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Updated: May 11, 2025
The chief feature of novelty of this pile-driving machine consists in the employment of the direct action of the Steam Hammer as the blow giving agent, and also in the manner in which the dead weight of the entire apparatus, consisting of the hammer-block C, the steam cylinder A, and its guide-case B, is employed to importantly aid the effect of the rapid and energetic blows of the steam hammer.
All that was then required to produce a most effective hammer was simply to admit steam of sufficient pressure into the cylinder, so as to act on the under-side of the piston, and thus to raise the hammer-block attached to the end of the piston rod.
The whole weight of the cylinder, hammer-block, and guide box, supported by the shoulders of the pile, amounting to seven tons in all, rested upon the shoulders of the pile as a "persuader;" and the eighty blows per minute of the four-ton hammer came down with tremendous energy upon the top of the pile head. No soil, that piles could penetrate, could resist such effective agencies.
They reported to the Admiralty accordingly, and in a few days we received an official letter, with an order for a steam hammer having a 50 cwt. hammer-block, together with the appropriate boiler, crane, and forge furnace, so as to equip a complete forge shop at Devonport Dockyard. This was my first order from the Government for a steam hammer.
They were much pleased, and I may add astonished, at its range, power, and docility. Besides showing them my own steam hammer, I took the deputation to the extensive works of Messrs. Rushton and Eckersley, where they saw one of my five-ton hammer-block steam hammers in full action. It was hammering out some wrought-iron forgings of the largest class, as well as working upon smaller forgings.
The shoulder of the pile acts as the sole supporter of the ponderous mass of the hammer-block, cylinder, and guide-box. This heavy weight acts as a predisposing agency to force the pile down, while the momentum given by the repeated fall of the hammer, at eighty blows the minute, brings the constant dead weight into full action.
The fall of the steam hammer-block was only three or four feet, but it went on at eighty blows the minute, and the soil into which the pile was driven never had time to grip or thrust it up an impediment well known to ordinary pile-drivers. At the end of the driving by my steam hammer, the top of the pile was always found neat and smooth, indeed more so than when the driving began.
The Commissioners were met with enthusiasm; and nearly every manufacturer was found ready to display the results of his industry. The local engineers and tool-makers were put upon their mettle, and each endeavoured to do his best. Like others, our firm contributed specimens of our special machine tools, and a fair average specimen of the steam hammer, with a 30 cwt. hammer-block.
The upward stroke of the piston, with its attached hammer-block C, is arrested at the proper height not only by allowing the steam that raised it to escape, but as soon as the piston passes the escape holes X X, the confined air above the piston at O rebounds, and so aids most effectively in increasing the energy of the fall of the hammer-block C on the pile head.
My Steam Hammer as thus first sketched, consisted of, first, a massive anvil on which to rest the work; second, a block of iron constituting the hammer or blow-giving portion; and, third, an inverted steam cylinder to whose piston-rod the hammer-block was attached.
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