1-877-426-6373
CHOOSING AND INSTALLING A HAMMER
Choosing a Hammer
There are many hammers on the market and each seller will usually tell you his hammer is the best. The Hammer Depot sells many different brands of hammers. We are not contractually bound to a particular brand or geographical area. Our sales team are not on commission. Advise us about your excavator and your job application and yearly estimated usage in hours, we will give you different options to match your needs and your budget. “You pay your money and make your choice.” We will do our best to answer any questions you may have. We don’t always have all the answers but we hope we can answer most of them. If you wish, we can actually make recommendations as to which hammer we feel is best suited to serve your needs and your budget.
Bigger is not always better. Salesmen will often try and sell you the biggest hammer that your excavator can handle. This is because either they just don’t understand hammers and have no field experience, or the bigger the hammer they sell you, the more money they make. Please call us and give us as much information as you can and we will recommend to you the best hammer options to match your requirements. We will not try and sell you a bigger hammer than you need. The bigger the hammer you purchase, the more running costs you will have and the more strain you will put on your excavator. It’s best to buy a hammer that will do your typical work with ease. Any larger is a waste and in fact you may end up semi blank firing the hammer which, in time, will lead to major hammer repairs.
It’s also important to match the the excavator pump(s) output to the hammer so that the hammer is not underpowered. In this regard, how your hammer is plumbed is also a very important factor.
Please give us as much information as you can so that we can advise you as best as we can. There is no point spending more money than you need to, and not spending enough can actually end up costing you more also. We will do our best to tailor your suit to the cloth in hand. Please give us as much of the following information as possible. You may turn the hammer to many different tasks. Please advise what you will be doing mostly and also occasionally. Your excavator brand, model and year of manufacture. The kind of material you wish to break, soft rock, medium rock, hard rock, extremely hard rock. Are you breaking rock in the ground or boulders in quarry? Are you breaking concrete, reinforced concrete? What is the typical thickness of the concrete and what is the minimum thickness? What is the max thickness you are breaking? Are you breaking bridge decks, abutments, foundations, vertical walls, cross beams? Approximately how old is the concrete you are breaking? Please advise how many work hours you will likely put on the hammer in a typical year? Lastly, please advise us of your budget range. We will then give you various options in terms of brands, models that are most suited to your needs.
Installation
In order to physically install hammer you will need either pin and bush kit, specific side plate mounts or universal or specific head bracket or a combination. Your hammer must be securely mounted to your carrier in a fashion that allows you to best tackle the job in hand. Advise us about your carrier and your job and we will recommend the best options for you. We can supply you pin and bush kits and/or head mounting brackets of many many different types. Call us today and let us help you.
If your carrier is not already plumbed, you will require a plumbing kit. Not all hammers work in the same way internally. Every model and brand has its own specific requirements. Each hammer generally requires its own installation techniques in order to run the hammer correctly without causing long term damage to the hammer. Your plumbing kit may be able to also run other hammers with minor adjustments.
Blank Firing
Blank firing or semi blank firing can – and does – occur. Blank firing is very detrimental to your hammer and in time can cause some very costly major failures. Matching hammer correctly to your carrier and your job application will help minimize blank firing. Correct use of hammer by operator will also help reduce blank firing. Please call us we can help best match hammer to your excavator and your job application. A few hammers these days have antiblank firing mechanisms. Many of the Rockram models have built in antiblank firing and antiblank start mechanisms built in. Call us and we can advise which models have this feature.
Budget
We have a mixture of hammers. We have many different brands – new, used and rebuilt. We have good quality hammers, medium quality hammers and lower quality hammers. We have cheap hammers and expensive hammers and some in between.
We will advise you the best we can. We will, where possible, try and save you money. We will try and match you a hammer within your budget constraints.
Call toll-free 1-877-426-6373 for assistance in choosing the correct hammer for your specific job application requirements. Our staff will happily assist you.