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Little Giant 25 lb power hammer

janc

Aluminum
Joined
Dec 12, 2012
Location
NW Ca USA
Yesterday I brought home this Little Giant power hammer, it's a 1945 model. Story is, it had new bearings put in about 40 years ago, and never used after that, I am in the process of a complete dismantling and clean up before turning anything, so far it looks great, no cracks or breaks anywhere, bearings do look unused, and the original looking motor runs good after I cleaned it up. Only thing I see missing, is the upper die, I think it will stay in its original condition, meaning not repainted, just cleaned up and put to work.
 

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Torn down and ready to start reassembly. I have some forklift forks, and have heard they are good steel for hammer dies, might give that a try and make a pair.
 

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A good chance those forks are some version of .4% carbon. 1045,1144,4140,4340 but could also be almost anything, depending on brand and capacity.
They would be good to get tested, could be tool steel for the rest of your life in them thar tines. :D
 
Nice looking hammer there, congrats. The newer ones with rear drive pulley, updated clutch, new style arms and ram, and a sow block are where it's at. I have an older LG50, a 1906 model- it's been very useful to me but keeping it running has been a real struggle at times.
A hammer in need of a top die, and some forklift tine to use- that's the perfect rationale for acquiring a shaper now, if you don't already have one!
 
Finished the hammer, It sure does work nice, from very gentle, to full on with good control. Made an upper die of forklift fork steel with my little Lewis shaper, the motor it came with did not survive sitting out in the weather for so many years, so I put in the older motor, cleaned it up, put in new Helwig brushes, the machine is ready for another 80 years. The Little Giant company, has the original sales data and will send a copy on request. The machine has not traveled far from the Cloverdale Blacksmith Shop where it first was put to work. I will make a motor guard to keep debris out.
 

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Congratulations on getting your hammer running. That is probably the earliest hammer I've seen with all the improvements. Personally, I would put a guard over the spring before I would worry about the motor.

Sid Suedmeier, the man who bought Little Giant hammers from the parent company, does a class on rebuilding LG hammers every spring in Nebraska City, Nebraska. The class is very cheap for what it is. A hammer will be stripped completely down and rebuilt, including pouring new babbit bearings. If you have ever seen the youtube vid of the blown Chevy running a 500 lb. LG, that was taken outside Sid's shop.

Sid usually has a rebuilt hammer or two in inventory for sale.
 
That's one of the best hammers ever made, and what you've done to it looks wonderful.

You'll probably hear people say that these smaller hammers aren't good for working with dies (swages, hot cuts, offsets and so on) but that's not true. Don't let them stop you. Just size the dies to your hammer, and it'll work great. I have straight swages for my 25 LG up to 5/8" round, ball swages, kisses, tapers and so on. The light, fast, springy blows you get with this hammer are ideal for swaging. It's a great machine in general. I probably use my 25 pounder 3:1 over my 250 pound Murray, if that tells you anything.

Anyway, that's a great hammer. Have fun with it.

Joel
 
As an amateur novice I think that hammer would save my arm a lot of pain. I’m attempting to build one and I’m trying to find some way to adapt a pto clutch to it. But that’s the real deal. Vary nice.
 








 
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