Jackhammer?

[wildboy]

Hmmm I doubt that... There were the clones for a long time and at some point some people named them Jackhammer... Was like 3 years ago... You cant tell from the pictures anyways if you order the Chinese crap machines they look different every time you get them.

[Jim]

An old friend of mine is a China machine freak, he buys them in bulk on ebay when they are at 2.00 with free shipping or something or another. Of course he's rough on machines or anything else within grabbing distance when pissed off and goes through them kinda quick, I'd suggest good machines and anger management but to each his own. I told him I was thinking of building machines again, I only did one off coils years ago on american frames, wrapped coils, replaced springs, corrected the geometry and all that jazz. Before I left, he gave me a box of broken Chinese rotaries I was gonna salvage and do some experimenting on rotary builds, when I have some time, and build a refractory and a forge, to pour frames. A couple of the machines in the box are the swash rip offs, they are junk compared to the real ones I have, however the Jackhammer one is very close to the original except, it's stroke hits at inconsistent depths sort of like coils do, but without any give like coils so that's not good thing. The other swash rip off is total junk the C-clips are not fastened to the frame they are held in place by being larger than the frame and the C-clip holes are larger than the little frame pins so there's lots of flop, it might be possible to fasten the c-clip with larger pins by taking the bearing off tapping the frame and putting screws to hold the c-clip in place then re assemble the bearing, then it might work kind of decent, it's very light, I have heard of people buying the junk ones to replace a broken frame on their real swashes though...so they do have some use after all. There's one that looks like a Neds with the adjuster on top, that's a bit off there's a screw in the way of the tube vice and the return spring is no where near sitting at 90 degrees like it should be. I don't even want to know whats wrong with the Dragonfly ripoff, there wasn't one of those in the box...I guess they aren't cheap enough for him to throw yet As for the Swiss ripoffs they are super close to the original I have, although the armatures are loose on the retaining pins, one is a Stealth and some others are exactly the same thing, Stealth just buys the Chinese machine re-brands it as a Stealth and does a considerable price markup. So buyer beware...While writing this thread I have an idea I want to do to some of the junk, when I build what I am thinking I'll post a picture of it here in this thread later on.

[OwlsDen]

I'd like to see what you come up with.

[Jim]

The idea I had was to take two of the swash rips and hybrid both together, the outcome is better than both were originally. A surprise side effect of the conversion is that the damn thing now has a consistent hit, give as well as adjustable stroke.



The red armature is taken from the jackhammer, the C-clip was flipped and placed to the back this evened out the hit and added give of all things as a bonus. The Red thumb chuck is the inner vice slide from the jackhammer. The bearing drum had to be drilled out to fit the motor shaft, and by loosening the bearing drum with a Allen wrench the drum can be slid up and down to adjust stroke. Feel free to build one of these your self if you have two of these laying around drilling out the drum is probably the most challenging part for a novice.

[No Iron Machines]

Hello

they all the same this chinese machines, don look for original, thy are not original in china....

[OwlsDen]

It all started with something I saw on eBay. It didn't look like a swash drive gen 1 exactly and it didn't look exactly like the china machines either. I wound up not bidding on it. Thanks guys. Also a forum member is sending me a jackhammer machine to play with.

[bluerocker]

good thread, my first rotary was a gold jackhammer and i paid around 30 bucks for it, at the time knowing not much about rotaries i actually grew to likin it, then started shopping around for others and soon realised it werent at the top of the tree!! so when that one broke, actually lasted quite a while, i started to buy higher end rotaries aswell as some coils. after using the machines i have now, out of curiosty i purchased a black one, to just compare really. the difference was mental.
the gold one seemed to be made from plastic and seemed very light and looked a lil tacky, the black one was much heavier, better pins, smooth as hell, parts are of a much higher standard and just felt all round better built. short stroke so found it best for b&g, the nipple movement had next no side movement and is perfectly aligned with the vice. i dont use it that often but everynow and then fancy a change and fire it up and it hasnt faltered.
could just be a new version or they made a seperate spec i dont know, but really is a difference. not that i support chinese machines ; )

[OwlsDen]

There seem to be a lot of versions. With small differences. It's like the stealth, some are copies of a copy of a copy and it shows.

[bluerocker]

yeah i see what ya saying owl, does that mean ya think that were was an 'original copy' like stealth status and then cheaper versions were made from that, seems feasable and most probably likely thats the case, hence why some are better than others

[OwlsDen]

yeah i see what ya saying owl, does that mean ya think that were was an 'original copy' like stealth status and then cheaper versions were made from that, seems feasable and most probably likely thats the case, hence why some are better than others

That is the assumption, there are some that do look better than others. But i am not sure i have ever even held one.