drop forge machine???

[duncanmclawd]

Hey guys,

I'm currently working on a school project about the manufacturing of kitchen knives...
I got some info already from the internet, but I keep meeting this "drop forge machine" in the text. Can anyone tell me how this works???

I know a basic "forging process" includes a hammer, a forge and an anvil, right? But how does one do it in a indutrial setting?

Hope to become a little wiser

Greetings, Davy

 

[Boozoo Chavis]

Here's what I found at a site called how stuff works. There are four other links with more info if you need it.
http://home.howstuffworks.com/question376.htm

You see the words "drop forged" stamped on so many tools -- it makes you wonder what the big deal is! Why do manufacturers want you to know that a tool is drop forged?

If you have ever seen a blacksmith beating on a piece of red hot iron with a hammer, you have seen the simplest type of forging. Striking a piece of hot metal with a hammer is forging, and blacksmiths have been doing this for centuries. As blacksmiths experimented with new techniques, they learned that complex shapes could be created by hammering metal into a die. The die contains the shape of the finished product. Modern manufacturers use either a falling hammer or a powered hammer to do the hammering (rather than doing it by hand), and usually use dies on both sides of the piece. This is drop forging.

Manufacturers now use many different techniques to forge metal. Four of the most common include:

Drop forging - Hammering hot metal into dies.
Press forging - instead of forcing hot metal into a die with a hammer blow, it is pressed into the die with hydraulic pressure.
Roll forging - The hot metal is pressed between two rollers.
Cold forging - For smaller pieces, the metal can be pressed into the die without heating it significantly ahead of time.

The reason why manufacturers want you to know that a tool is drop forged is because this tells you something about the strength and durability of the tool. The other two ways to make a tool would be casting it from molten metal or machining it (cutting material away) from a larger block of metal. The advantage of forging is that it improves the strength of the metal by aligning and stretching the grain structure. A forged part will normally be stronger than a casting or a machined piece.

 

[duncanmclawd]

Thanks!!!
It's really helpfull to me i knew the website but never got the idea to search there... thank you very much!

greetings, davy

 

[Cougar Allen]

I think some of the guys in Shop Talk are very familiar with drop forge machines.

 

[Tim Galyean]

I have seen some drop forging machines in action. They are pretty cool, some of them hit hard enough they will knock a filling loose if you are too close