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I think it is because upsetting kinda stinks. It is time consuming and usually physically difficult. Upsetting can be tough your body as well. Once you've done it a bunch it is appealing to find a better way. Now upsetting with induction...pure pleasure! I have made one of the matrix dies ala Weygers and will try to dig it out of the stash.

Man Guy, you hit the jackpot of grumpy old white dudes with this one. Good luck! Might have better luck with the google images. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: What makes you so sure of the race of the posters is white, and why should their racial profile matter?

Nice machine Curley, love the deep throat. I'm sure it will shear the 1/4 stock but is it worth the build? Lots of other ways to do that job. If you go for it you will need some sort of hold down so the bar doesn't rock upon impact. Welcome to quiet forging!

You can't build one in a cost effective scenario. Old world anvils sells the real deal for a bit more than 2.50$ a pound with very reasonable freight. Guys pay this money for anvils all day long. Anvils just sit there, a fly press is a squishing machine. Bite the bullet, save your bills, get the right one the first time. Quiet, precise, controllable hand power.

Jump.

Here is a vid of the WF Norman company, they make pressed tin panels.

The two set ups shown by Andrew and Harold are worth the price of admission. It is amazing what size stock you can curve in a decent sized press. And graceful, gentle bends. Don't like it, need a little more? Just a few more bumps. No whaling away with a hammer, easy on the body. And the offset move Harold posted is just plain useful. The different sized jigs for this just seem to pile up. It's funny but the biggest pain is changing tools. So I find the simplest ones are the best. Same old story. The piece in the picture is all done with the one tool. I think the parent material was 1 x 1/4 or 3/4 x 1/4. That whole thing prolly took me twenty minutes or so.

John Cool work. Those are some old school boards, love the Rossi's with the window in the tip. You live in a great spot, Bridger Bowl is a favorite. And of course Big sky. There's some steeeep terrain around you. I spent eight years in Whitefish. We did not get the cold but it would rain to the top of our ski hill a couple three times a year. Don't know which is worse. We got do do a bunch of riding in B.C. As well, even had a Fernie pass one year. Hope yer having a good season. Sorry so much on skiing, it gets me exited. I would love one of them chairs. Jamie

Being a Wisconsin boy transplanted in the arid West I used to have huge problems with cracks in my hands, especially in the winter. I mean I think I could sometimes see the bone. I would rub all kinds of elixirs and jelly's and grunt it out through some pretty bad discomfort. At the time I wore leather gloves, had no problem with them but would always remove them to do tactile tasks and my hands took a beating. I started wearing the plastic coated cotton weave gloves, you know the ones in the hardware store, they look like they are dipped in blue plastic (surely they are). I get the yellow ones from Harbor Freight for two bucks a pair. You can do some fine motor maneuvers with these gloves, so I usually keep them on. I know what is hot in my shop and i don't grab it. I rarely get cracked skin anymore, seriously, those things really helped me. I don't like having plastic near my skin but it is a good trade off.

Thats sleek. The attachment of the wiring to the underside of the arch is attractive. Most of the time people stress about how to hide the guts, I like yours better.

Your dismay is certainly understandable Brian, your tutorials are some of the most valuable and viewed information on the site. You have to wonder about what happens to the information we give, who "owns" it? Is it properly archived? Easily accessible? Lots more questions. I am not harping on anyone, I know its not an easy job, but if this is to be "the place" on the net for smithing information I think its fair to evaluate what happens in order to be progressive and be better.

You dont have a backup of the pictures? Thats a tough lesson learned, kind of like when your only hard drive gets nuked. I would not trust things I care about to a third party. Like I said in the other thread, I am sure plenty of folks downloaded the images, we just have to collect them. I found one of the slitter photos if you would like it posted let me know. Maybe you should start a thread where we can replace the images.

Fair enough. How do I put a smiley face on here?! Ha, my wife just schooled me!

Here is a very simple setup that can be taken in many directions. A v-block on the bottom and a round nosed punch. You can clamp the block down in a perfect position and really go fast with this. The material samples were some round-ish rebar and some 3/8 square bar. The v block is actually textured so the backsides of the samples have a nice organic feel as we'll. The resulting triangular cross section has tons of decorative applications. You can use different top tools, spacings, etc. One of my favorite things about a fly press is how playful it is.

I have trouble interpreting all those smiley faced icons. Are you guys saying climate change is a hoax because it's cold outside your house or are you making fun of the people who think that way?

Someone has to have them, I bet they were downloaded a lot. I am pretty sure I have one or two.

Photo one is a typical scene of my press. I have a p6 from old world anvils. My favorite machine, i would like a little brother one day. Lets se, magnets to hold wrenches, the round hunk i use as an anvil. Easy to move around and you can stack up chunks to get the arm into a favorable working position. Photo two is some of my tooling. I almost exclusively use 1" bolts and welds. I dont use tool holders and some of my tools are without bolsters. I'm a bad boy. One of the first things i did after using the machine for about 10 minutes was cut all my hand top tools in half and set them up for the fly press, you can see a bunch of these in the pic. Photo three is of a typical fullering setup. There is a 1" hole for bottom tooling. Note the little 1/4" arm that fits into a hole in the table. Keeps 'er from moving. My table is a 1/2 inch plate welded to a smaller, thicker hunk which leaves a good overhang on all sides for clamping fixtures, fences. The table is adjustable in all directions to center and offset things. The last photo is more tooling. Enjoy. More to come

Nice stuff Jim. Maybe we should start a tooling thread? I also love the fly press.

Thanks for the story, that was a good one. I was in 7th grade and they wheeled the tv's in on the carts to show us the tragedy. life is good when you live it.

These are tight. How did you do the little key bits? Is that flat section squeezed off the mass?

Gotcha, understood.

I really like this last post, in the realm of a craft this is spot on. Well put. I don't really get how these two ideas jive. If copying another's work isn't a big deal then how can it be fraud? If no one has come up with a new idea in this lifetime how can you misrepresent your work as another person's? Wouldn't it all be in the historical and cultural "archives". What constitutes a new idea??

I post ideas here, photos, techniques. You can't contribute without putting yourself out there a bit. Amazing metalwork abounds in pictures on the internet. Look around, digest, do your own thing. That's all I am saying.

One tangent of this discussion. If you are a hobby guy or in the early -mid stages of learning the craft you want some evidence of progress, you want some projects to come out good, something to be proud of. Thing is you are still learning skills so composition and design are on the back burner as you learn technique. As in all craft this (technique) is everything, it's your vocabulary. So you take on others' designs and knock some things out. Totally o.k. And natural. I think what I am trying to get at is that a lot of folks try to sell work too early as if that is the most important measure of success, making $$$$. I really don't think it is, people will buy anything. It may be better to learn an arsenal of technique until you have a foundation of skills and then proffer your own version of all this, your style.