$45 Forging Press

Chris Crawford

Chris Crawford

Joined
Apr 14, 2001
Messages
380
Derek Melton, also know as “dmelton” in the forums, took the day off and came to visit me in the shop. We spent the morning working on a small billet to be used for a couple of folder blades. One of our main goals was to see how well the $45 forge press I made was going to weld a billet. It worked pretty good. We took pictures and documented it. You can read about it at:

http://www.chriscrawford.com/Knives/Knife_Page.asp?Knife_Page=Craw_Mel_Damascus

Any comments, ideas, and questions are welcome.

-chris
 
All I can say is cool. I work (or run) a fully equipped repair facility. I have a pneumatic press (i think its 15 tons) plus one that goes to 60 tons. How critical is it to spread the press area? I saw that you had a rather wide area covered by the press, is that just to cover a greater area of the billet? Do you belive the same principle could be used for larger billets? Is the press necessary to weld can you just use 2 heavy plates and strike with a sledge? I want to weld dams. if anything for just some bolster material. Well anyhoo great idea. Its amazing what American ingenuity can do.
 
Blackboogers,

I'm not sure how to answer your question about how critical it is to spread the press area, but the reason that I have a large press area is because that was the size of the rail plates. Plus, the rail plates already had holes in them, so I didn't have to do any drilling or cutting. I'm no engineer by any means, but it seams like the actual size of the press area would be whatever size the billet is. For instance, if a billet has the surface area of 2" by 2", then the total amount of pressure the jack is putting out would be directed into a 4 square inches of space. The extra space on the plates would not be receiving any pressure.

The center plate that moves up and down is pretty much just balanced on top of the jack. This allows the plate to pivot a little if it needs to to get a flat surface on each side of the billet even if the billet is thicker on one side than the other.

I believe the same principal would work for larger billets, but the pressure of the jack would be dispersed more over the surface of the larger billet.

You have a good idea about using two heavy plates and hitting them with a sledge. This would apply even pressure to the billet causing it to weld evenly. However, you would need to get the plates hot so that they would not take too much heat from billet causing it to cool to soon. Also, you are going to have to work pretty fast while the billet is hot. If you had an way to the the billet between the plates in a quick manner, it may work. It would be worth trying.

If anyone out there has some engineering or any other kind of technical experience, please let us know what your opinions on this are.

-chris
 
To Cool Cris...
Do you think that this design on the press could stand up to a 30 ton jack.If so I think I will try one for making the metal sheath parts..
Bruce
 
That's a really nice job Chris. I have a question though. Do you really get a better product over hammering the steel. I've thought about something along this line before but dismissed it because of the amount of time to pump it.
 
Bruce, I don't beleive you would have any trouble with a 30 ton jack. I would think that the more pressure the better. If you are forming metal parts like bowie shells and metal sheaths, you would not have to worry about working as fast as when making damascus.

Peter,
As for me, I do get a better product with the press than I was getting using a hammer. One reason may be that I just not that good at making damascus yet. The last couple of billets that I made before using the press had small flaws in them. I've found nothing but perfect welds so far with the press. Keep in mind that I've only been working small billets. I took the 4 inch billet that I made on the press and drew it out to 7 inches on the Little Giant. I then cut it in half and ground a small folder blade. I didn't find any flaws in the blade. The nice thing about the press is that all of the layer get welded level. If you leave the press open just enough to get the billet in, it only takes about 2 pumps before you are putting pressure on it. All pumps after that are adding pressure and making the weld.

The gentalman who had been helping me learn to make knives had his doubts also about how well this idea would work until I showed him a piece of damascus I made.

-chris
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top