forgemaster Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 This is a carry over from the HT section and a thread on there. Basically we made a set of swages for our press and it has saved us approx 3 heats in the finishing stages of these eye bolts. They are 4340 as forged material, and they are made to swage to 150mm dia. Prior to making these, we were rough rounding these eye bolts under plain dies in the press and it took ages to get a good hammer like finish. With these swages we forge to a rough (and I mean rough) 150 oct then get a heat on the whole shank, have the dies in the press and one heat later they are on the floor cooling off. As I was taught when I was an apprentice, "Phil the quicker you can get your job into the swages the quicker you can have it finished". The only thing we have to do now is to effect a better means of retaining the swages in the press, to stop them from moving about too much. The eye bolts are rope adjusting bolts for Marion draglines operating in Queensland open cut coal mines. They start life as 250KG of 280 dia 4340 black as rolled round bar. After forging we profile cut the heads to shape, then have to get these proof machined to 5mm per side over size, they have to undergo full ultrasound, and we have to supply certs for Chemical, tensile, and hardness to standards. Then they go to Sydney to be finish machined to have a 5" dia unf thread on the shank, lube holes drilled, bore machined etc etc. then go north to Queensland to our customer. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 Wow! That looks like some big work and a big press! How many ton is it? What's holding the swages in place? Nice job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewOC Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 neat stuff Phil. At that big joint i worked at for a year, we had basically a pair of triangles with holes in the corners to hold the top swage. the single hole (was uppermost), matched a hole thru the middle of the top plain die. The bottom corner holes lined up with a pair thru the swages. kinda the same set up as yours only upside down. I dunno what the benefit was, maybe self centring? Everything was a rattling good fit, so much so it annoyed the hell out of me- loudly clanking away all day, squishing out rail car axles. The bottom die, i don't remember so well. I think there was non-tapered dovetails on the floor plate and four 1-1/2" tee bolts at the corners of the die block (1" flange at the bottom short sides). Ah press work... get it right first heat, 'cos it won't fit in the furnace for a second heat! (eh Phil) c ya, AndrewOC ps probably will go to Ironfest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillon Sculpture Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 Mmmmm..... Yummy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeddly Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 Sweet steel! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forgemaster Posted March 25, 2012 Author Share Posted March 25, 2012 I have some photos of the press die holding system of a forge shop near albury that does a bit of forging, I am going to use their method of attachment, basically a parralell key in the middle of the blocks to hold the dies in line and a slot arrangement/Tee bolt system to attach the dies to the upper plattern Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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