Who on here has a planishing hammer? Did you make it or buy it? If you made it, did you use a rivet gun or an air hammer? If you used a rivet gun, what rating of gun did you use? Does it have a foot pedal? If you used an air hammer, what kind did you use? Does it have a foot pedal? What size of frame did you make? What did you make the frame out of? If you bought it, what kind did you buy? Would you buy again or try to make one? Has anyone used one from Allen Engineering? I am trying to decide if I am going to make or buy.
We have one from ProLine (Clay Cook) and it works really well and has stood up to quite a bit of hard use. We did break it once and Clay was very quick to get us a replacement part and super nice to deal with. The down side is the price, with dies it is like $10,000.00 OUCH! The tool is very nice, great quality but if I had to buy one out of my own pocket I couldn't justify spending that much in 10 lifetimes. I think the best best is to locate a old used one if you can find it. Also Fay Butter has a book that contains plans on building one.
I've got one from Allen Engineering. I bought it off Ebay. I've been pleased with it so far, but I'm just starting into this sheetmetal forming thing. They seem like good people to deal with. I had a small problem when it was new and they got right on it and solved the problem quick. Frank
I have a Kent white hammer its the best one on the market. It cost 6500 with all the dies. you can shrink with his dies too.
i bought one too off ebay from allen engineering , i'm sure it's not the best one available , but what i paid for it ..it seems to work just fine, for the small projects i've used it for
Get Fay Butler's book. It doesn't really focus on building the hammer itself, but has all the information you need to know about the different hammer dies and their application. The dies are the star of the show. Without good dies, the hammer's useless. Plus, it's always interesting talking to Fay. take care, isaak
if i can post this link? http://allshops.org/cgi-bin/community/communityalbums.cgi?action=openalbum&albumid=9980178867467 This would be a planishing hammer album i have been putting together, mostly old phmmaers, but as you look at the old one and see some of the good ideas from different manufacturer's it will help decide on what type to build or buy. If you decide to build i have put together another album on making dies, it is not that hard! here is the link to that one. http://allshops.org/cgi-bin/community/communityalbums.cgi?action=openalbum&albumid=9980173377185 Fay Butler's Book is a good read, Fay is the most knowledgable guy i know on metalworking! and then there is Unkl-Ian, well is a tin hat wearer< big grin > Lots of other good info on the www.metalshapers.org website. Take care! tt
Thanks everyone for the information. It really helps. If I bought one, one of the Allen Engineering units is what I was thinking of buying. I have bid on a couple of them, but I keep getting outbid at the last minute. I really can't afford or justify spending 2, 3 or $4000 for a planishing hammer. I was trying to keep it under $500. I had forgotten about Fay's book. I went to his metalworking class a few years ago and didn't buy his book while I was there. I am a tool & die maker by trade and I have a small machine shop at home, so building it is not too much of a problem. Time is. I don't want to spend a lot of time working out bugs in the unit.
What exactly do you want to planish? How will you use the planishing hammer? You might appreciate the smoothing ability of a benchtop english wheel, which would be under $500. --Matt
They are as simple as they look,not much to debug. I'd hate to pay $1000 for $200 worth of parts and less than $100 worth of steel and welding. Get a 4x rivet gun,and a large diameter rivet set from Yardstore.com and build your own frame and dies. $150 for a 4x rivet gun,$20 for a rivet set,and $50 for a pneumatic foot pedal on Ebay. The rest is scrounged/salvaged materials,and creative machining. Any questions,post them here,or on : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/metalshapers/
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