brucegodlesky Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 I saw these pictures at the NW Pa steam show on Friday. I believe this is from the Mesta machine shop in Homestead Pa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeatGuy Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 That is the mesta 50k ton press.http://files.asme.org/ASMEORG/Communities/History/Landmarks/5488.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted August 6, 2008 Share Posted August 6, 2008 At the Henry vogt Machine Co. in louisville Ky, we had a somewhat similar press. It was a BLH, 1100 ton. Ran on Water hydraulic fluid, and was built in 1913. Scrapped in 1993 or 1994. Every Liberty ship and victory ship ever made had the steam headers made in the HVM press. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucegodlesky Posted August 6, 2008 Author Share Posted August 6, 2008 Thanks guys for the correction. There were other photos posted of area mills and equipment. Amazing!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawg Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 Go"s to show you how much of our heavy industry is gone. I worked in forgeing plants in the 90s most, Press" were antiques that were rebuilt and had modern controls they still werent past there prime. This was drop forgeing buy the way not to confuse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monstermetal Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 There was this 50,000 ton press as wellhttp://files.asme.org/ASMEORG/Communities/History/Landmarks/5662.pdf I got to take a walk through Jorgenson Forge here in Seattle and stand up close to there 5000 ton forging press... they also have a "little" 600 ton press... And I have the nerve to call my 300lb hammer "big" I cant imagine what a 50,000 ton machine would be like to see in operation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JNewman Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 I have a couple of the guys who worked in the shop my 5cwt (600lb) hammer came out of. My hammer is refered to as "The Little Hammer". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monstermetal Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 I have a couple of the guys who worked in the shop my 5cwt (600lb) hammer came out of. My hammer is refered to as "The Little Hammer". I joked with the guys at Jorgenson that you could "squish" my 3b in there big press... For that matter it would fit in there forge... One of the things I watched them forge was the aluminum rings that make up the docking ports on the space station... They started with a slug of solid aluminum that was 18" in diameter and about 3 feet long... Squished it, pierced it and forged it out to a ring that is about a foot wide, 8 inches thick and 15 feet in diameter.... and is perfectly round Another thing I found really impressive was the fact they make there own steel... way back when they could not get billets of the correct alloys (they mostly work in stainless alloys) so they just made it. The ingots they pour are either 12" about 20" square depending on need.... I tried to buy one of the "tails" that had been forged on just because I thought it would be cool to make a stand or base out of this huge forged chunk of material... They said "sure, for scrap price you can have anything out here" I got all excited till he started naming off "scrap" value for there exotic alloys... This one is about 5000 lbs and we get about $1.20 a lb... this one is 3600 lbs but we get $2.60lb for it.... I said... "oh" :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Dean Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 .... I tried to buy one of the "tails" that had been forged on just because I thought it would be cool to make a stand or base out of this huge forged chunk of material... They said "sure, for scrap price you can have anything out here" I got all excited till he started naming off "scrap" value for there exotic alloys... This one is about 5000 lbs and we get about $1.20 a lb... this one is 3600 lbs but we get $2.60lb for it.... I said... "oh" Reminds me of the commercial where the 'big mean man' give the bicycle to the little girl but won't let her out of the lines painted on the floor! You KNOW the guy was setting you up to see that dissapointed look. Wonder how many time he has done that.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonjic Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 I would love to see that 50,000 tonner running! - I stood next to a 12,000 ton that was closed die forging (I think it was the boss that holds the rotor blades on a helecopter), Big was the only descriptive word my brain came up with at the time!, well there was another word that began with 'F' before big if im honest :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted January 3, 2010 Share Posted January 3, 2010 In the Henry Vogt Machine Co forge shop, a little city block square shop in downtown Louisville KY, the 1500# Erie Steam drop forge hammer was the baby hammer used to make test bars. The next smallest was 3000# and going up to 25,000# Presses to 7000 ton. The 7000 ton was a mechanical doing closed die work. They would place a round 3.5"dia by 12" long billet vertically and squash it to 10" long just to knock the scale off and start it to shape:) That 1000 ton press in the boiler shop was pretty anti-clamatic to watch run, as it was near silent, and fairly slow. Now when they blew the safety relief valve off the 1000 gallon, 1000 pis air over water accumulator next to the press that was a bit exicting:) Cleared the entire half-million square foot shops in about 35 seconds as the noise of 1000 gallons of water vapor exiting a 2" pipe was a bit loud. I also worked in a large upsetter shop. The 10" upsetter pushed about 2400 tons. In 5 hits, in progressive dies it would push 4' of 5.5" bar back into an upset 22" flange 3" min thick. That mostly made air clutch and brake noise, and a nice explosion from the water based die lube as the part cleared the hollow dies making a steam explosion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Larson Posted February 7, 2010 Share Posted February 7, 2010 I'd like to see the machine shop that made the components of that bad boy press. Mind boggling. OK, I went back and saw the post above that shows the machine shop. Think about the challenge of achieving parallelism of the bores for the posts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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