Screw Press (Try Press)

[Sanderson Iron]

This is a 35 ton screw press, or try press, made in Grand Rapids, Michigan by the Jereki Company.  If I remember right, the date on it is 1910, but I could be wrong. It's not intended for hot work.  It's very slow.  It's made to try your dies (therefore a "try" press) before you put them under power and heat.  It has one large hole in the table and many 3/4-10 holes in the head and the table for bolting dies in position.  I use this all the time.  It's particularly nice for fitting embossing dies--where the punch enters the die--using copper test pieces to gauge the relief needed.  Cold copper behaves a bit like hot iron, so if you test your dies with copper, cold and slow, you can tell what areas are still contacting too much and need more relief.  Anyway, I thought somebodies might like to see this.  I picked it up in 2010.   Great tool.  

Is anyone else here using a screw press? 

Joel

[Kevin Olson]

Cool. How big is it? Is this a powered machine or do you crank it by hand. I would like to see more of the shop. Looks like a nice space. I see a line shaft.  Cool!

[ThomasPowers]

Lots of smiths use fly presses and screw presses.  I have an old hopkins #2 that came out of the tool room at the WeCo Factory in Columbus Ohio when they auctioned it off about 15 years ago, cost me about US$100 total.  PICTURE IS NOT MY PRESS--but it's the *exact* same screwpress as I have.  Got a friend who does coining with presses, you can see his work at shirepost.com  

 

 

Folks interested in more press stuff; take a look here: https://www.abana.org/ronreil/flypress.shtml

[Sanderson Iron]

The press I showed a picture of, Thomas, is a much different animal than the percussion presses popular in blacksmiths' shops.  People sometimes call those screw presses, but really they are percussion presses or fly presses.  The percussion press has a double or triple screw, and the ram is propelled downwards by the momentum of the flywheel.  (I know you know that--just explaining the difference here.) The press I use has a single thread, and a relatively fine one at that.  It is very slow.  It is not intended for forging.  There is a handle that fits into a ratchet that clicks in and out of the teeth around the wheel, (which you can see in the picture) rotating the wheel either downwards or upwards.  

It is hand powered,  Kevin.  And yes, my shop is all line driven, powered by a Reid engine made in 1898.  

[ThomasPowers]

Fly presses are usually 3-5 lead screws and Screw presses 1-2 lead; my hopkins is a 2 lead screw.  You're right in that you tend not to get the bounce of a press with more leads on the thread; but It's done a lot of nice things for me.  My friend TM once had a press with a very large platen that used to be used for making the pressed tin ceiling tiles.  Well suited for pressing thin metal into a die but not for trying to focus the power in a small area.  His first press came from the old packard plant where it was used for body work.

[Sanderson Iron]

There is no bounce whatsoever to this kind of press, Thomas.  It squeezes.  That's it.  It is not a percussion press.  It is built very differently than your Hopkins.  It is ratcheted downwards or upwards.  Single thread/lead screw presses give a slow, quiet push.  It is a try press for testing dies, pressing bearings, broaching, straightening shafts and that sort of thing.  It's nice for straightening shafts, because it's convenient to mount an indicator on it, and the push is so slow and controlled.  I find it to be very useful, especially like I said earlier, for testing embossing dies with copper.   Don't know if anyone on here's doing that kind of work or not, but I thought I'd throw it out there and see.  

Do you happen to remember the two that showed up on a trailer at Quastate in, oh, I think it was 2006?  They were single lead presses and built like this one but by some other company I don't recall.  Nobody was interested in them, said they were slow, and they left on the trailer that brought them.  I remember talking about them with Patrick, but I don't remember if you were there for the conversation or not.  

Kevin, I forgot to answer your question about how tall it is.  It's about eight feet.  There's another Jerek press in a salvage yard a couple miles from me that has an extension, making it two feet taller.  I think it's a factory extension, though I could be wrong.  I tried to buy it before I found this one, but they use it there in their shop and wouldn't let it go.  

 

[Sanderson Iron]

It was kinda rude of me to say this press is different than a percussion press and then not give pictures to explain.  Here're some to show it better.  The ratchet/dog, which you can see in the second picture, can be flipped either way to move the ram upwards or downwards.  You can imagine how slow it is--you stand and move that handle about two feet back and forth in order to move one tooth in that big gear.  I counted the teeth once, and I think there are 48.  If so, that means 24" of handle movement gives 1/48th of a revolution.  It's something like that, anyway.  If you take the gear and try to throw it, it only goes a quarter turn or so. 

This press is absolutely quiet.  If you've ever used an hydraulic H-frame press, you'll know that when you press a bearing in or out, it goes a wee bit and then POPS and then goes a wee bit more and POPS.  That's the frame stretching and bending.  This press doesn't do that--it just pushes steadily until it's done and never says a word.  

[Jim Coke]

Greetings Joel, 

Beautiful piece of equipment. Thank you for your explanation and pictures. It is a fine example of leverage and the inclined plane to multiply force..  I can see the original use as being able to see how the dies and material perform prior to installation into a more rapid production press . 

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim

[Sanderson Iron]

Thanks, Jim.  I just love old technology.  

Here are a couple dies I've made and fitted by testing with copper with this press.  I kept a copper test piece just to show folks.  There were some earlier tests which cut through the copper where there was not enough clearance between the punch and die. Once they work right with cold copper in the try press, then I go ahead and mount them in the toggle press and give it a go with hot iron and engine power.  The last shot's a tableI used some of the embossed fans on. 

If anyone here's doing this sort of thing and has some suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them.  

[Alan Evans]

Wonderful machine.

I would love to see some of your stripping dies and hear about about the necessary shearing angle allowances you make.

Does your love of old technology extend to the forming and stripping die manufacture? Or do you succumb to laser or water jet profiling? 

Alan

[Sanderson Iron]

Yes Alan, I make all my dies, including shearing, cutting and punching.  I've never had a die made for me.  Everyone has to set rules for themselves, and that's one of mine. You learn so much about your material and process if you make all your dies, but the main thing is it means the design possibilities are not limited to what someone else can do for you or understand what you want.  Besides, if it worked a hundred years ago, it'll work just as well now. The only thing I send out is my heat treating.  I don't consider that to be part of design.    

I don't have any pictures of the sheering dies for the embossed forms on hand, but here are some smaller punch and dies.  Same idea, more or less.  I punch out the parts hot.  My toggle press is only about 20 tons or so, so doing it hot lets me do a whole lot more. Also, the sheering angles and fit are more forgiving with hot iron than with cold.  

The first picture shows what will be cut out--two little flowers. I carefully cut them out by hand and then trace the outline in layout ink on the die blank.  Then I remove all I can in the little Becker mill.  (pics 2 & 3)  Once it's as close as I dare make it, I move on to the pneumatic die grinder and a carbide burr.  (No pic--sorry.)  I try to get some angle in at that point, but it's only by eye.  The final fit is with the die filer, which gives the relief and close fit I'm after. (pic 4) This machine has a table that tilts in all directions, an adjustable stroke and four speeds.  

The punch is turned on the lathe first, (pic 6) and then ground and filed only by hand, (pic 7) because I can't use the die filer for this particular shape, where the base is larger than the punch face.  It's tedious, but because it's all OD it's not that bad.  The last pictures shows a table on which I used these little girls (and a fan, I noticed!).  The flowers are on the back.   

This is a wee bit off track, but since I started this thread, I guess that's okay.  I don't care if you don't.  Dies are so fun.  

[jumbojak]

That's fascinating. I like the pulley drive system in your shop too. Never knew there were different types of presses that operated in this way. Well, more research for me to do.... thanks for sharing!

[ianinsa]

Well SI(sorry I did not pick up a first name anywhere? )  It looks like a really nice shop that you have there. Also they say jealousy and/or envy makes you nasty, any I'm going a little green right now! 

Your work looks really high end( read Awesome) I wish that I had learnt to use my equipment as well as you seem to use yours. Thanks for sharing.

[Sanderson Iron]

Thanks, Ianinsa, but I've got an awful lot to learn.  In fact, I'm in the process of making a die that I'm not even sure will work.  I'll find out after another week's work.  Ha!  (Another reason not to pay someone to make my dies!)

Here's another press, Jumbojak.   It's the toggle press I mentioned, which I use for all this embossing and punching we're talking about here.  It's more ridged than an OBI, so it doesn't need a sub press for alignment.  Someone once told me this type of press is called a horn press, but I haven't encountered that term in any literature.  It's a good machine, made in Toledo, Ohio some time in the late 19th C.    

 

Joel Sanderson

 

[jumbojak]

So, the first press slowly ratchets down to test a die which will be used in another press for the production run, right? For that you use the toggle press, which I gather is a more rigid version of a standard flypress, though it seems to be powered and have a flywheel that's mounted vertically instead of horizontally overhead, like a flypress? And a flypress uses percussive force generated by the mass of the flywheel to form a part?

Sorry if these seem like silly questions but I'm having a bit of trouble making out the images. It's not that they aren't clear, I'm just gradually going blind and attempting to look at them on a small screen.

[Sanderson Iron]

Yes, the screw press slowly ratchets down in order to test dies while they're being made.  Then they are fitted into the power press for production. 

Do you know what a punch press is?  Well, that's what this is.  There's a crank, and on one end of the crank there is an arm which connects to the ram, the head, or whatever you want to call it, and there's a flywheel on the other end.  The flywheel spins with the belt, and there's a dog clutch ("clicker clutch") that engages the shaft when you press the pedal, which makes the ram go down and back up again.  If you hold pedal down, it keeps going until you release it, and then it stops at the top of the stroke.  It always goes to the same point and returns.  That's really, really nice.  For instance, in the punching operation I showed the dies for, you want the punch to go just into the die and return.  Same with the embossing operation.  You can set the position of the ram to just where you want it, and it'll always go there and return.  

There's a really common version of this, called an OBI (Open Back Incline) that has an open frame to pass parts through, and it rocks (inclines) so that parts will drop out when they're punched (and for other reasons).  

Neither press behaves like a fly press.  A fly press is a percussion press, which doesn't have that solid link on a crank.  Its stroke is not specific.  The head on a percussion press moves until the energy in the flywheel is spent, which means it doesn't always make the same stroke, either in power or in position.  That lets you do veritable things, freehand, while the toggle press can only do the same, repeated operation until you change its setup. 

The toggle press is a very important part of my shop.  In fact, some of my pieces have more work with the toggle press than with the power hammer.  I think it's an overlooked machine by most of today's blacksmiths. 

Joel

 

[jumbojak]

I had never seen a punch press before but now I think I understand its use, and why it would be powered. The only presses I was farmiliar with before reading this thread were the flypress and the hydraulic press. Hateful things those hydraulic presses - had a piece of metal fly out of one once!

So the procedure would be to make the die, test the die using copper on the try press, make adjustments as necessary to the die, and then go into production with steel on the toggle press? That sounds like very satisfying work to me.

What sort of production rates can you maintain on this sort of equipment? I recently watched a video put out by Cornwell outlining their wrench production and they had a rate of roughly one wrench every two minutes using multiple drop forging hammers and a continuous production line. I imagine that tooling changes would make a big difference using the type of equipment you have available.

[Sanderson Iron]

I can't give you any actual times off the top of my head.  I'm a bit different than a production line.  I make art, you see, ornamental ironwork, so I don't make parts to sell, but rather, parts for art to sell.  The only way I can justify making the tooling and dies like this is to make parts which interact with each other, letting them be used in many different ways and combinations.  For example, the 9-scrolls I showed on the back of the table above have the same curve as the sides of the fans; this lets the fans and scrolls be used side by side for a totally different appearance.  On the other table, you can see that the C-scrolls share that curve as well, so they also can be used with the fans.  I also have little arches which match that curve.  The more the dies interact, the more the cost of making them is depreciated.  

My wife works with me, but not every day, so when she comes in, I have things set up so that she can make parts efficiently.  That efficiency, plus the multiple application of the parts, off-sets the time to make the dies.  (I suppose that's pretty obvious.)  Yes, it is very satisfying.  It's really rewarding to me to think through a process--often one no one else has done--and then make it work well and see Jenny put it into action.   

 

[jumbojak]

On a related but slightly different note, I'm curious about the use of a die filer. I looked them up and even saw a few examples of them running but am wondering if they can be used for more than just squaring up a piece and how that would be accomplished. I can't see the use of a square reciprocating file when a mill would almost certainly work more quickly for squaring up, but can't see how the filer would be used for more sophisticated work than that. 

 

[ThomasPowers]

Put a chainsaw file in the die filer and work on the inside curves of ornate guards for knives and swords.

[Sanderson Iron]

The die filer is for the final cut on the die and punch (both internal and external).  It's more of a hand machine, because you hold the work by hand and move it around the file, gently and carefully making your radii, corners and cutting edge, with your face close to it where you can see it.  The table may be tilted too.  This lets you file an angled cut, giving the relief for the punch to enter the die and for your part to pass through.  You don't have to use round files, of course, so you're not limited to round internals like you are with a mill, where you can never machine an internal square, for example.  There is another machine, called a die slotter, which is more or less an upright shaper, that can do square internals and also cut the relief, but it's still necessary to finish the cutting edge with the filer.  It's not a machine that takes off much material.  

I've never used my die filer for anything other than dies, but I suppose you could.  

 

Sure, why not, Thomas?  Seems like a person could easily hold a saw blade too and turn it into a scroll saw.  Never have, but it's crossed my mind.  

[jumbojak]

Ah, I hadn't thought of using it similarly to a broach. And rounding corners and radii with round files would be very handy. For some reason the thought of using a round file didn't cross my mind. Thank you again! You too Thomas. This is a machine I'll have to keep an eye out for. Most of the information I found referred to its obsolescence, at least in the tool and die industry, but I can think of a lot of uses for a machine like that.  

[Jim Coke]

Greetings all, 

       I was fortunate a few years ago and found quit a few NOS  die filler files .  The triangle ones work very well for clean up on outside edges of elements and allow you to get into sharp areas.. Saw blades can be used but because of the saw set your parts will bounce on the table and make your fingers go to sleep. Round files can add interesting accents also. A real time saver and you can sit down to do your work.. That's what I got.. Have fun. 

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim

[Sanderson Iron]

6 hours ago, jumbojak said:

Ah, I hadn't thought of using it similarly to a broach. And rounding corners and radii with round files would be very handy. For some reason the thought of using a round file didn't cross my mind. Thank you again! You too Thomas. This is a machine I'll have to keep an eye out for. Most of the information I found referred to its obsolescence, at least in the tool and die industry, but I can think of a lot of uses for a machine like that.  

Blacksmiths can't listen to other peoples' ideas about what's obsolete, or we'd have to throw out our power hammers, shapers and camel backs! Shucks, I'd be left with nothing but an anvil and a welder.  Nope, scratch that--just a welder!

Do you have a picture of your filer, Jim?  I'd love to see it.

[Jim Coke]

Greetings Joel, 

Mine is just the common motor driven Oliver. No pictures but next time out to the  farm I will snap some.  OBSOLETE .. What's that..  You should see the reaction of people in my shop when I dig out a tool that they have cast off years ago and show them a new found function ., 

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim