"chunk" wrote in message
nk.net...
This is on my friends site... Hopefully someone here can tell
me what it is.

http://www.angelfire.com/oh/muddybog...te/photos.html

Hi Chunk,
I think it's a blacksmith's drop hammer. It's only a
small one, here is one a bit bigger.

http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/trib0390.Html

Our backsmiths shop had two of these, both a bit smaller than the one in
your friends picture, 2 hundred weight if I recall correctly. They were made
by Alldays & Onions in the UK, and what our blacksmiths could do with them
was amazing to watch, and feel ! Ours had the steam replaced with an
electric motor driven blower/compressor.

The steam is used to lift and hold the hammer up, then drop it. You can see
the cylinder that lifts the hammer weight up at the top in you friends
picture. The control of the hammers demonstrated by the blacksmiths was
amazing to me, sadly the blacksmiths I knew are gone now, though I recently
saw one of our old hammers sitting at a museum.

regards,

John