Air Power Hammer Class - tinmantech.com

[crystallographic]

Originally Posted by sblack

Wow - was that whole piece made on the air hammer or was it pounded down over the hammer form with a mallet and then cleaned up on the AH? That is really nice - lays down perfectly. Medium air unit or heavy?

Maxarudy you can see how he trapped that bit from all 3 sides, then pounded it down. Soft dies mean no marks.

We worked the inner area down with the Flow Forming method, and then planished and fit with the Air Hammer.
Then the outside area was driven down the same way to create ruffles even enough to trap accurately with the Air Hammer, using the #3 motor. All of the outer area shrinking and smoothing was done with the Air Hammer, except for a 1/4" band at the edge, in the trim zone, for heat treat.

I did have to develop an Offset Kit for getting the lower die deeper inside the ring.

Yes, the inspector that approved the 6 rings was very pleased with the job. The industry (Rohr - Cecostamp inventor) makes them traditionally by first spinning up some blanks, then drophammer those to get the odd oval/eccentric shape. From what the industry guys said about this job, it is highly unusual to have made FAA-approved nacelle lip skins by hand.

[crystallographic]

Originally Posted by Dyce

I'm glad to see you posting here Kent. I have some of your videos on vhs and you have my respect. You are a true caftsman!!

Thanks, Jeff. I'm just doing my best to accomplish some metal work and be a credit to the old men who had patience with me.

... and I like helping others through the rough patches.

[crystallographic]

Originally Posted by Dyce

Kerry Ivan always reminded me of the hammers used to make Mount Rushmore Memorial. I have a newer hammer close to it and it hits like a power sledge!!!

Yeah, when the tool bore gets up to 3/4" I start thinking "bridge riveter" - and wonder about using a saddle and spurs to get some control over the wild ride.

[Dyce]

Originally Posted by crystallographic

Yeah, when the tool bore gets up to 3/4" I start thinking "bridge riveter" - and wonder about using a saddle and spurs to get some control over the wild ride.

I've tried using my "jack hammer" as an air hammer at my work (I work on diesel trucks at my real job) and you can't control it. It is made to bust up concrete. You would have to have it on one hell of a frame to keep dies lined up, I do have a hammer drill I have been tempted to mount to a frame. It really has a nice hit and has brushes in the motor so it would be easy to control.

[Overkill]

Kent recently added some more to his website showing jobs completed using the air power hammer. They include art, plane and car parts mainly made using the hammer. It's in the center column, part way down the page http://www.tinmantech.com/html/pwrhmr_tm.php#articles.

I believe it's the adjustibility of the hammer - being able to change the motors, the pressure and the dies that the tinmantech.com hammer different than others.

I particularly like the Ferrari post.

[Overkill]

As there's been recent posts about reciprotacing machines vs planishing hammers vs power hammers, I thought I'd revive this thread. Also, I'm hoping I can get Kent to provide some new information on his wobble head dies.

Kent has two new motors listed on his website, specifically designed for planishing. https://www.tinmantech.com/products/...hp#extra_light Although I haven't had the opportunity to try them, I've heard very good reports from those that have.

For anyone considering purchasing equipment, I strongly suggest that you go to a meet, or someone's shop, and try stuff out before purchase. I did, and ended up buying one of Kerry's wheels http://www.wheelingmachines.com/ rather than the one I went to try out in the first place. A friend tried out my Tinmantech Air Power Hammer, but liked the CP planishing better due to the BPM. That sound was what he was used to. But now he owns a Tinmantech hammer with multiple motors. Another friend was re-shaping a 14G motorcycle fender, and preferred the wheel over the hammer.

[crystallographic]

Originally Posted by Overkill

As there's been recent posts about reciprotacing machines vs planishing hammers vs power hammers, I thought I'd revive this thread. Also, I'm hoping I can get Kent to provide some new information on his wobble head dies.

Kent has two new motors listed on his website, specifically designed for planishing. https://www.tinmantech.com/products/...hp#extra_light Although I haven't had the opportunity to try them, I've heard very good reports from those that have.

For anyone considering purchasing equipment, I strongly suggest that you go to a meet, or someone's shop, and try stuff out before purchase. I did, and ended up buying one of Kerry's wheels http://www.wheelingmachines.com/ rather than the one I went to try out in the first place. A friend tried out my Tinmantech Air Power Hammer, but liked the CP planishing better due to the BPM. That sound was what he was used to. But now he owns a Tinmantech hammer with multiple motors. Another friend was re-shaping a 14G motorcycle fender, and preferred the wheel over the hammer.

Thanks Overkill,

We have a new Air Power Hammer catalog arriving here on Thu. Jan. 07. It covers our 3 frames, tooling variants, the 7 air motors, and the growing die selection, along with photos of some of the pro metalwork done using the machines.
Yes, the #0 motor buzzes along at many thousands of BPM, although our engineers cannot define accurate BPM, so far, on any motor above 4800 or so, due to harmonic interference of the internal moving parts.
I'll post something about the Wobble dies pretty soon. Early reports are unanimous that they are a "game changer" for planishing.
Why do I call this machine a "power" hammer over a "planishing" hammer?
I suppose this rankles some, but logically:
"Planishing" is defined as "smoothing by light hammering or rolling."
Okay, it does that.
But will a "planishing" hammer do this:
Shrink un-annealed .125" - 3.2mm 3003? - and not appreciably work-harden it?
Shrink annealed .125" - 3.2mm copper? - and only work-harden it somewhat - where it still shrinks .... indefinitely?
Shrink .063" 1.5mm Ti?
Make radius bends on polished .040" - 1mm 2024T3?
Make radius bends over a curved edge, without marks, on .070" - 1.6mm 3003?
One of my customers shapes .250" - 6.35mm steel with it ... ???
I'll stop here, before the electrons byte.

(We have jokingly called it a "Punishing Hammer" for many years because it can mangle one of the light planisher frames pretty easily.)

One of the shops I hang out at has some serious air forging hammers - Nazel, Massey, a large Porter, little Giant, and a big steam hammer. The owner will use three of these hammers to forge 12,000 lbs of steel into a pair of gates this year.
(He once forged a submarine retrieval hook for the USN ... )

So, since our metalworking vocab does not currently define my contraption by what it does do: Hammer for "velocity/impact shrinking." (my invention, so I'll call it that, okay?) There are machines which cannot do what it does, and it cannot do things that some machines do. (Is this a riddle, yet?)

... The non-rotating upper dies seem to be very helpful.

Terry Cowan told me that as far as he was aware, it was the first "rivet gun" air hammer ever made and sold, and though it has made other companies a lot of money, I think my machine has matured way past that, no matter what its category comes to be called.

[Overkill]

Kent,

Last night I was using the linear stretching dies in a 6" diameter tube to flair the end. As I couldn't reach inside deep enough, it had me wanting to use the horizontal post on your Multi Post model frame. My straight post home built machine just couldn't get in deep enough. Although this is a rare for me to have this need, it would sure have helped.

I'm looking forward to trying out the wobble dies. But I do have a question about them. When planishing, even when using a low powered air motor, on low pressure, you can still see the hammer marks in soft polished materials when using a flat upper and curved lower. This is because of the single point of contact between the flat upper and curved lower. Does the wobble upper reduce/eliminate these hammer marks?

Still wondering how you accomplished a non rotating upper die....

[crystallographic]

Originally Posted by Overkill

Kent,

Last night I was using the linear stretching dies in a 6" diameter tube to flair the end. As I couldn't reach inside deep enough, it had me wanting to use the horizontal post on your Multi Post model frame. My straight post home built machine just couldn't get in deep enough. Although this is a rare for me to have this need, it would sure have helped.

I'm looking forward to trying out the wobble dies. But I do have a question about them. When planishing, even when using a low powered air motor, on low pressure, you can still see the hammer marks in soft polished materials when using a flat upper and curved lower. This is because of the single point of contact between the flat upper and curved lower. Does the wobble upper reduce/eliminate these hammer marks?

Still wondering how you accomplished a non rotating upper die....

Hi Overkill,

The new APH catalogue is on our homepage, top right.
Links from here: http://www.tinmantech.com/pdfs/TM-Ai...re-FOR-WEB.pdf

Wobble Dies are on P24, they both wobble together, so keeping the panel exactly in-plane while doing delicate planishing is no longer required.
Having marks from planishing with an air hammer can be a real progress-stopper, so read the comment by George re: the Wobble Dies. (you can see my friend George, "Hammerman," using his big MacDougal/Potter Air Hammer earlier in the catalogue, but the size of that machine is not visible - about 12ft tall, atop the 10ft cube of concrete poured below grade.)

For working flares in tubing, I developed an Offset Die attachment, P26 "Accessories," so you can get into a tube about 1.5 inches, depending on the lower die used.
I also made some shrink dies for tubing so you can taper K copper tube (the hard stuff) down 1/8" 3mm on the dia, with zero annealing. I have not advertised these, but photos of the work are available, by request.

Yeah, it is certainly far beyond a "planisher" in any sense of the definition.

[sblack]

Hi Kent,

This is the first I have heard of your radius dies. Are you planning to do a youtube video,to show how they work? Same with your other new dies?