Presses

Following on from the littlest leg vice thread, here is my contender for the smallest fly press! It was used by my grandmother for riveting the poppers onto her leatherwork. The spike on the front was used to assemble the components and push the leather onto them. A double ended bottom block was used for the different sides, male or female. I have been using it as nut cracker.

I thought this might be of some interest .....I needed a tool to bend grip rail in the shop and field, and this is what I came up with. A horizontal press format was rejected because the danger of edge bending is much higher. A 110v hydraulic power pac, 4" cyl, and beefy I beam were the primary components. It produces around 15t , and will bend 3/4 by 1 1/2+ on edge, this varies + - as to the placement of the pins.The stock being bent in the pic is 1/2 x 1 1/2. The control can be removed to a stand for bending circles, ect, otherwise the stock could come around and hit it................mb

I made a new post in my Buldoze Bender thread;http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/20235-bulldoze-bender/?view=getnewpost I started a new topic w/a link so it would show on new content....... :)

Hi, Having just bought a fly press I thought I would try drawing out with it. I know that this is not the strong point of a fly press so was not expecting much. Well, I was very pleasantly surprised. I am posting this because I have seen this topic discussed before and the general reply is that fly presses are not good for drawing out - not disagreeing with this, just adding my perspective. Some context: I have not been blacksmithing long so low on skills and technique. Low stamina and wasted muscles wastage due to continued slow recovery from an illness. Working on smallish dimension stock - 16mm round yesterday. I made a top and bottom tool from a leaf spr…

Hi, I am the proud owner of a Norton no 6 fly press. Got it installed today. Quite heavy but help was at hand and the help came with the lifting kit that made the job simple :) Also got a Norton 2A from the same person but that has gone to a friend. Anyway, there was supposed to be some tooling with the press but it was left behind when it was delivered. May get it, who knows. Either way the presses look to be in good condition and the price was good. 100 pounds for the 2 with tables. So me thinks about making some tooling and plan to use cut off bolts for the shafts. Measure hole in ram with cheapo callipers and a bit surprised to see both were quite a bit under …

Hey I Forge Iron My first post here Ive been hanging around here for a few months well getting my tools (anvil, Forge, Post leg vice) together. This is still I believe to this is the greatest tool I've found yet. Little bit about me: I am a 21 year old Renovator 3.5 years in my craft. Also woodworking is my passion in life. learning about the old ways of wood working and tool making has led me to black smithing. love it haven't made any thing to wright home about YET. Till today I made a one of those Mini forging press you know the one that's been posted here a few times. I am in Ontario Canada Just out side the G.T.A so we have princess auto instead of Harb…

I have some 6" x 6" square tube 1/4" wall and have been thinking of using it for a 25 to 30 ton press. It would be 36" tall with a 12" width all from the square tube with and added I beam at top and bottom. Is the tube too light for this? I was thinking that the cross sectional area of the total steel in the steel tube is just at 6 sq in and and tension in each corner would only be 30000 psi so the tension per sq inch is only 5000 lbs so I thought this should be sufficient.

I am currently in the middle of building a tooling press, which i will be posting in the projects area, and am in need of an "air over hydraulic" cylinder for it. 20 ton. I found harbor freight has this same thing in the form of a bottle jack but i would like something with a longer stroke,something in a 12-16 inch range for the stroke. Any help?? Thanks all -Hillbilly

I began work on the press this afternoon. It was really nice to start to do something with it after a few months of research and playing with SketchUp on the computer. I've posted a few threads with questions about it in the last week, but I'll restate what I'm doing so later on when people look at this thread it will make more sense. I'll do my best to document each part of the build as thoroughly as I can including photos, hopefully it'll help someone out down the road. It will be a 70 ton press, two 6" cylinders at 2500 PSI, with a 20" stroke. The frame is WF 8x35 I-beams...the reason I chose this size in particular is that the flanges are .495" thick, allowing me to…

Howdy, I have an H frame press and need a brake that is portable and fits under the cylinder. This is for light sheet work. I've seen then them, but have no idea as to where to look. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. John

Hello all. Does anyone have any info on either a Famco 40 or Alva Fallen BT5 punch press? Are they good machines? thanks billyO

Has anyone ever made a homemade press? If anyone has I would love to see pictures and hear how you built it!

Any ideas on the size of this? The brand is 'Beere'. They say approx 3 ton but as there is no ID plate it's hard to tell. What do you think?http://www.machine.co.nz/index.php?search=Fly+press Thanks for your input.

Hi all, I'm getting to know my new toy, a 6 tonne c frame fly press made by John Heine. I'd like to be able to punch holes in sheet metal. More specifically, holes from 2mm-5mm in mild steel up to maybe 2mm thickness or so. I like the idea of punching as for jobs where I need a lot of holes, punching will probably be quicker than battling with a drill press. I have done some investigating, and have already come up with a couple of alternatives. The first idea was to buy a commercial hole punch and fabricate some new tooling holders to go in the fly press. I was thinking something like this: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Heavy-Duty-Sheet-Metal-Hand-Punch-FP-/3803195074…

Inspired by Bruce Macmillans bulldoze bender i decided to make a bender out of one of my tables. The table is 7/8" plate, it was some type of machine pedestal, i got two of them for $600! They measure roughly 6'x6'. I used my enerpac cylinder i got from Larry, its 30 ton, 10,000 psi. The pump i got at a swap meet for $75. So i drilled my table for 11/2" holes with a mag drill and annular cutter, worked great. I cut the slot (i think the table tops are hardened because it was tough stuff to cut, had to use a torch), made a block out of tank armor 4"x3"x8", and made heys on each end to slide in a slot on the table, and in a piece of 1/2" thick wall square tube for…

Hi guys and I'm sure a few Lady's, I am at the very BEGINNING, of the process, of building a Hydraulic Forging Press. As with most everyone money is tight, because of that, and the realization that I do enjoy and get satisfaction out of building my own equipment, I decided to build my own Hydraulic Forging Press. I have decided on the vertical set-up, using an I beam as the foundation, the cylinder is attached to the top of it with the clevis pins, then there is a shorter I beam that is welded directly in front of the main beam, where the bottom dies are attached. I'm not sure if anyone has seen this type of configuration for a forging press, the problems I'm havin…

I know that the rule of thumb for power hammers is about 50 lb./in^2. Is there a rule of thumb for hydraulic presses, ton/in^2? How many tons would be needed to forge 3 inch round, productively?

So I've finally gotten around to getting this c-frame press wired up and moving but, it, or rather I with it, has a bevy of issues. It's a single end press( no real guides) with an overwhelming array of electronics. That alone is enough to make me uncomfortable. It has two modes : Run- wherein you hit a button and the press cycles down till this electronic line pressure switch tells it to reverse direction and then it continues until it hits a micro switch. The pressure switch can be set from 0- 3000. The other mode is Jog- wherein you can use the up or down button to move the ram where ever in the stroke.....or blow the start capacitor, break the guide rod, trip the mai…

At our open forge today at my shop we enjoyed the works of Peter Sevin of Phoenix, as he showed us his techniques for making his belt buckles. He started of by pressing 1/4" wall sch 40 pipe and square tubing 3/8" to 1" tall 1" to 2" in dia. Some of it was even cut on angles. It was done under Kevin Potter's (from Potter USA) new proto type 100 ton bench top press. After the shapes were pressed out Peter demonstrated different techniques for hot punching and chiseling designs by hand and under the treadle hammer. Next was to show the brazing on of the loop and hook out of 1/8" cold rolled. If you have a creative mind you can make some wild buckles. For some more fun w…

Safety can't be stressed enough when it comes to operating a hydraulic forging press. From cylinders, to fittings, to hoses, to operation. As far as hoses go, I highly recommend getting protective sleeves for all of your high pressure hoses. They run from around $3 per foot for the type that slide over to around $10 per foot for the kind that velcrow on over existing hoses. They are made in nylon, kevlar and other materials. Check with your local supplier/hydraulic shop so you can talk to someone to recommend what will work best in your situation. I attached mine with zip ties. What the sleeves do is protect the hoses from rubbing and brief contact with something hot. Due…

Now that I have my press all operating nicely, I want to make some sort of tool holder for it. It does have the large block that is bolted in, shown in my other thread: http://www.iforgeiro...me/#entry294151 But now I want to fabricate some sort of quick-change holder that can stay in there. The rear of that "block pocket" in the press has a flat rear wall and then two angled 45 degree sides coming towards the front. I thought I could design something that works with that feature, and then is held in place by the large tool block bolted in from the front. Bore a 1" (or a bit oversized) hole in this holder, and have setscrew hole for the tooling. This design also g…

Thinking about getting a press for my knife making for folding steel etc... Thinking about gettting a 30 ton for cause I couldn't find a 25 ton. Is a hydraulic press ($429) much better than a pneumatic press($385) or would a pneumatic/hydraulic combo ($539)be better.All in australian dollars.

Got it delivered on a tilting flatbed tow truck, right to my garage door. She's in fine shape, but from working with older lathe and miling equipment I know that vintage gear can perform better with simply a decent and thorough cleaning. Glad I had my overhead gantry crane, that top handwheel is very beefy on its own. Everything came apart nicely. Dismantled the entire press of all moving parts. There's some scarring of the ways in few spots, nothing horrible but shows some use. You can see that in some of.the pics. Some crusted grease, probably embeded with metal chips acted more as sandpaper than it did lubricant in the later years... I doubt this had ever bee…

Wondering what you've seen the going rates for a decent shape H-frame fly press, big style like the Hopkins 20 ton (not sure of the rating)... Similar to this one, this is from Ron Reil's flypress page, the blue Hopkins: http://ronreil.abana.org/hopkins4.jpg I see them listed at $1600 - $2000+ on ebay, but I'm guessing that at places like the Quad State tailgate you might find better pricing. What have you seen for something similar to pictured above?

Large fly press for sale, but haven't seen one like it before. Anyon know the make or model? The leadscrew is a finer pitch than most, if not all, fly presses I've seen. Of course you'd get more of a pinching effect vs a slamming effect of the ram. I'm not sure yet if this is a double thread screw or not. Would this still be a useable press for blacksmithing work with that fine of pitch?