The Otto Schmirler Oliver Hammer
This is the hammer that started the modern "ball" rolling.
It's still sittng there in Otto Schmirler's Blacksmith shop in Vienna,Austria.
If you look closely you can see that he had a lot of tooling and tooling holders for it.
You can see lots of detail in his book Werk und Werkzeug des Kunstschmieds
A commercially produced Foot Driven Hammer
I have seen a couple of these at auctions and sales here in the United States.
That doesn't necessarily make them an American Product, but I'm pretty sure they must have been commercially produced at some point in time.
Note the VERY HEAVY Mall being used as the hammer.
I believe that this is vital to the succes of this style of leg-driven hammer.
A friend of mine made one similar to this about 20 years ago, but he used an 8 pound sledge. The machine was not very effective at all!
An English Design Double Head Treadle Hammer, Front
This is apparently an English design.
Note the double hammers.
Maybe you can see the die on the anvil under the right hand hammer.
I'm pretty sure this one was used for serious commmerical chain making. Again, you can see that the hammer heads are HUGE!
An English Design Double Head Treadle Hammer, Side
Here's a side view of the hammer above.
It shows more of the complex linkage required to make this thing work.
A few years ago I saw a video (made from a 1922 English film) called, I think, "Chain & Anchor".
In that movie, the guys making smaller chain (up to maybe 1/2" diameter rod stock)
were using a treadle hammer very much like this one. They were using it with various dies to finish the welds.
C.J. Palmer's home-made Oliver from 1898
I haven't built one of these, but it sure looks simple and practical to me. Absolutely no frills, but for freeing up both hands, it looks like a winner. Just scoot your anvil under it when needed.
I'd probably subsitute steel for what looks like wood for the arms, though. And, one would probably have to do a little thinking about the spring.
A Treadle Hammer for Woodcarvers to Make
Here is a fanciful design if I have ever seen one. These pictures were sent to me from the Czech Repbulic.
Here is the text of the message:
Hi Peter, I made the pics on the meeting of black smiths in the Czech republic. The Convention is called Hephaison. The mashine is not mine. It has been constructed to by one of the attendants. But I asked the man for permission to post the pics of his mashine on the net and he agreed to it.
Photos of the black smith art on Hefaiston (the page is in czach only, sorry):
http://kovarna.webzdarma.cz/stranky/galerie/hefaiston2007.htm
have fun
Jan P. Kroupa