Stamp press to power hammer conversion???

[paradox1559]

I will start by saying I will have pictures soon, and will edit my post accordingly.

A friend of mine is willing to sell me an old "toledo machine and tool" crankshaft stamp press no.1. If anyone has reliable information on them I would love it. I can't find any manuals or diagrams for this machine, as its old enough to use 4" leather drive belts. 

I want to convert it into a power hammer, for small work like knives and wrought iron. It looks as if I can easily make railroad track dies that can bolt right in, and I could even switch back to the stamp press if I wanted. I don't see any kind of springs in the ram, on the outside, so I'm worried there would be problems with locking up,  or snapping the driveshaft. The ram could be hiding spring in the guided head, but I won't know until I can get in there. 

Has anyone heard anything about a mod like this? It would save me a lot of headache. If this works, I'll be upgrading my entire operation from hobby to business.

[the iron dwarf]

you will need to add a spring as the press will be made to come down with a fixed stroke, if it cant something is likely to fail spectacularly.

hydraulic presses can be set to go to a point unless they reach the setting of the relief valve first but a crank cant do that and with a big flywheel it can be bad

[paradox1559]

Perhaps using four valve springs out of an engine, situated on each corner of the die, could give enough cushion. Maybe a fifth in the middle for good measure.

[paradox1559]

This is the same one, its from the 1890's. I'm not sure what the "no.3" differs from the "no.1"  but you get the idea for now. 

[the iron dwarf]

have used similar in 1976 but probably bigger, ones I used were about 12 feet tall

[paradox1559]

Xxxx, the little one is loud, I couldn't imagine how that sounds.

[the iron dwarf]

press I made recently is almost silent

and weighs about 70 pounds

and prob more powerful than the one in the pic

 

[BeaverNZ]

You could put a hydraulic ram in with a relief valve set only as a safety and maybe a hand pump so you could change the working height as you were worling Cheers Beaver

[paradox1559]

I don't have much room to work with. I'm going to have to machine the railroad track to get as much space as possible. I think, by the time its done, there would be 4-6 inches to work in 

[Kozzy]

You might want to re-think this project.  Not that it can't be done, but it'd take a lot more than you think to make it suitable as a generalized "freeform" forging press.  It's designed to work completely differently than the typical freeform forge press or power hammer---fixed stroke (after setting) with no give. REALLY bad things happen if you block that fixed stroke.   Resetting the stroke bottom point requires wrenches and fiddling.  By the time you get some sort of "spring" system in there to prevent the press from exploding when it hits hard material, you have about as much work into it as simply scrapping the crank and flywheel and fabbing in a hydraulic cylinder.

Now if you were using exactly the same die all the time on exactly the same material to do exactly the same forging, that might be different...

It's up to you of course...sometimes people like fiddly projects and proving out a theory.  Not trying to bust your balloon here---Just suggesting you take a look at the various hand forging presses and hammers to see what features you will need to "make happen" in a punch press like this one before you commit to the project.

 

 

[Salem Straub]

I like Beaver's suggestion... after reading this thread this morning, that was my thinking too, perhaps hydraulic with pressure relief.  A spring would not be right, as it doesn't have a ram being "thrown" per se, so the built-in safety device would have to provide more resistance than the actual forging you are normally doing could overcome.  You'd set the pressure relief to a point safely below what the frame could take, if you could arrive at that number.  The cylinder could perhaps be mounted below the bottom die perhaps, as there appears to be some room for it there.  The ability to change working height with a hand pump is something I'd not considered, an interesting idea.

[CMS3900]

If it looks like what you have in the picture then it is a OBI, or Open-Backed, Inclined press. They can be used for many things such as punching, stamping, notching and hot or cold forming in closed or semi-closed die systems.  However, when a press like this is used to form parts ALL of the math has been worked out by the engineers who designed the die; accounting for the tonnage of the press and the volume and strength of the material being formed. The press will break if it does not continue through the stroke, or the belt will slip if lucky.

Usually the work envelope on these presses is small, so a spring or cushion system there generally will not fit. Scrapping the workings of it and converting it into a hydraulic press might work if the press was large enough to accommodate the stresses, but why tear apart a perfectly good useful machine to have in the workshop. If I had the chance to get small OBI press cheap I would jump on it.  I passed a couple up a while back and regret it. If it really doesn't work for you, sell it and turn it into something else.

[JHCC]

1 hour ago, CMS3900 said:

If it really doesn't work for you, sell it and turn it into something else.

Good advice for so many of our projects, really. I had some big pieces of steel that I was wracking my brain about how to wrestle into some kind of power hammer, when I came to my senses, sold them to the scrap yard, and bought some much-needed PPE, steel stock, and coal.

[paradox1559]

I will leave the machine intact, and build an Appalachian hammer with the overhead leaf spring. I'm not sure I can bring myself to destroy the press, it still has dies and blocks so I think its best suited for its intended purpose.