Broken Piston Rings…Re-Restoring The Steam Hammer - Part 3

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Welcome back everybody. We have still not finished re-restoring our power hammer and the third time we are joined by Will. How are you mate?

[00:00:08]>> Not too bad.

[00:00:08]>> Thank you for being back here.

[00:00:09]>> And no worries. Ready to get the hammer finished and sorted and running?

[00:00:12]>> Yes. Still more things to do. Now it's been a couple of weeks. I have been using the hammer. It's different. I'm liking that we've got less slop in the treddle. Uh but I can still feel that our control valve, the piston in the control valve is shaking around. And so I think that's what we need to start tackling today. What I'm describing as the control valve is the valve in front of the one that's just the throttle, what you've been calling the regulator.

[00:00:34]>> Yes. So that's your regulator because that regulates how much air is going through. The next one is what's called a piston valve.

[00:00:40]>> What I've been calling >> you calling the control valve.

[00:00:42]>> The valve here is directing the air either into the bottom of the cylinder that houses the ram, >> which lifts it up, sends it up, or into the top, which sends it down. And on this hammer, we get the reciprocating motion thanks to this lever that is contacted by the ram as the ram goes up and down. That then shunts the piston for the control valve up and down.

[00:01:08]Right, first step, get all of this out of there. We're going to have a look at this piston valve.

[00:01:11]>> Undo the work that we did last week, basically. Yes. I've also made some upgrades to my toolbox. It's not that I've shrunk. The toolbox has gotten taller. I got a taller one of these. I got a middle unit here. Very exciting to invest a little bit in the workshop.

[00:01:26]>> Bigger. Good.

[00:01:27]>> Bigger than 24.

[00:01:28]>> Good bit bigger.

[00:01:31]>> That was easy.

[00:01:33]>> All right. Got it.

[00:01:34]>> Got it.

[00:01:34]>> There's the top of that valve.

[00:01:36]>> The one thing you don't want it to do is that.

[00:01:39]>> Yeah, that's a lot of uh >> lot of play.

[00:01:42]>> So, that's letting a lot of air leak and go where it's not meant to go. You see that the up and down is also has a significant amount of play. If I now move it up to where it hasn't been rubbing, look how much little room there is on that valve now to move compared to there.

[00:01:56]>> Tons of slop where it's been rubbing.

[00:01:58]>> And up there is >> almost none. Out she comes. That's what the inside of that valve looks like.

[00:02:03]Tons of openings to divert the air from the top to the bottom. This is all getting me a little bit scared, Will, cuz this is starting to look like a massive undertaking.

[00:02:13]>> There's nothing to be scared. It's not going to be that bad. It looks worse than it is. I hope this is also very pitted.

[00:02:20]>> That'll wear my packing down.

[00:02:21]>> That'll wear your packing down, which will cause that to leak at the bottom.

[00:02:24]>> And also, it's going to be there's going to be a lot more friction if that's rubbing in the packing material than a really nice smooth ground rod.

[00:02:30]>> Exactly.

[00:02:31]>> Yeah. That up and down slop on the shaft is not ideal because remember that shaft is exactly how this piston is controlled. So, if this shaft has a, you know, an eighth of an inch of slop in it, well, that piston is an eighth of an inch less accurate in its position. And that's exactly one of the things I experienced with this hammer, which is I'm trying to push down on the treddle.

[00:02:50]I'll be pushing down, pushing down, pushing down, pushing down. It lags and then I just squeeze that ever little bit more. Boom. The piston finally gets shoved to the right spot. There's often then a little bit too much force behind that particular blow. The easiest test is we move those lock nuts to reduce the play and we see exactly how that one particular change affects performance.

[00:03:09]>> But you know something else we got to do, Alec?

[00:03:11]>> Well, yes. The the list is not >> We need to add that to the board.

[00:03:15]The board isn't getting crossed off.

[00:03:17]>> It's being added to.

[00:03:19]>> Let's measure this slop and get an accurate comparison. That's a lot. It's half a millimeter of play straight up and down. But as soon as this twists, which obviously it can't twist that much in the bore, but then it's quite extensive.

[00:03:34]Oh wow, it's very well locked.

[00:03:39]Yay.

[00:03:41]So exciting to just It's like unwrapping Christmas presents from 100 years ago.

[00:03:46]You just have no idea what you're going to get. Look at that. We got a little washer. Oo, the valve itself.

[00:03:51]>> See, look. Ooh, look at that. The valve came apart. Not what I expected. We reckon that this allows you a certain amount of side to side motion so that the shaft that drives this doesn't get bound up as this tries to find its center in the bore of that valve. If it's all dead dead tight side to side, it could bind up. But the up and down play is definitely fixable. Side to side play just means you might get a tiny bit more air leakage or not. But up and down play, you're then diverting the air around these channels into the wrong spot. Imagine this is that the valve piston sits inside there. The air is coming from our rear valve, throttle valve, regulator valve there, headed in this direction. And this little groove here means that the air can move either up when this little piston is in that position. The air throws from the regulator valve to the upwards or with that in this position here. No air flows to the top. It all flows to the bottom lifting the ram and back and forth as this thing cycles up and down. Hence why this is so important because this being half a millimeter in the wrong position could correspond to the ram getting moved a centimeter in the wrong direction or a centimeter too far down.

[00:05:10]We're going to make up a slightly thicker washer. Then put this back in and test fire it.

[00:05:17]New washer. Piston goes on. Ta. One nut.

[00:05:21]Two nut.

[00:05:24]Booty. This can now go back in the machine.

[00:05:30]All righty. Let's have a little listen, shall we? So quiet in that configuration. So this is one of the changes with the current configuration of the hammer. It used to be that there was so much air leaking from the rear valve that the ram would immediately start at the top. Well, now you got to give a little bit of something on the treddle and then it goes up to the top.

[00:05:48]Come on now.

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[00:07:10]It's sticky. It feels like >> the modification that we did just now. I can't tell much of a difference. It kind of feels like it's felt for the last couple of weeks.

[00:07:19]>> It might just need setting better. It might be it cuz we've given it a loose fit, a loose setting. It might just need tweaking and just finishing setting.

[00:07:26]>> It's hard. It's all again because we don't know what's going to do what.

[00:07:29]>> No idea. That's the thing. You don't 100% know, especially with something like this where there's no drawings left cuz unfortunately all the drawings for these are in a fire. So there's nothing about these hammers left anymore. We don't know size. We don't know what it's meant to be. We don't know anything really. It's just what we think might be wrong with it and adapting it from there. That like little reciprocating wobble that it does, I think that that's a little bit caused by too much air at idle. What I want to try and do is adjust the timing of the throttle valve here. So that in neutral position, that's neutral position. We let just a little bit less air through, which means I want that to turn up a few more degrees. Angle upwards a few more degrees. We're going to do that by unthreading this shaft a turn or two.

[00:08:13]All right, I got one turn looser. The shaft is now about kind of 2 mm higher.

[00:08:20]Oh, I like that. I don't like that.

[00:08:23]Still reciprocating. Little wiggle.

[00:08:26]>> Nah, that's not good, is it? No, it's like now it's got sticky. It's amazing.

[00:08:31]You see the difference one turn makes. I cannot get any sort of control out of the hammer. It just it waits, it waits, it waits, bam, and it goes. Fascinating.

[00:08:39]I think this is part of the challenge of the control. It's like that treddle.

[00:08:43]When my foot is on the treddle and I'm pushing on it, all that force is then being transmitted through that shaft that we fixed in the first episode across to here, then over to here, and then we've got this like nasty frictiony bit here. That can't be good. You can see where it kind of it like has to lump over things. The spring gets all bendy, you know? That could be completely redesigned to be improved. We definitely have to put this back to the setting it was at. And then I'd say what we do is we just twiddle that valve, that piston valve again >> and just see how just slight adjustments up and down where it's what's bouncing it up and down. Maybe we just got to bring it into a partic exact location for it to then run smoothly.

[00:09:28]>> Can't say I understand this thing.

[00:09:30]>> Yeah, there is a tight spot on there.

[00:09:31]>> Yeah, you see what I'm saying? How it's sticky. It's stiff.

[00:09:35]We know that there's a lot of worms in the can. For the issue that we have now, which is in the running, there's this moment of sticking. Simplest solution first, guys. That's the only thing I can think of. Let's do everything that's obvious and simple to improve the linkage. If there's anything funky going on in the linkage, it needs to be fixed.

[00:09:51]This is super crusty. And this length is adjustable thanks to the thread here in this threaded component. And have a look at this. There's all sorts of wobble.

[00:10:01]And I think this might be causing a little bit of an over center problem because as this goes up and down, the throttle valve lever is trying to do some things to it and maybe it kind of kicks it off in one position and then it can then jump across. So simple solution first. Here's what we're going to do.

[00:10:16]We're going to whip this off completely, clean up these faces here, make it smooth, and for the time being, whack a grub screw in there to see if we can tighten up that play and feel anything different before we then invest more time in rebuilding this whole assembly.

[00:10:30]Going to weld this up and grind it back to the original profile. It should probably look like this on the side. Not like that.

[00:10:45]>> Oh, it's definitely smoother.

[00:10:46]>> Yeah.

[00:10:47]>> Come on. That is absolutely smoother.

[00:10:49]And how about that wobble? Oh, yeah. We That grub screw >> That grub screw has done it.

[00:10:53]>> That grub screw did a lot of work there.

[00:10:55]>> That grub screw has done it. I will give you that, Alec. The simplest option is the best option.

[00:10:59]>> Well, we don't know if it's the best option. Now, it's time to turn on open up the valve.

[00:11:02]>> Ready?

[00:11:02]>> Yeah.

[00:11:05]>> Hard to say. I need to forge something.

[00:11:09]>> Oh, that's pretty good, actually.

[00:11:13]I think that's done something good to the control. It's not 100% of the way there, but I think that we're on to something here. You see how little contact there is between these loes and this little bit of round bar? I'm going to make us up a little bit of a wider washer for it to ride on so that we can get some more contact all the way out here. Save it biting into this.

[00:11:37]One washer later.

[00:11:39]That looks a bit smoother.

[00:11:40]>> That's smoother.

[00:11:42]>> Does it feel smoother to you?

[00:11:44]>> I think it does.

[00:11:45]>> Oh, mate. That is a significant improvement.

[00:11:48]>> It's a big improvement, but there is something there.

[00:11:50]>> There is still a little catch there.

[00:11:52]>> Yeah. And that's the regulator. Easy, easy, easy catch. Little notch and then it goes through bit of air.

[00:12:01]>> That whole shaft moved out. You're not getting anywhere near that tight point.

[00:12:05]>> Not even anywhere near >> Nowhere near that tight spot. This whole regulator assembly here is moving in and out.

[00:12:14]>> Oh yeah, that's moved out like 3 mm.

[00:12:17]This shaft is not being properly held all the way forwards. And as we put air on it and cycle the treddle, the shaft is moving outwards. I think we decided we need a little bit of a break from the really serious stuff.

[00:12:27]>> Yes, we have. Cuz that's driving us insane.

[00:12:30]>> You found me this on eBay a couple of months ago. Show us this. Look how beautiful that is.

[00:12:34]>> Lovely big old pressure gauge. Sent that to Alex saying, "I've had an idea. What do you think of this?"

[00:12:38]>> Didn't realize it was that big, did we?

[00:12:40]>> I didn't realize it was this big either.

[00:12:41]>> It's going to be pretty cool. And it's going to be a really neat visual feature to just see, you know, when we're running the power hammer like, "Oh, look, the pressure is dropping cuz the tank's getting low."

[00:12:49]>> It's going to be awesome. And this is a beautiful bit of history.

[00:12:51]>> A lovely gauge.

[00:12:52]>> Shine that up. And we're going to mount a box.

[00:13:12]What are the odds? Does the gauge work or not? Did we buy a broken one? Uh poor broken one. Now you got to crack the other valve.

[00:13:21]>> Yeah, it's this one.

[00:13:22]>> YES. LOOK AT THAT. OH, AND THEN OPEN. WE GOT A VALVE, BABY. GOT A VALVE THAT WORKS. WOO. I have now completely removed pedestrian access from this side of the machine. Unless, you know, you want a a nose full of gauge. But that's pretty cool. And little positive reinforcement for the day counts for a lot.

[00:13:42]>> Yeah.

[00:13:42]>> You know, here we are. We've been making tiny little snippets of progress and now at least we've got something tangible.

[00:13:48]>> You want to know the best bit about this?

[00:13:50]>> What's that? It wasn't even on the to-do list.

[00:13:52]>> No, it wasn't. Right. Well, unfortunately, there are still very important things to be done now that the linkage is much improved. I think that we're starting to hone back in on this rear valve, the throttle valve regulator valve assembly. In our chaos, what we're going to do now is we are going to take the piston valve out again and we're going to have a listen to how the throttle valve delivers air without that there to see if the stickiness that we're experiencing is coming from the throttle valve maybe binding or if the stickiness is maybe happening further down the chain. Okay, are you ready?

[00:14:24]There we go. See, I can't make it a feathered increase in pressure. Try and do that gently.

[00:14:32]See, I think that having taken that piston valve out, I think we're hearing something sticking. We can hear how that noise goes a little bit little bit.

[00:14:45]There's no gradual increase.

[00:14:46]>> What we could try more powerful spring.

[00:14:48]>> So, if I make a little bracket so that we can kind of temporarily attach that attach that on a clamp >> just for testing it. Yeah.

[00:14:54]>> Yeah.

[00:14:58]>> That's got some more force to it. Feel feel.

[00:15:01]You can feel it assisting.

[00:15:03]>> Yeah, that smoothing it out a little bit.

[00:15:12]Oh yeah, much better. All right, we've got our power back. We've got a lot more control. Will, that spring has done something important. So, in summary, what we've done so far is we've cleaned up these surfaces with a little bit of weld. We added on this washer that Will made up. And the key in getting this valve to just overcome some of the stickiness in it was adding another spring that pulls up, pushing the valve up in that direction, countering the forces from the treddle and helping it close smoother. It is still crunchy in here. And so even though we made the treddle a little bit stiffer, having that extra resistance seems to be overcoming some of that crunchiness. And what you've got to realize as well is these springs that are on here, these, as far as we know, they could even be the original springs. They may they may have been changed, but they're going to be at least 70 years plus old. Over time, springs lose their springiness.

[00:16:05]And also, we can see that they are all sorts of deformed, pitted. This here is obviously a modification that somebody made at some point in time to effectively achieve the same result of getting more pressure pushing the bar upwards.

[00:16:17]>> So, there's a few options that you've got. You can either make a bracket to fit a new fit a spring like that permanently or you take some measurements of those springs and you buy some new springs >> to replace this >> to replace those ones. I'm going to try and measure how much force this combination of springs is applying to that shaft.

[00:16:35]Got a little bit of string there. Crane scale and it's obviously stretching cuz this is super thin, but it maxed out at about 170 ntons. Wonder if we can find a spring like that on the internet. Oh, these springs are a lot shorter than what we need. Oh gosh, we're going to have to request a quote for a custom spring.

[00:16:52]So, I need to try ordering this spring.

[00:16:54]Get that spring ordered. It runs pretty sweetly, but there is more that could be done. If we want it to be better, then we've just got to do it. We've got to completely disassemble the thing. We need to remachine the inside of that ball of this piston valve. And we need to do some serious machining on these end plates so they locate and get that throttle valve actually running true in the middle of the ball that it slides around. And if we can make those things perfect, surely it's going to be a better running machine with less air leakage and with more precision. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take all of this off the hammer and drop it on the ground. Step one, we've got to take the bottom die out. We've got to take this pin out. Then we've got to take off the ram from the shaft. And if you remember from the first go of restoring this hammer when I first took it apart, that took me two days.

[00:17:48]Woohoo! Keys out. Now we got to take this tapered pin out, which locks that shaft into here. But also, because that shaft is tapered into there, we're going to need to put something underneath there in that hole and drive it out under power.

[00:18:02]Come on.

[00:18:05]Oh my. Yeah, that's really tight.

[00:18:09]You can feel it moving, but it's not going.

[00:18:13]Oh, yeah. Come on.

[00:18:15]>> Come on.

[00:18:16]>> COME ON. COME ON. COME ON.

[00:18:19]>> COME ON.

[00:18:20]>> COME ON.

[00:18:21]>> COME ON. YES. OH, >> NO WAY.

[00:18:26]>> That's all the forces that keep kept smashing on.

[00:18:28]>> Look at that. Twist it. Twist it.

[00:18:30]>> Look how mangled that fell is.

[00:18:32]>> Bent as well.

[00:18:34]>> Fab. You can see the imprint of the ram here.

[00:18:36]>> Yeah.

[00:18:36]>> You know why? It's because when I put this shaft into there, I forgot to consciously orient and clock it.

[00:18:44]>> Yeah.

[00:18:44]>> And then it got so stuck. I thought, "Oh, it'll just move around as I do that." No, no. That thing got wedged in there. And I forgot to orient and clock it. You can see it doesn't at all line up well there. And that's all cuz I forgot to orient it. And that's why that tapered pin, it's completely mangled.

[00:18:58]>> You might need to make a new one. It's a >> might is a very friendly way of using English language.

[00:19:03]>> You're going to have to make Yeah. 25 mil.

[00:19:07]>> All right. Hey, that's literally the exact bar that I used last time.

[00:19:11]>> That's the exact bar I used last time cuz it's got the same impression that I'm looking at inside the >> Yeah, but I want something that's got a bit of a more stable base on it.

[00:19:25]>> That's terrifying. Okay, now hopefully GOT ONE HIT.

[00:19:35]TERRIFYING. YOU WANT TO PUT SOME MORE heat on it, please, mate. While you do that, I'm going to straighten the bar.

[00:19:42]Thank you, SIR.

[00:19:46]AH, so bent. No. Got to make another one. Golly. Another little bit of bar and a little bit more heat.

[00:19:52]>> Maybe we've moved it a millimeter.

[00:20:02]This is an absolute nightmare. This is really, really infuriating cuz every time there's a miss, it's causing more machining work on this that we're going to have to do >> to fix this. I'm really not having a good time here.

[00:20:15]>> All right, there's my third one. 380 Celsius. That's very hot.

[00:20:19]>> Good lord.

[00:20:24]>> Come on.

[00:20:26]Come on, baby. Come on.

[00:20:29]It's guys, it's going to happen. IT'S GOT TO. COME ON. COME ON.

[00:20:36]COME ON. ONE RUINED. Two ruined. Three ruined.

[00:20:43]What time's the charm?

[00:20:47]Oh crap. It won't lift cuz it's too low now. Cuz I I dropped it on the block the previous times. Eh. Oh, it's blew jammed. Go on.

[00:20:56]>> Yeah. Yeah, you got to lose. Stay there.

[00:20:59]Good. And now stay clear.

[00:21:05]Oh yeah. COME ON.

[00:21:08]COME ON.

[00:21:12]Not moving a blooming millimeter, mate.

[00:21:16]Oh god. I did not intend to do that.

[00:21:19]That and now it's stuck.

[00:21:26]I dropped something on the treddle and I just bottomed out the bloom and ram. Oh god, that could have broken it.

[00:21:33]Well, that could have done some damage in there. We thought we'd get the whole top off in an hour. It's been an hour.

[00:21:39]We got the dyes out.

[00:21:42]This is the hardest bit. As soon as this is out, that'll come apart. Cool it off with the air. Soak it in um penetrating oil overnight. Come back tomorrow with a new game plan and we'll get that off.

[00:21:52]And by a new game plan, you mean >> we'll smash it even harder?

[00:21:55]>> Yes, we're going to keep doing the exact same thing over and over again until it works.

[00:22:02]>> So, we ran out of oxygen, so we decided to upgrade.

[00:22:05]>> We decided to use the oxygen that's in the air.

[00:22:07]>> Yeah.

[00:22:08]>> Look at this shiny fell I made from 4340. Woo!

[00:22:16]>> YES, BABY. GET IN.

[00:22:20]THAT IS HOW YOU DO IT.

[00:22:22]>> There's that pin. There's what it was hitting on. There's the taper that held her in. Tada. We're now going to get this gantry crane on top of that hammer.

[00:22:31]>> Easier said than done.

[00:22:32]>> Yeah, this was easier 2 years ago when I had about half the equipment in here.

[00:22:37]Now, time for a complete disassembly of the upper portion of the hammer. Every nut, bolt, the ram, everything, it's all got to come off.

[00:22:58]All right. This is going to be interesting.

[00:23:02]>> Oh, that bit's loose in there.

[00:23:03]>> Yeah, that that's meant to be loose, I'm pretty sure. But look, that it was like jammed in there, eh?

[00:23:11]>> Yeah, it wasn't coming down.

[00:23:12]>> No. Interesting. So, that's the secondary piston that I believe is the air cushion.

[00:23:17]>> Yes. Because remember this head of the cylinder has got an air inlet there that is constantly being fed pressure out of this hole in the regulator valve all the way up to the top providing I imagine a cushion of air to the top and meaning that hopefully if the piston that the ram is connected to comes up and strikes this there's that cushion to absorb it.

[00:23:38]So we've got to get this out. So interesting that that's jammed up and probably not not good for the machine, but you know, hey her.

[00:23:44]>> I don't know. Depends on how far it's meant to go down.

[00:23:47]>> There are piston rings in this as well.

[00:23:48]>> So this should be >> sliding smoothly. It was It did slide quite You pushed it down by hand, which is quite impressive for a piston ring.

[00:23:56]We get this top bung out here.

[00:23:59]>> Yeah. And then push it.

[00:24:00]>> We can then just have a bit of a feel and see if we can push it out.

[00:24:02]>> Oh, wow. That was >> That was very easy.

[00:24:05]>> I was not expecting that to come out quite so easily.

[00:24:09]There we go. Positive.

[00:24:14]Tada.

[00:24:16]Clump.

[00:24:17]>> Interesting. Is that oil or is that water?

[00:24:19]>> That's oil.

[00:24:20]>> That's oil.

[00:24:21]>> That's oil.

[00:24:21]>> You licked it.

[00:24:22]>> Yeah, that's oil.

[00:24:23]>> That's surely that's not what steam people do.

[00:24:25]>> Yeah.

[00:24:26]>> You unironically tasted it to see if it's oil.

[00:24:28]>> Yeah. What do you use in a frying pan?

[00:24:30]Use oil.

[00:24:31]>> Yeah. Not steam oil.

[00:24:32]>> Ah, basically the same. I've used steam oil for cooking on the shovel before.

[00:24:36]>> You haven't?

[00:24:36]>> Yeah. cooking bacon on the shovel on the engine. You put a bit if you don't have any vegetable oil or little bit of virgin oil on it. Yes, but you're a lovely chap. It'd be really unfortunate for you to bloom and die.

[00:24:46]>> It'd be fine. Oh, mate, look how much crud there is in here. I think a lot of the rusted debris from inside here fell off over the last couple of years and then Yeah, it's been jamming up the bore of this. Oh no. The bore of the head is now completely crusty, mate.

[00:25:04]>> It's only on the surface though, I think. Yeah, we'll be able to hopefully scotchbrite it back out. But >> I was thinking, how wide does that Honer go?

[00:25:11]>> The Honer doesn't go that wide. That crunchiness has stopped this component with its now probably not so lovely piston rings from floating up and down properly, which is a delightful thing to imagine because we just tuned the hammer to run fabulously >> while there was potentially a critical component doing who knows what.

[00:25:29]>> Well, that just shows how good we are at at tuning the hammer now. Yeah, perfect.

[00:25:34]>> No, but I'll make a taper on it. No, it won't.

[00:25:36]>> Yeah, it will.

[00:25:37]>> No, it won't.

[00:25:38]>> Yeah, it's a bigger taper on it.

[00:25:39]Firstly, it doesn't go wider. Look at it.

[00:25:42]>> Yeah, he's got it's on his mag. It's fine.

[00:25:44]>> Look, it's not going to work. Look at it. There's no more spring tension. It's not working.

[00:25:49]>> Okay, maybe not.

[00:25:53]>> I'm going to dissolve all this stuff up with evapor.

[00:25:59]>> Um, Alec, come and have a look at this.

[00:26:01]So, I was re-checking your previous videos.

[00:26:04]>> Yeah. And in there you can see your piston and your piston rod is nice and flush there. That's not flush. Your piston and piston rod have moved.

[00:26:13]>> Oh god.

[00:26:14]>> Yeah. Which >> explains why that had the indent.

[00:26:20]>> No. This is the can of worms potentially really growing here. Yeah. So, there's the top of the piston flange, and it is now not level with the piston rod that is now sunk in about a/4 in, >> which would explain why there was bolts in there originally to try and stop. I think that's unthreading itself.

[00:26:39]>> I can't believe that. No. Oh, yes. I can believe it.

[00:26:43]>> I think that piston is unthreading itself. And the piston >> Yeah, the piston is staying The rod is staying static, but the piston might be unthreading.

[00:26:49]>> Piston is unthreading itself, which isn't an uncommon thing. Right, let's pull that piston. Let's pull the ram.

[00:26:55]>> Pull it out and see what we do.

[00:26:59]>> Oh. Oh, she Oh, she's smooth, mate. All right, slowly does it. Oh god, this is so fun. I'm really going through a range of emotions on this project, mate.

[00:27:10]>> That's Oh, is it stuck?

[00:27:11]>> It's getting tight where it's now on the taper part. Pulling through the pulling through the uh >> Oh, yes. You're absolutely right. Look at that. It's blooming twisting. That That is the problem. This was twisting on the rod. You're absolutely right, mate.

[00:27:29]I mean, the piston's out.

[00:27:33]That looks in good nick still.

[00:27:40]Oh. Oh, no.

[00:27:47]>> That's expensive. That's a broken piston ring.

[00:27:51]>> Oh no, >> there's a section missing.

[00:27:55]>> Where's the missing bit?

[00:27:56]>> So, these your piston rings. These are what stop it stop the air or steam from escaping. Allows it to seal. And this one sort of just fell out. You're missing a full section of this piston ring.

[00:28:06]>> I wonder if it's in the hammer. Any piston ring in there?

[00:28:09]>> No.

[00:28:09]>> What? How does a piston ring vanish?

[00:28:12]>> And the concerning thing is that's the top part of the piston ring.

[00:28:16]>> Where did it go? When we take this off, let's give it a shake.

[00:28:20]>> Well, in case it's in one of these holes, >> in case it fell down one of the ports.

[00:28:22]>> Oh my goodness. Could you imagine?

[00:28:24]>> Yes, I do.

[00:28:24]>> Imagine the piston ring broke and is down here. There's nothing lurking at the bottom.

[00:28:29]>> Unless it fell out the ground over here.

[00:28:31]>> Unless you fell out while having lunch.

[00:28:32]It's not there.

[00:28:33]>> You know, I think this is why I was nervous about the idea of disassembling my power hammer because can of worms.

[00:28:41]How expensive are piston rings to get made?

[00:28:43]>> I don't know. I have to find some people. Well, you might be able to make one >> out of cast iron.

[00:28:48]>> This cast iron rings on. I mean, I know people who have machined them before.

[00:28:51]>> Folks, there's going to be lots more to come on this particular situation. For now, though, guess we crack on disassembling more.

[00:28:57]>> Get the top of the cylinder off and >> find even more problems.

[00:29:11]>> We have liftoff.

[00:29:12]>> Oh my goodness. Look at the balance.

[00:29:14]Look at the rigging JOB I DID.

[00:29:17]>> LOOK, it's bloody perfect. Ladies and gentlemen, that is my most proudest accomplishment.

[00:29:25]Running a hand down here, it feels gritty inside the ball, which is, you know, the opposite of the oily thing that we kind of want to feel. We wonder if it's magnetic grit. I think our cast iron piston ring is now coating my thumb in a fine gritty paste. That is a bit grittier than we'd like. And on that bombshell, that's all that we've got time for today. And we're all going to have to find out, us included, what happens in the next episode next time.

[00:29:51]One quick thing I've been meaning to tell you about, guys, I am going to be at Maker Central 16th and 17th of May at the Birmingham NEC. So, if you want to meet me and talk shop, I'll be there.

[00:30:01]Should be a great time. There's a link in the description. Most of the time, you hope for your to-do list to get shorter. Ours is getting longer. Will, thank you so much for your help again.

[00:30:10]>> It's all right.

[00:30:11]>> Great fun. It's going to be worth it in the end, I hope. That's what I'm telling myself. Be sure to stay hydrated with today's sponsor, Element will to celebrate a productive day in the workshop. You can have a try that. Let us know what you think.

[00:30:25]>> That's really nice. That is >> you like it with the sparkling.

[00:30:27]>> That's really nice with the sparkling.

[00:30:28]>> There we go. Well, I'm a big fan of Element as well. Glad you are, too.

[00:30:31]Drinklnt.com/fort.

[00:30:33]We appreciate them sponsoring this episode and allowing us to do ridiculous things like taking apart a perfectly functioning steam hammer and then finding out that it's completely broken inside. With that, thank you. Goodbye.