I found this peice of machinery this past weekend and was wondering if anyone could provide specific info on its purpose, origins, etc. The current owner is an older gentleman that works on tractors and got this peice along with some drill presses and a lathe that he uses. He says that this is a trip hammer, but I was thinking it seemed like more of a press. Any help is greatly appreciated.

P.S. Apologies for the poor photos, it was dark by the time I arrived.

It's a 15-20 ton punch press. If you don't know anything about them, you don't want it. Then again, there was a thread where a guy was using one in the same manner as a fly press.

Ah, thanks Grant. With the right dies could it be used to make damascus billets, or is it limited solely to punching?

If you want to make billets with this. Take the crankshaft and conrod off use the ram and guide add a hyd ram, valve, and pump and you will have a pretty good press.

The problem with a punch press is that it needs to do a full stroke, or it jams up tight. There isn't any cushion built in like a Little Giant, or other mechanical hammer to accept material of varied thickness. Also adjusting the die height is a slow process. Now if you need to blank out some sheet metal parts,stamp a part, or some other repetitive operation on the same size material they are great.

I know a smith who took a similar press and used it as a frame to build a Kinyon style hammer. He removed the crank and flywheel and added an air cylinder.

Thanks guys, I think I see the limitations of this particular machine now. Not very versatile, needs a full stroke so its squish is all or nothing, and slow to change the gap. Probably not much use for me.

You can put notching dies, shear dies, or punch dies into a machine like that (not sure about that machine though) and have something very useful for sheet metal work, especially if there are certain features that are getting repeated in similar size on many parts.
Phil

It's a 15-20 ton punch press. If you don't know anything about them, you don't want it. Then again, there was a thread where a guy was using one in the same manner as a fly press.

I think this is what Grant is talking about.

If you want to use it to make "Damascus" billets, and it has a fixed stroke, one possibility would be to have various thicknesses of plate to place on the base platen and reduce your billet in a number of stages to the required thickness, this should work if you plan your stages right, and keep your billet hot.

Failure modes for such presses are generally quite unpleasant. I would not suggest trying to use it as it is for smithing; but as mentioned it could be used as a frame to build an air hammer on. Not worth paying much more than scrap rate if you do though.

You could add an adjustable tool holder and I would guess it could be used simmilar to a Pullmax machine.

brad

Peacock's mention of turning this into a hydraulic press is valid as that's what I did to my old punch press when the clutch went bad and started to double tap. I prefer my hands to have all fingers attached. The conversion also gives you an unneeded heavy fly wheel and crank shaft to play with. Don't pay much above scrap thou as there are a fair number of these old things out there.

HI every body jim here I am a maintenance fitter in a press shop. We run presses like these every day. I would like advise that if you don't know anything about this type of press don,t mess with them. They are unforgiving if not set right,if brake is not set to stop on top dead center the ram can drop or they can dub all stroke and if it gets stuck on the bottom it's very hard to get off you may have to cut tool out with oxy torch witch I have done. THey are good for blanking but not much else.