An Old Helve Hammer

The details of this story large escape me today but I’ll try to reconstruct it.  The time is shortly before the Seattle ABANA conference.

A person approached me about checking out an old power hammer.  I met him once earlier and he learned I was interested in blacksmithing.  He was wanting to dispose of some things on his property.  I agreed to check out his accumulation including the blacksmithing machine he had described   After inspection I concluded it was not something which I was interested in buying.  It was an intriguing artifact in good condition so it might be valuable in the eyes of the right beholder.  I took a few images of it and said I would take them to the Seattle conference and show them and see if I could find an interested party.

As it turned out I spent those days of the Seattle conference in the University of Washington hospital sick as a poisoned pup and had no opportunity to find a buyer for that helve hammer.

I have been clearing out some computer files and tonight I came across these four images.  I’m guessing that this is apiece of agricultural equipment associated with harvesting.  The hammer and the grinding wheel would be useful in maintaining sharp blades on site.  The belt drive power could have come from either a steam or internal combustion engine.

I’m betting some knowledgeable person will find these images interesting.  I specifically noted the detachable chain.  It is found on a lot of old agricultural equipment and I got personal acquaintance with it when I repaired my Trenton-Fisher vise.  John Deere still supplied it but in a more modern version.

Helve Hammer References

I’ve started thinking about building a helve hammer when I get the time.  I’ll start by doing the design drawings and that way I have some definite ideas in mind so I can collect potential components.

I began by studying the images I took of Bernie Tappel’s machine and making a parts list.  Next I did some searching for other design variations.  Eventually I’ll put something together that seems to best suit my needs.

The following list if some of the things I found about helve hammers on the web which seemed must helpful to me.

Richard Ferguson’s Excellent post that covers almost everything about helve hammer physics.

http://www.fergusonsculpture.com/helve/helvearticle.html

Hathorns Helve Hammer:

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/25036-hathorns-helve-hammer/

Building the Metalshaping Helve Hammer (Air Power) By Joe McGlynn

http://metalshapers.org/101/mcglynn/thehelve.htm

BP0063 Helve Hammer by Irnsrgn

http://www.iforgeiron.com/page/index.html/_/blueprints/original-series/bp0063-helve-hammer-r291

BP0159 Helve Hammer  by Jr Strasil 

http://www.iforgeiron.com/page/index.html/_/blueprints/100-series/bp0159-helve-hammer-r390

Wooden Helve Hammer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXiwm3LWb70

Dick Bear’s Helve Hammer

http://www.metalmeet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4774

Home Made Tools - Two Posts:

http://www.homemadetools.net/category/helve-hammers?sort=title

http://www.homemadetools.net/bench-mountable-helve-hammer

Paolo Scordia’s mini guided bench top helve hammer

http://www.farwestforge.com/Forum/bsgview.php?photo=3311&cat=T&by=

Tom Lipton’s post:

http://oxtool.blogspot.com/2012/08/helve-hammer-part-1.html

Spring Under Helve Design:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jwp1IUjFSo

Operation of a Helve Hammer similar to the one Bernie Tappel made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBe4qFDq4-w

Bernie’s Helve Hammer

I think the most fascinating piece of equipment I saw at the BAM conference was a helve hammer made by Bernie Tappel.  He made it since the last conference and I think this was the public debut.  He said he made it almost entirely from scrap he had on hand.

I’m going to study it and see how something similar might apply to my work.  It looks like a very appealing engineering challenge.  As Robert Oppenheimer said, “It is a technically sweet project.”

I hope Bernie will write an article for the BAM newsletter about it.