Photo: Forging loco coupling rod

http://www.enuii.org/vulcan_foundry/the_works/forge_steam_hammer_small.jpg

Forging a locomotive coupling rod. In the process of cutting excess material off the end?

Imagine the heat. Note the protective clothing – a piece of material (his jacket?) covering his left arm.

Taken from this site:-

http://www.enuii.org/vulcan_foundry/

Large double arch steam hammer - maybe 10,000 to 20,000 lbs ram weight. I don't think it's a cutting operation only because of the height of the tools, note it's a top and bottom "V" section. If cutting off, the tools would be taller so the edges can meet.

Also note the apparent rivetted plate construction of the hammer frame?

And you thought blacksmiths only shod horses! Although these guys could probably figure out a way to drive a horseshoe nail with that hammer if they had too.

You would think that the man closest to the hot forging, would at least have some leather gloves and an apron for protection from the heat?

Eh? Whad you say????

I would have agreed about the cutting tools, but I recalled seeing something similar on a video, which showed a connecting rod being forged at the North British Loco works. I’ve just watched it again, and I was surprised to see a relatively shallow cutting tool being used on top, plain anvil underneath. Before the cutter went in very far, the waste end just fell off. Perhaps it’s because the stress concentration at the notch is too much for the weakened strength of the metal at very high temperature. However, the Vulcan tools don't look like cutters, whereas the NBL tool was more like a knife blade. Didn't go in very far, though, before the waste lump fell off.

I too was surprised to see that the hammer in the photo was made from riveted plate. The one in the NBL video is very much beefier, but then it’s tackling a much bigger forging.

The tool wielders in the NBL video had more protective clothing – a piece of rag draped over EACH arm!

Incidentally, I have a CD-ROM showing activities at Westinghouse in 1904 (it’s been featured here in the past). One film shows a big forging under the hammer. When it comes out of the furnace, workers throw sand over it. I’ve read that sand was used as a flux when hammer-welding slabs of wrought iron together. One of the operators’ jobs was to leap in and brush scale off the billet and off the anvil. His other job was to extinguish his broom afterwards.

[ 02-27-2006, 08:02 AM: Message edited by: Asquith ]

And note, please, the "free arm" coming in from the right holding tongs of some kind.

Pulling/guiding right under the hammer.

Want to get rid of an OSHA inspector? Send her this picture with a red circle around that wayward arm. She'll be in the cardiac care unit in a heartbeat!

Stan Db

Noticed the extra pair of arms that were available (for a while at least). The tongs are not actually on the workpiece, but on a part of the bottom anvil that appears to be mobile and used only for this coupler forging?

The guy on the right is holding the bottom tool.
This particular combo of bottom and top tool was used to make one particular profile- they are not cutting it, but necking it down with a sharp corner they can register off of. The end will then be hammered either flat with just the dies, or another top and bottom tool will be used.

I was in the Cambria Ironworks shop in Johnstown a couple of summers ago, where they had a hammer about this big, along with 5 or so smaller ones. The entire shop was filled with top and bottom tools like this- thousands of em, made over the course of 80 years or so, each custom for a specific job.

Most shops like this would have a whole separate, smaller blacksmith shop just to make these tools. In Johnstown, there is a smaller room off to the side which had a 350lb hammer, along with fab tools- bandsaws, grinders, and sanders, mills and lathes, and that shop just made tooling for the big shop.

Steve Parker, who posts a lot over on forgemagic.com, does just that right now- he works in a shop which runs hammers even bigger than this one- and he runs a 350lb hammer all day just making tooling for the big hammers. He is an incredibly skilled industrial blacksmith, working with chunks of steel weighing several hundred pounds, making tools that will form chunks this big and bigger.

Wow! I thought a 100 pound hammer was big.