[TheForge] Re: Fly Press

[Mike Spencer]

I don't know about a final answer to the terminology for these presses
but I'll add my two bits worth.

The only fly presses I've see and played with were in England where
they're more often seen than on our side of the pond.  What the Brits
call a fly press has a screw like the one shown in the photo on this
page:

   http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/nut.html

After such ma press is closed on the workpiece, it has to be manually
reversed to lift the ram.  The cool feature is that both advance and
retraction of the ram are very fast because the coarse thread is in
play when there's no upward load on the ram.  The fine thread comes
into play when ther *is* a load.

As I saw them used, you spin the overhead wheel, advancing the ram
fast.  just as it hits the work, you grab the wheel and throw your
weight onto it, using the fine thread to get lots of pressure.

Twenty tears ago, Stuart Hill, originator of the Claydon Clamp, had no
power hammer and used such a press. I also saw one in an
architectural ceramics plant that had been used to press ornamental
tiles from damp clay powder. (That's where the photo came from.)

FWIW,
- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada 
                                 
mspencer@tallships.ca            
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/