naval orange.
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It definitely felt like more hammer than 33lb. After usin it, felt like there was nothing in the knife making realm it couldn't handle. Wouldn't say its drastically less on the noise front, but it is on the more quiet side for a power hammer.
 
I don’t have experience with their power hammer, but the Ken’s iron folk are good people. I had bought some of their tongs (and t shirts), so my wife contacted them when she wanted to buy me a surprise anvil for my birthday. They spent a bunch of time helping her pick out an anvil for me. Here’s the kicker, they don’t sell anvils. They were helping her figure out what to buy from other places!
 
That 33 is a whole lot of hammer for its size.. couldn’t go wrong there either
 
The big advantage of the Anyang 33 over the 55 is that the cost difference pretty much equals a new HT oven.
Kentucky said:
That 33 is a whole lot of hammer for its size.. couldn’t go wrong there either
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Carterwhopkins said:
Would that include forge welding large billets for Damascus, or just drawing out single blades?
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I’ve seen guys do pretty good size billets on them. Just to clarify the OP has a press already. If he didn’t I’d really push a bigger hammer. Though I’d have no problem working several pound billets on that 33 alone.
 
If I didn't have the press, I would sell a kidney to get a 50KG Say Mak. I used one of those briefly like 9 years ago and it scoffed at a chunk of 1.75 inch Hanson W2. Night and day difference between it and that out of tune 110 Big Blu.
Kentucky said:
I’ve seen guys do pretty good size billets on them. Just to clarify the OP has a press already. If he didn’t I’d really push a bigger hammer. Though I’d have no problem working several pound billets on that 33 alone.
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jdm61 said:
If I didn't have the press, I would sell a kidney to get a 50KG Say Mak. I used one of those briefly like 9 years ago and it scoffed at a chunk of 1.75 inch Hanson W2. Night and day difference between it and that out of tune 110 Big Blu.
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Absolutely!! Wonderful machine. I’d love to have one
 
IIRC, he switches to the 55 lb for the 2 x 2 square, but the 2 inch round has about the same area on the end as a 1.5 wide x 2 tall stack which is about where I am after a few passes through the press on a 1.5 x 3 x 6 stack of 1084 and 15N20.
 
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Get the biggest hammer possible, I run a 330 Beche, almost the same as a 3-B Nazel. For years I had a 500# little giant and that thing was awesome. I made 10,000 billets on that thing. I bought a 1000# Chambersberg from Sid last year, still have to figure out how to get it here. I also have a 150# steam utility hammer that I’ve used extensively. All of the hammers I’ve used at times seem under powered.

Watching that video makes me think a bigger hammer would be better. I’m also surprised that guy can’t keep anything square.

I also have great respect for Kentucky and his opinion so maybe I’m not the best guy to post on this subject. The more I forge, the lower my forge temps get, which always requires more force. I also forge more high alloy steels than most smiths.

Bigger is better.

Hoss
 
But asking you what kind of hammer to get is kind of like asking Enzo Ferrari what he would have recommended as a daily driver? :D
DevinT said:
Get the biggest hammer possible, I run a 330 Beche, almost the same as a 3-B Nazel. For years I had a 500# little giant and that thing was awesome. I made 10,000 billets on that thing. I bought a 1000# Chambersberg from Sid last year, still have to figure out how to get it here. I also have a 150# steam utility hammer that I’ve used extensively. All of the hammers I’ve used at times seem under powered.

Watching that video makes me think a bigger hammer would be better. I’m also surprised that guy can’t keep anything square.

I also have great respect for Kentucky and his opinion so maybe I’m not the best guy to post on this subject. The more I forge, the lower my forge temps get, which always requires more force. I also forge more high alloy steels than most smiths.

Bigger is better.

Hoss
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