Guillotine Hammer - More questions and answers, part 2

[@jameserickson8264]

I am glad I came across your videos, I think the versatile is awesome

[@rpower1401]

Glad to see you're pursuing improvements. Answers to your questions: 1) You can't patent the design but you can write up detailed fabrication drawings, protect those and sell copies for a reasonable price. Your client base are people who have basic fab skills, a welder, cutting saw and not much beyond that so keep it simple. Full list of materials, cut lengths, diagrams etc. 2) You can offer to build a machine on demand to a certain design with a certain price as a standing offer on a website. Basically you don't build anything until you get a 15% deposit then build and ship with final payment in advance. 3) A human leg can put out about maybe 250-500 watts of energy (that's average for a cyclist in motion, no idea for a treadle hammer) and a stroke for me lasts a fraction of a second so probably about 250J of energy per cycle on our current machines. Increasing the mechanism to increase the stroke gives the mechanism more time to absorb energy. Increasing the mass also increases the amount of time it absorbs but it's not the same. (Kinetic energy = 0.5 Mass*Velocity squared), so doubling the speed will give you 4 times the energy but doubling the mass only gives you twice the energy. So doubling the speed would be equal to having a head 4 times the weight of your current unit...so increasing mass may not be cheap :) 4) To double your head speed here's how it's done...Attach a pulley to the foot lever, run a cable from the fixed part of the frame around the pulley (which moves with the foot pedal) and the nun the other end of the cable up to the hammer head. When you push down you draw out twice as much cable but only one end moves, so the other end should take up the slack and run twice the distance giving you at 2:1 advantage in favour of the head. There are a lot of factors in modifying the system with the pulley approach and the results may be unpredictable. The springs have a reset force and it's going to go way up with the extra stretch. Also if your body is the limiting factor of the equation you may not get much more benefit, sort of like driving a car in 2nd gear from a dead start. Be careful, if you actually double the moving speed through the mods you will quadruple the power, that's a lot more energy. In reality you'll come in far below that by my best guess. Hope this helps :)

[@theblacksmithingpastorguy]

Wouldn't you need two pulleys to gain that mechanical advantage? If you only have one pulley don't you only redirect the force rather than increase the advantage?

[@rpower1401]

@@theblacksmithingpastorguy For what's needed here you only need one pulley firmly attached to the pedal arm (well one per side). Work=Force*distance. The pulley should effectively double the force on your foot to operate. One end of the cable is fixed so all that extra energy goes through the other end of the cable to the hammer head which moves twice as far as your foot (minus the difference in stroke due to the mounting location being closer to the centre of rotation). That's all assuming your foot can provide that double energy input, if not you'll max out your body before reaching your previous speeds and get lower performance.

[@IveysFamilyFactotum]

I am newly subscribed to your channel and will at some point build this for my shop as I really like the design. One suggestion I would have for you to help you grow your channel is if recording with a phone, place that phone on the horizontal not vertical. Only short video formats (one minute or less) should be in the vertical format. Good luck with your blacksmithing and keep up the great work bud.

[@johnblackdeuce]

Hi I found these videos researching ideas to build my own treadle hammer. One idea I have is using a counterweight system instead of springs, it would be easy to adjust your lifting force on the ram, and would be open to a considerable amount of travel

[@stewartwoerle6351]

Keep up the good work mate, look forward to your progress. For your treadle to hammer ratio, perhaps something along the lines of cam wheels/bars may work?

[@y-notforge8913]

..Either way you go it is going to be interesting. It's still a Good design, Thanks for showing it. Maybe the pulley route is the way to go. There are a lot of advantages with them...

[@freemab222]

You might be interested in the considerations that went into my Grasshopper Treadle Hammer. Let me know if you'd like to discuss these issues: The Grasshopper Treadle Hammer is a vertical-motion hammer that uses no sliding or rolling parts to achieve the vertical motion, only pivots. The vertical motion provides accurate striking of the work or tool, regardless of its height or thickness. ... The principal advantage of using only pivot joints is to enable a longer stroke than can be easily achieved by other means. (Other designs employ rollers or sliders and must keep those devices “engaged” with the ram throughout its stroke.) ... The anvil is free of obstructions in all directions. The stroke of the hammer is 34 inches, and most of this stroke may be used effectively because the height of the treadle can be adjusted to accommodate for different work heights. Furthermore, through most of the hammer stroke there is no return force exerted upward against the foot. Only at the bottom of the stroke does a sudden increase in return force provide a kick-back to bring the hammer up for the next stroke. This point at which this kick-back force cuts in is automatically adjusted as the treadle is adjusted to accommodate different work heights. The treadle height adjustment is made by means of a hand crank mounted at the front of the hammer, where the user normally stands, so the user is not exposed to undue hazard (as by reaching under the hammer mechanism). Preliminary plans for the Grasshopper Treadle Hammer were released in 2000. After that first publication, a number of corrections and revisions were made and released in 2004. In this 2009 edition, the kickback mechanism has been completely redesigned -- improved and simplified - again.

[@threeriversforge1997]

You're right about selling them. If there's one thing this community is really bad about, it's seeing something another smith came up with and saying, "Wow, what a great idea! I think I'll make one of those when I get home!" While we all have the DIY mindset, we also shoot ourselves in the foot by not supporting each other. I had this happen when I came up withe anvil vise after decades of searching for a solution I was sure that the ancient smiths had come up with. And instead of it being a potential revenue stream, trickle though it might be, all the positive reception only ever amounted to a ton of Attaboys. I knew that going in because I'd done the research, so it didn't hurt too much. 😁 I would recommend making at least one more so that you have one you can take to a show or fair. Give it a nice paint job, put your brand on it. Let folks be able to see it in person, and if they want to buy it right then and there... great. You're right that most people will opt to simply make their own, but the real market will be local or regional where folks might be coming together for a meet-n-greet. There are plenty of smiths who don't have welders, but they do have cash and will be bringing trailers to haul goodies away The No Welder crowd is the target market. Having one or two Coleson Guillotine treadle hammers for sale certainly wouldn't hurt. If nothing else, it'll help you build your experience, streamline the production, and get more eyes on the design so more people can "borrow" it and make it at home. To the point about maximizing the efficiency, I would point out that the mass of the anvil does matter. It's good that you used easily sourced flat bar, but that's also hampering the efficiency a bit. Welding up the sides of the plate is good, but don't forget to join them in the field with plug-welding. This will join the flat bar together more uniformly and solidly, making them act more as a solid unit. One of the first things I thought of when I saw your video was how I would do the same thing, but also add 30" sections of railroad track fore and aft on the anvil. I have it here in the pile of stuff, and have been looking for ways to use it. My original idea for the Spencer treadle hammer was to use four sections stitched together to make the anvil, leaving a gap in the middle for the hardy hole clearance. I think if you cut some track with a 45º angles on the top part, so they were just a few inches shy of where the tooling sits, you'd have plenty of clearance for working, but also tons more mass and rigidity in the anvil. Plus, it would simply look fantastic. The I-beam design of the track would also allow you to build racks inside the flange and web so you'd have places to store tooling. Did I mention how it's have that cool "industrial" vibe? 😎 You've definitely got me thinking. Thanks for coming up with a fantastic design. You've made the smithing community better.

[@theblacksmithingpastorguy]

I think some roller bearing chain and sprockets might be able to give you a 2/1 mechanical advantage where half as much pedal movement equals twice the ram movement... I don't know but wonder if that sort of setup might work

[@theblacksmithingpastorguy]

Another thought I had was to use a cam and roller to lift the weight of the ram from the foot petal instead of using a spring. It would then just drop the ram. This may require some kind of ratchet mechanism to let the pedal drop down after the apex of the cam, and a spring to bring the pedal back up. You could actually add the springs back into the system in a way that adds force to the drop to up the speed. I can imagine a way you might get a slightly delayed drop action (because the pedal in this case would actually be moving the weight up) and dropping at the low end of the pedal press. I am not sure if the idea is actually sound, but makes sense in my head... I know a motor could lift a cam, but wonder how a ratcheting cam would work, rather than having it work by continuous spinning...

[@kalkirby2004]

I really like your operation your ideas and your excitement to make things I am a old guy love to make things tools and usable items. rounding up parts from my scrap pile to make this hammer. It looks like and inside measurement between the upright s is about 18 inches is that close

[@colesonchild]

@@kalkirby2004 Awesome, good luck! I want to say the distance between mine is 16 ". So pretty close.

[@RustyMetalRanch]

@colesonchild thank you for the inspiration! I've had Clay's plans for a while, but I couldn't seem to pull the trigger on the project due to the extreme cost of steel lately. I would have had to substitute so many bits & pieces, I would basically be redesigning the unit from scratch. But yours? I have the perfect pieces in my scrap pile to make this happen. I'll go out on a limb and follow what @rpower1401 and @theblacksmithingpastor1972 discussed and use some roller chain and sprockets to give me something extra for my input. I'll post up and tag you all when I get it closer to finished.

[@colesonchild]

That's awesome! Good luck.

[@cholulahotsauce6166]

If you had a fly press would you have built a guillotine hammer?

[@colesonchild]

I think I would still have the guillotine hammer. I would love a fly press too. I think they're different enough, that ideally, I would like to have both.

[@waltcrawford6153]

You should draw up some plans and sell the plans for a modest price. It would generate some revenue and help your channel

[@AndrewBrenner1]

You have lots of questions. Don't overlook a couple basic facts. 1 - your body can only generate about 1/4 horse. 2 - weight does not equal striking force. 3 - simplicity has great value. 4 - heavier springs and more weight are going to reduce the rate of acceleration that you can achieve. 5 - in 6 to 10 inches you are not getting much benefit from gravity. Maybe if the machine was 20 feet tall? Here are a couple questions I WISH you would have answered: What are the specifications for the springs that you are currently using? What are the dimensions of the main bar stock you are using for the cross beam and the striking post? Does it really dig into the dirt when you use it? If so, how much? Can I use a layer of sand to protect my paver floor? Pr maybe I can just take up some pavers in the striking area and use a 1/4 plate over sand.

[@threeriversforge1997]

To protect your floor, try 1/2" plywood with some conveyor belt rubber or those horse stall mats. You want the densest rubber you can find, and to distribute the load over as large an area as possible. Some plywood and rubber sheeting works well for power hammers, so I don't see why it wouldn't work with a hammer design like this. You could probably get away with just using the rubber mat since you're not going to lose much of your impact force to the floor, or have a high cyclic rate like a hammer does.

[@brysonalden5414]

Well, I do have a 12 ton press, but the work I'm evolving into doing requires more delicacy than I can get with my press. A treadle hammer will allow me to hold on to my hot steel, apply a top tool, and more carefully moderate the force hitting the tool than I'm capable of doing with my press. Most of what I'm doing now is sculptural, and lots of it is small and needs to be treated gently, or as gently as a blacksmith can!