Hypothetically thinking of a new tool...

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Hypothetically speaking of a new tool I would like to own...

This is going to seem like I got way too much time on my hands, but I have had this idea for a hypothetical knife making tool for a for a long time now, and I have decided today to toss my idea out onto forum to see what others think.

A Roller-press......any such thing?
a press that has some rollers to squeeze the hot steel thinner. Thats my idea for a new type of knifemaking tool. Here is behind my idea.

For the last few years I have been fooling around trying to make High-performance knives . I have been using 52100 steel I get from Rex Walter, but I have always wondered if it would be possable to make a High performance knife from two different steels at the same time?

Now 52100 is a good steel for a blade, but what it is mostly known for is that it seems to have the ability to be both strong, and hard when you heat-treat it correctly,,,

But there are other steels that are stronger right?,,,,
And there are other steels that get harder correct?...

What if we made a blade from two different types of steel?...a steel on the outside of the blade that gets very very hard, wrapped around a super soft strong steel......http://daqotah.tripod.com/id2.html

Now most of the pro bladesmiths use power hammers or a big hydraulic press, but I would like to see someone invent a roller-press,,,why, you ask?, heres why.

In The Bearing to Blade Video by Ed Fowler , we learn that when the 52100 steel is turned into bearings at the foundry, that the raw hot steel is "extruded" in such a way as it forms a grain pattern in the steel. Ed Fowler in the video shows how he etches the ball bearings to identify the direction of the grain, and then works to push the steel with the power hammer in this same direction.

I was thinking that a roller-press would do this better, the bar of hot steel would be somehow moved back and forth between the rollers, that look something like the old washing machine rollers my Grand mom had on her old washer to wring out wet clothes.

The roller-press would squeeze out the hot steel the long way with the grain, and there would be no violent smashing of the steel in all directions as happens under the power hammer.

this more gentle yet more constant force applied to a sandwich of two different steels would help weld way better than striking with hammer blows, don't you think?
 
How about one of the roller presses made for forming and smoothing sheet metal (car bodies, bike fenders, etc...)? I don't know the technical name, but you have two rollers that come together when you press or release a petal. Sounds like one of these might could be adapted to what you want. I'm sure someone else will know more.

-Will
 
The only presses similar to those I have seen are in steel mills to make typical structural steel "I" "S" "WF" shapes. Just rolls the billets back and forth and squeezes them down, but these are very large.
 
I think such a tool would need a hydrolic ram and a bottle jack,,,
You would need to connect the billet of steel to a type of ram that would push it in and out of the rollers....I dont think you could yank on it freehand

Then you just need a bottle jack press to push on the lower or upper rollers and thats it.

The big advantage I think you would find is that you would not accidently bang into place air pockets with a hammer,,,the squeeze of the upper and lower rollers would force out air and give you the best weld ever!....

It seems like such a roller-press would be a dream to make steel that could start out as a huge pile of different types of steel, and just slowly squeeze them back and forth until they are very long and thin, yet never out of position.

Hypothetically I could wrap a section of hard steel over soft steel, and Hot-Roller-squeeze it down to paper thin, and yet it still would be a sandwich without air pockets or flaws,,,the inner core of soft steel would always be between the hard steel wrap,,,,even paper thin it would still be inside there.
 
Yah, they use the rollers for sheet metal- interesting idea for hot stell. only problem is that it expands in all directions- probably be great on a piece of thin square stock. As far as the steel encasing the stell- that is already used in japanese blades, and some other slashing blades.
 
The idea is that I want the tool to just squeeze the steel long ways,,,and yet the two rollers will want to also spread the steel to the side too....thats a problem...

This tool would need a way to keep the two rollers from spreading the steel wide like a dinner plate,,,,this is how I would handle that problem:


It would have two rollers sideways...they would do most all the work,,,,they would need a bottle jack or something connected to them to add force as needed,,,

Now to keep the billet from getting wide like a dinner plate, I would just add two more rollers that are standing up and down infront of the sideways rollers,,,the up and down rollers would be set so that they pinch the billet and stop it from ever getting wide.

The sideways rollers then would do all the work and the up and down rollers in front of them would just need to be set and then locked into position.

The hot billet gets connected to a ram, the ram runs the hot billet back and forth between the two sideways rollers, the bottle jack allows me to put just the right amount a squeeze on ....the up and down rollers are set to not allow the steel to grow wide...as the ram works, I would just pump the bottle jack to squeeze the rollers and the billet would have nothing else it could do but grow thinner and longer...

with such a system you could produce a blade like many of the Japanese smiths did useing 2,3,4,or more different types of steel on the same blade!,,all without danger of banging things out of place with a power hammer, nor allowing air pockets to form or any of the other problems that guys that use a normal press always talk about.....
 
It's already out there. Can't remember who made it but it has been in one of the mags. Check the ckd. there has been some discussion on a rolling mill for knifemakers.
TJ
 
cool,,,,(most likely it would be ton of money for one of them I bet)

,,,,,But even if I never actually build one, I still would like to know if my "idea" for how they would work, is correct?

This idea I have had for working down a hot billet made of two different types of steel with a power-press roller, has been on my mind for the last few years,,,,,I really would like to know if my idea would work?
 
Hugh Mcdonald designed a rolling mill about 8 or ten years ago. Longer I think for his prototype. He upgraded about 8 or ten years ago. He sold the idea or had it modified by an american company and a comercial model came out called the blue crusher or something similar. Hugh was selling plans very cheap for a while. A few months ago I took a set of photos of one of his newere machines he is working on a new cd with his son.

The mills were originaly used to roll tappers onto black smithing tongs, mainly on the handles to taper and extrude them.

It makes very good damascus . It can even roll in the distel tapper of the blade to the point. The roller will unless you go to some effort to put a pattern in give a very even layer look when finished. Normally whenn hammered the damascus will have a random or wood grain effect.

The rolling mill produces parralell lines when ground through.

The billet grows in length with very little sidewars grouth. It does take a bit of getting used to if you are a cluts like me but are very easy to work when you have had a couple of goes and learnt the pit falls. I am sure you could sandwitch metal using the rolling mill.

If you would like to see more anvilfire on iforge have links to the plans and manufacturer.

If you would like a pic or 2 send me an email and I will send just enough to give you the idea. They will be photos of the machine I have a loan of not his photos to be published. He may be doing the disc for profit and i don't want to undermine his copy write.

If you send an email I will respond but you need to have in the subject that you are from blade forum. Because of viruses i delete names I do not recognize if they do not refer to blade in the subject.

reg_ellery@optusnet.com.au there is an " _ " between the reg and the ellery reg_ellery

With limited tools you can build the machine at home. They cost around $1000 aus to build if using a machine shop to make the parts.
 
Ed Schempp made a rolling press.

The motors, hydraulic pumps, reservoir and controls are on a separate card with wheels. You can position the controls anywhere you want.

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Damn!!! That is built like a tank. I would like to build a sports car model of that. :eek: :D I saved them pic's for future reference. ;)
 
That is the delux model compaired to what I am using. mine has smaller diamiter rollers and not as wide it is squeezed up with a lever you stand on.

You can bring it over and show me how it works if you like.
 
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