Vulcan Diesel Hammers

At one point or another in its history, Vulcan attempted to produce or market every type of pile driver made. Probably the persistently least successful type were the diesel hammers. Vulcan’s failure to manufacture and/or market a widely accepted diesel hammer was a significant long-term problem for the company.

Nevertheless diesel hammers are an important and interesting type of impact pile driver. This section of vulcanhammer.info discusses diesel hammers in general and Vulcan’s several attempts to enter the market.

• Beginnings of Diesel Hammers in the U.S., and Vulcan’s First Response: the IC-65
• Nilens–Vulcan’s Belgian import, and in many ways the most successful of Vulcan’s diesel offerings
• Liquid Propane Gas (LPG) hammer–an adaptation of the Nilens hammer to address the issue of pollution
• The IC-30/30D/33D Hammers: Vulcan’s own diesel that made it to market–sort of
• The “V” series diesel, Vulcan’s adaptation of Russian diesel hammers and its last attempt at a diesel hammer
  • Russian Diesel Hammers: the hammers that came before the “V” series
• Competitors: just about everyone has them. Here are the field service manuals for two which Vulcan encountered for its diesel hammer:
  • Kobe Diesel Hammer Field Service Manual: for their K13, K22, K32 and K42 hammers. The Kobe hammers were the first diesel hammers marketed in the U.S. on a “sell them cheap and sell a lot” philosophy, and this was especially true in the South, where they were very prominent for many years. This idea has been repeated with the “Chimag” hammers which are virtually ubiquitous in the U.S. today.
  • IHI IDH-J22 Field Service Manual. IHI was Menck’s representative in the Far East, and in China Vulcan met and bested them. IHI also developed an interesting diesel hammer where the fuel pump actuator was powered by the compressed gases in the combustion chamber. Unfortunately the mechanism tended to jam when dirty, which was about all the time with a diesel hammer.