Pile Driver

[marc_reusser]

[marc_reusser]

[marc_reusser]

Later than you want....but truck mounted.

[marc_reusser]

Just a neat shot

[marc_reusser]

This may be of some interest....pile drivers by the  Vulcan corp.

Site has a good bit of info

http://www.vulcanhammer.info/on/

[marc_reusser]

[marc_reusser]

[marc_reusser]

Just a neat pic.

[darrylhuffman]

I sell the 1917 Vulcan Pile Driving Machinery catalog on CD but it does not have anything on truck mounted piledrivers.  But it does contains lots of detailed information and drawings of the different components on a pile driver.

I also sell the 1918 Keystone Oil and Water Drilling Catalog on CD.  But, again, it does not have anything on truck mounted piledrivers.

I am quite sure owners of the Keystone Drillers would occassionaly modify them for driving fence posts and the like.  The Keystone Drillers are percussion type of drilling machines so their use as a percussion type of pile driver would be a simple modification for any enterprising machine shop to do.

As my two catalogs are dated 1917 and 1918 they may both be published too early to show their use on a truck.

I love any discussions about pile drivers.  My On3 pile driver was Model Railroader's Model of the Month in May of 1990.

Max Corey and I discussed some great piledrivers used on the Alaska Railroad that used block and tackle to slew the tower.  I have not searched the State of Alaska photo archives for pile drivers. 

The people typing in the descriptions had little understanding of anything mechanical so their search engine is not very helpful.  I pointed out a couple of errors they had and asked for a job with them to provide more accurate descriptions but they weren't interested.

[kneighbarger]

Only thing I found so far, cat mounted drop hammer.
Sorry it isn't a better quality photo....
Ken

[NE Brownstone]

How many here have worked on a piling crew before?   Any hands?  I have.  It sucks royally. 

I had gone on a job as a roust-a-bout for an oilfield company in the early 80's down in some crap hole ditch in SW Louisiana to pound a bulkhead into place.  Creosoted pilings are NOT the thing you want to mess around with in 95 degree weather.  The creosote begins to ooze and if you get it on you, doesn't need to be much, it will begin to burn your skin and the more you stand in the sun, the worse it gets.   Blistering and all. 

I was smart and wore a  long sleeve welders shirt.  I got laughed at too and called names that often refers to a cat or a particular female part, but I had already worked with pilings on a farm and knew the consequences, but I can't say that much for some of the others on the crew.  Needless to say, I had the last laugh.

I can't comment much on the driver itself as it was basically a crane with the hammer guide dangling below that we had to maneuver into place.  It wasn't rigidly mounted. 

The really cool drivers were the ones that they used to drive casing into the ground before a well is started.  They are big one cylinder diesel engines, without a crank.  The piston is the hammer that is raised by combustion just like a regular  D engine except it comes back down and slams into an anvil that sits on the casing.  The piston/hammer creates compression on the way down so that the fuel is fired off at or about the same time the piston hits the anvil thus bumping the piston back up to it's highest position ready for another round.