Junkyard find - Fly press

[kuzuzu]

Hello to all! 

I bought a couple of days ago this fly press. It weights 700 kg and has a 3 lead screw. The fly wheel diameter is 120 cm (47 inches). I did find some German inscriptions on it, a serial number and a logo that seems to be three letters "CKZ". If anyone has any info about the origins of that tool and/or the pressing power of it, it would be nice to know. The wheel is stuck but according to the junkyard salesman it used to spin freely a couple of years ago, I am not sure if it will turn to be a good buy or a failure. For now i plan to soak everything into petrol for a week or two and after that try to spin the wheel. If it turns there is a question: should i leave it or proceed to a full restoration? I am not sure but i think it will be better to dismantle everything , electrolytic remove all rust, polish all parts, paint the body and reassemble the little monster. Thanks in advance! Any feedback is welcome!

Victor

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[Anachronist58]

The first line is the fellow's name -
Carl Kreuse. The second line would normally indicate the town of manufacture, but I can't make out  the letters.

I speculate that you will have good success with a restoration - I have mixed feelings about a total take down - if you have the time, strip it down and clean it up. The paint probably has lead in it, so take care.

I am thinking that one should be about six tons.

Robert Taylor

[John McPherson]

Second line looks like "Reulenrod", which turns up nothing on google except the germanic word for "ray".

[ThomasPowers]

They are fairly simple items.  If you have shop room and time a restoration would make for a lovely tool in very fine working order.

I have a large old screwpress that was pretty much unused in a back corner of a toolroom in a factory and so only needed cleaning and lubrication and was amazed at how helpful it was when I had a proper toolholder made for it---slitting 1" thick tool steel in 1 heat! (high alloy slitting chisel)

[Kozzy]

Since the paint is unsalvageable....

This one appears to have quite good castings.  However, A lot of this older stuff actually has pretty rough sand castings under the paint.  In the good/bad old days they "japanned" such castings with what is basically shellac and filler:  It's like an early version of bondo to smooth a rough sand casting. It tends to be a bit soft and bonds to the surface a bit like tar.   I don't really see it here but just warning that when you go to remove the old paint, you might find that problematic undercoat.  

The best way I have found to deal with this kind of heavy paint load or the "japanning" is using a needle scaler to remove the old coatings.  They work quite well but do take a LOT of compressed air CFM to get the job done.  A needle scaler will not blow paint chips everywhere like pressure washing or sandblasting will.  It doesn't create as much fine dust as sanding will.

To replace that japanning and end up with a top-notch resto (if you wanted to go that far), there are body filler glazes available now.  These are not designed to go on thick like bondo and are spread quite thin as an undercoat just to smooth some surface roughness. Gives a nicer result on a fancy resto than a ton of thicker paint layers.

[kuzuzu]

Ok that was helpful!

I found the maker: Carl Kneusel Zeulenroda.  and the logo on a manual frontpage!

I was thinking to take the remaining of the paint off with some chemical paint remover. I am unfamiliar with the term "japanning" but Google told me that it means a high polished paint finish. (maybe like car paint?) 

The cheapest needle scaler costs here about 90 euros. I bought the press for 200 euros, i was looking for a cheaper method. But we will see..

Thank you all for the help!

 

[Kozzy]

26 minutes ago, kuzuzu said:

I am unfamiliar with the term "japanning" but Google told me that it means a high polished paint finish. (maybe like car paint?) 

In the old-school restoration world, it's basically the same product give or take---but used only to build up a surface rather than build and polish.  There were a lot of variations on "japanning" in the metal crafts world--often sawdust and boiled linseed oil for example, lead additions, shellac and clay etc.  It was one of those areas where entrepreneurs were trying to come up with the next great filler to make a buck.  The inside of a lot of wood plane castings were also "Japanned"

Here is an example of what happens when you remove the japanning from a 1910 casting and only paint (in this case, I rolled pretty heavily and clearly missed some pits).  Prior to removing all the japanning and old paint, you would have thought that was a beautifully smooth casting.  No pits or roughness were showing.  Wish I had taken the time to glaze it before repainting now.  Wouldn't have made the machine work any better but I'd feel better about the job I did. 

Anyway---I only brought it up as a side note for those interested in higher-end resto work.  Most of the forge stuff is better when you leave it in its rough natural state.  More honest.

[kuzuzu]

scraping the paint off with a knife revealed what seems to be a weld.

pfff...shall i continue restoring? or will it be a loss of time?

by the way, this is how the big surfaces look without the paint, not sure if the photo captures reality...it is a bit rough like concrete. If i want it to be super fancy i suppose i will have to use some kind of filler.

[ThomasPowers]

If the weld looks well done and no visible cracks around it go ahead. Industrial equipment often gets used, abused and repaired.  I remember when a big stamping press broke at a factory I worked in.  They preheated it for several days and then spent a week welding it back up---as in 24 hours a day for 7 days straight---had to cycle welders in and out due to the heat!

If you need a filler check to see what is available for car body repair---here in the USA Bondo is a common brand.  You can apply it to a clean rough surface with a flexible spatula and then sand it smooth. It takes paint well, is pretty easy to work and not extremely expensive---hence it's use for car repairs.

Me, I'd clean down to bare metal (sandblast?) and go over it with boiled linseed oil as I think the tools showing their "scars" is a great look!   Arrrggghhh!

[Judson Yaggy]

Where is the repair?  Hard to tell in the photo, perhaps the upper part of the ram guide?  If so not a high stress area when in use, most force on the frame is on the lower end of the guides/dovetails, most fly presses that I have seen the ram vacates the upper part of the guide at bottom of stroke.  Perhaps a repair from the press falling over or being struck.  As long as it still works, carry on!

Where in Greece are you?  I visited for a month about 5 years ago, very much want to go back!  Only found one other blacksmith there, a younger fellow with a shop near Kardamili on the Mani Peninsula.  Of course the temple of Hephaestus in Athens was awesome!

[kuzuzu]

the weld is indeed on the upper part of the ram guide, left side. It seems to be well done and no ruptures are visible. I will continue soaking in petrol and we will see if it turns out  (pun intended) to be any good. 

I am at the region of Ilia, the most famous part of the area near me that you may know is ancient Olympia. Nice to hear you visited Mani!!! 

[kuzuzu]

couldn't resist...

the wheel now spins well. It i seems that with some twisting it gradually gets better. 

here a photo with the ram up! very happy! the screw seems to be it very nice condition shiny an all. The question remains: oil it and live it as it is or dissasemble and restore? we will see, i am flirting with the idea of living it as it is. rat-flypress style, maby a clear coat

[rhitee93]

It is nice to see it working

A restored tool with clean pain is very nice to have, but there is some magic to the rat-rod (or rat-press  ) concept too.

Until recently, I had a 1972 Triump Spitfire.  This car was the absolute bottom rung of the British collector car world, and mine was pretty much a  rat-rod.  Mechanically it was in great shape, and I put 6000 miles a year on it for the 6 years I owned it.  However, it didn't have an interior, the top was useless so I never put it up, and the paint was in terrible shape.

I like a show car as much as the next guy, but what I found with the Spit was that I could drive it any where and enjoy myself.  No worries about dings in a parking lot, or picking up stone chips on the highway.  I wouldn't even notice if it picked up another scratch.  I could enjoy the car with no worries at all, and at the end of the day, I was still in the coolest car at the intersection 9 times out of 10.

It's your press.  If you want to run it a while as found, then go for it.  You can always restore it later if the mood strikes you, but you can't take it back to the as found condition very easily.

 

[kuzuzu]

update: i am trying to upload a video of the press spinning. Does the wheel look like it spins freely enough? Lack of experience makes me wonder...While going down it spins much faster and effortless than going up. Gravity i suppose.

wire brush on an angle grinder seems to do nice. Takes off rust and old paint but lives some of the old patina. just warming up..

[Anachronist58]

When one has such a high-angle screw, the downstroke is more like dropping, and the upstroke, more like lifting, the ram. Were you to have a "zero pitch" screw, I.e., no screw at all, you would be lifting the entire dynamic assembly without mechanical advantage, I.e., by muscle alone.

If you move the handwheel slowly, you should be able to sense whether there is drag, or friction, or not.

Hope that helps,

Robert Taylor

[kuzuzu]

I have a question. What should be the working height of the press? I am thinking to make a concrete base for my press so that the spinning wheel is above my head and the table of the press at a height that i will be able to work standing. Any ideas?

[Glenn]

Be sure the rotating wheel, balls, handle are above head high plus a little. (do not ask). 

Height should be a comfortable working height for YOU. Consider that there may be others in your shop that are taller than you.

Make some sort of safety devise that locks the handwheel into a stationary position when not in use. People want to play with things that move without a clue as to the dangers.

[kuzuzu]

Ok! Thank you for the reply. I suspect that mounting the press will be more expensive than the press itself...

[VaughnT]

Height should definitely be something that's comfortable as well as getting the wheel/handle/weights up above where you're likely to bash yourself as you walk by.  Nothing worse than turning around and having that weight run down the threads and smack you in the noggin.  No reason to have the table down low where you need to stoop down to see what's going on in there.

Think about how your kitchen counters hit you.  Is it comfortable to stand there chopping vegetables or would you like the counter a few inches lower so you can stoop down, bend over and wreck your back?

All it takes is a small pad of heavy timbers to raise the nice cast-iron base up a few inches.  Just make sure everything is bolted solidly to the floor so the press doesn't walk across the shop.

As for the finish, I'm a big fan of the industrial look and would simply give the whole thing a good cleaning and an oil finish.  Paint can be nice, but I like seeing the bare iron with a nice oil to protect it against rust.  Paint can chip and scratch, or melt when you hit it with some hot iron.  A good coat of oil, though, is easy to touch up and you're going to be oiling the screw and ways anyhow.

Gorgeous bit of kit.  I've been looking for just such a press but haven't had any luck so far.  I wish you all the best in your adventures.

[kuzuzu]

I think i am going to stick with the a reinforced concrete base plan, it will cost more for me to find the material and craft the timber one, and i am afraid it will be more prone to flexing. The height will be enough for me (i am1.9 meters talll) and if anyone comes to work with the press a wooden pallete on the floor will have to do. For the looks of the flypress i will use a rust converter and after that a few thin hands of linseed oil, or maybe just the linseed oil (me likes red rust color).

 

Currently i cannot diside: 

1)if i need to make two new allen screws to replace the old slotted ones (i am leaning towards "not needed" ) 

and

2)if i need to completely dismantle the ram to lubricate with grease. Is just external greasing gonna be sufficient?

 

this is the screw and it holds the horizontal bar on witch it rests

 

(piston valve recycled punch)

[ThomasPowers]

Around here the "industrial look" seems to be 20 layers of enamel paint +/- wear.

[kuzuzu]

I can' t find in any of my near by shops boiled linseed oil. What if i use raw? Will it do the job?

[ThomasPowers]

It will remain sticky for a long time.

[George N. M.]

I don't know what is available in your part of the world but adding something like turpentine or some other dryer to the linseed oil may mitigate the drying/stickiness issue.

[Frosty]

I believe naptha is the main ingredient in "Japan driers" this side of the Atlantic.

If you warm the anvil to the temp of a fresh cup of coffee / tea and apply a good paste wax and wipe off the excess it'll be well protected. I use Trewax, a carnuba paste wax used for bowling alleys and it has to be sanded off to strip for refinishing the alley lanes. It's double tough stuff. "Carnuba" is the type wax.

Frosty The Lucky.