Creusot steam hammer

In celebration of this technological achievement, a full-scale wooden replica of the Creusot hammer was built and displayed at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878.

The anvil weighed a massive 750 tons, and in order to support the weight and the hammer blows, the machine's foundations were built of solid masonry resting on bedrock 11 meters below the soil.

The legs are 10.25 meters high and connected to one another at the top in a rigid A-frame design by a 30-ton "table", that in its working life both guided the hammerhead and distributed the shock of its blows.

Steam pressure averaging 5 kg/cm2 or 71 psi drove the cylinder upwards through two balanced single-acting slide valves, after which the force of gravity would allow the hammer to fall and deliver a blow.

The hammerhead or tup was interchangeable, with a number of differently shaped dies which may account for the hammer's reported variable force of between 75 and 100 tons.

[Force][2] Four separate furnaces provided steam power to four adjacent swan-necked cranes, which were used for manipulating the massive 120-ton iron and steel ingots delivered to the hammer for forging.

Steam hammers were eventually made redundant with the introduction of hydraulic and mechanical steel presses, which could apply force more evenly and create better quality product.