[TheForge] Hydraulic Press

Sat Mar 19 16:53:46 EDT 2011

Thanks Dave;
Appreciate your voice of experience..
That's what spooked me about the accumulator idea.
Hadn't thought to preheat the dies for some reason...good.

On Mar 19, 2011, at 1:46 PM, David E. Smucker wrote:

> Start with preheating the dies.  This isn't something just for blacksmiths 
> or bladesmith, it is an important part in the forging industry.  Preheat can 
> be as simple as a heavy hunk of steel heated to a good red / orange heat 
> held between the dies with low clamping force.  Dies at 300 F will make a 
> big difference in the rate of cooling of the work piece in actual forging. 
> (Works on your anvil too.)
> 
> I would not go the route of an accumulator because this is just more stored 
> energy if there is a problem -- and most likely worse more stored hydraulic 
> oil.
> 
> There are two great risk I see in home made hydraulic presses.  One is the 
> great stored energy present in a loaded press that fails.  A huge spring 
> sending metal flying all over the place.  If you have ever seen the damage 
> done by the failure of some part of a crane lifting a 100 ton load you will 
> understand that this can kill you several times over.  (Once is enough for 
> most blacksmiths, most of us only get one life, Frosty is working on number 
> 2 or 3).
> 
> The second great risk is of fire from a failure in the hydraulic hose or 
> pipe system on a press.  With HOT metal we always have present a way to 
> light off the oil mist from a leak or hose break.  The safest presses I have 
> seen are the "pull down" presses that can put all of the hydraulics below 
> the work piece and can shield all of the hoses / pipe so that a leak has 
> limited chance to spray oil on the hot metal.  In industrial applications a 
> fire ball from a major leak has killed a number of operators and also burned 
> down a number of press operations.
> 
> Dave Smucker
> 
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "peter fels" <artgawk at thegrid.net>
> Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2011 4:20 PM
> To: "Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Hydraulic Press
> 
>> I'd add that 2 of the 3 100 ton hydr presses i've seen doing hot work at 
>> full capacity,
>> distorted alarmingly under load. Those 2 were home made by competent 
>> smiths.
>> Which brings me to pose a problem .
>> Hydraulic presses are by nature slow. Under pressure, the dies suck the 
>> heat out of hot work fast.
>> How does one go about either reducing the speed of heat drain or 
>> increasing the speed of die travel under load?
>> A stainless or titanium die set might make a bit of difference.
>> Would a large accumulator work to speed up the dies?
>> Other solutions?
>> 
>> On Mar 19, 2011, at 6:56 AM, John Allen wrote:
>> 
>>> Talking with my engineer buddy for the nuclear plant. He told me before 
>>> that
>>> if you build a header for a door, if you double the width of the beam, 
>>> you
>>> increase the strength by 10%. If you double the height (in 1 piece of
>>> course) you gain 100% more strength.
>>> 
>>> Square / Rec Tubing is hands down the strongest steel out there. The 
>>> problem
>>> with it is workability. You don't build a skyscraper out of tubing 
>>> because
>>> you can't bolt to it, can't add sections easily, it is bulky and the cost 
>>> is
>>> higher to make then I beams. Now pertaining that to your frame, you would
>>> need to have 6x6 x1/2" walls, but now they are 6" wide, you can use a 
>>> beam
>>> with similar strength and 8" tall and 5" wide. The best and worst thing 
>>> with
>>> commercially made stuff is that they already figure out what materials 
>>> best
>>> to use. Why.... because if they made things with what they want to make 
>>> them
>>> out of, then the competitors will use what sells by price versus what is
>>> right.
>>> 
>>> If you buy an apple from your local farmer for  50 cents and the grocery
>>> store for 48 cents, everything is the same since they are both big, 
>>> juicy,
>>> and red right? Well that one from the store could be from South America 
>>> and
>>> was picked early to ripen on the truck up here, and sprayed with 
>>> chemicals
>>> that the US has banned. Well, that just says never take any shortcuts in
>>> especially things that could go wrong.
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> John Allen
>>> Country Metals, LLC
>>> (856) 542-4316 (cell)
>>> (856) 504-0087 (fax)
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