The Press Build BEGINS!!!! Lot's of Pics

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Dezmond

Joined
Jun 5, 2009
Messages
80
Hey Everyone...

So I am new to the knife making. Been around for a couple years here reading up on lot's of threads. Finally decided to get off the fence and start to get some tools made :)

Found Mr. Flemings thread and really liked what I saw so I decided to try my hands at making a Hydraulic Press.. I have made a few knives already but from bought blanks from Jantz. I made some denim micarta which turned out really good and put it on a nice drop point with copper bolsters and pins.

So now I want to try my hands at forging my blades, making damascus, etc.

Here we go......

Picked up some steel from Hunter in Woodstock Ontario. Paid $250.00 for all this. Not too bad since they did cut it all for me :)

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Doing some measurements and squaring things up before welding

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Little bit of welding

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Here is some of the welds we did..... Like the arc welder

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I did up my logo a while ago. Thought it would look good on the top :) Don' you agree?

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Got a lot done.. It is heavy that's for sure. Going to post some more later tonight or tomorrow....

Dezi
 
Looks good, is hunter a person or a store? Also, is the logo cut out, or stenciled on ? I can't tell from the pic. I like it though, keep it up.
 
Hunter Steel is a company. Brantford, woodstock, etc.... Logo was Laser Cut out of 1/4" plate......
 
So... Next.... I needed to put this press on something.. Was looking around and our neighbour said " I got something that'll work for ya! Come with me..."

Found these....

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So we welded them on (stitched them on.), added a couple braces and here is how it looks

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Next.. Cylinder.... Hmmmmm.. Again the wonderful neighbour says " Come With Me...."

And He gives me one of these (there is another one there I am sure I can get my hands on ;) )

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I say "How much?" He says "Case a beer would be fine"

SCORE!!!!!!!

Was a little concerned because it sat outside for a couple years.. So I got some new hoses for it, hooked it up to my dads tractor and away she went.. Shaft was nice and clean too.!!!!

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The octagon thing in the background is the starting to my forge I am making as well :) Can't wait to get that done as well
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Welded up the top plate and mounted the cylinder to see how she looks. Looks good to me :cool::cool::cool:
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So Now here is a question I need answered from Maybe Eric or anyone who has built one of these.. In the pic below, I measured the amount of space I have left and I still need to mount the plates for the dies to go in.. Should I have enough to squish damascus still? How much room do you guys need when you make your billets?

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That's it for now.. I am going on a hunt to find a nce switch box, some controls and a pump.... Will be posting more in the next day or so.....

Dezi
 
That is the concern I have and why I'm waiting to get my cylinder and measure before buying the frame steel. I want to have plenty of room for maneuvering in there. I hope it works out for ya! Looking good so far.
 
With 9" clear space, that is 2-3" for the upper die, and 2-3" for the lower die, leaving 3-5" for the billet. That should work for small billets, but you won't be doing any 6" stacks on it.
With some creative mounting of the lower dies, the space used can be kept to 1-2".
For most drawing and forging operations, your setup will be great. Most damascus billets are 3" or less, so that should be good,too.
 
Do you plan to use the same electronic setup that his press has? I am also starting a copy of Caswell/Flemming master metal squisher. I am getting ready to order parts after checking on one or two more control options. Good luck!
 
My Press has 14 Inches of working space between the dies and I still need more room some times.
 
I've got 18 inches and it's more than enough for just about anything I do except some of my really big feather pattern billets. You should be able to get by with 9" of stoke, you'll just have to get more creative with your dies and larger billets. :D
 
Great press. I'm glad you went with the "H-frame." I really like mine and never have any of the flex/stress problems those guys with "C-frames" have. The top dies are just a little trickier to make, so that's the only drawback I have experienced. Looking great.

-M
 
Hey Dezi,

Don't know how I missed this one. Glad you got started. I have 8" stroke between my die plates and have not run into problems I've not been able to overcome. As Kyle says, you just get creative. You've got a great start! :thumbup:


Edited to clarify: I have 10.5 inches from the bottom of my lower die plate to the top of my upper die plate. Each plate is 1/4" with mostly 1" dies. Therefore giving a total stroke of 8 inches between the dies (rather than the plates).

Eric
 
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I personally think you are going to have/want to change this sooner or later and it is better to do it now before you have everything all put together. five inches between the dies is going to work out fine as long as you stick to smaller billets and ladder random and twist patterns but sooner or later you are going to want to do some mosaics, loafs feathers etc. and you will not have room for the dies or large billets that you will need to start with. Lets take a feather for instance. you weld up a five x six inch x 1 inch stack into a bar. great no problem, you draw it out int a billet that is 1.5 inches wide .5 wide and 20 inches long crushed to make W's. now cut, restack and reweld into a billet for your feather. if you want to do a eight inch fighter you will need to start with an eight inch tall stack of W's but you can get around this buy doing two four inch stacks and then welding them togetherinto a single four inch stack a pain but you did it. now you need to split the stack. You need a chisel die four inches long and you four inch stack of W's to fit between five inche of space and that can't happen. If you smash you four inch billet to 2.5 inches so you can get it and the splitter into your press by the time you get things welded back to gether and drawn back out for you fighter the pattern is going to be so distorted it will look way different than what you had imagined wanted. I you give up on the feather and and move to mosaics you are going to run into the problem of either distorting the pattern in to unrecognizeable picaso's or they are going to get so tiny that a magnifier will be needed to see them for what they are.
You are putting a lot of work into this press and from the pictures doing an excellent job of it so why would you want to have to butcher it later to change it when you can fix it now while it is still relatively easy. I would consider 8-10 inches between my dieholders a minimum distance needed for mosaics and advanced patterns.
 
I would bet that you could cut off the shackle on the end of your piston rod and make that 9" space become 13". You could make your dies use a total space of 1" on the bottom and 2 1/2" on the top and that would give you 9 1/2" of stroke. The reason I say you need 2 1/2" for the top die is because the die holder will need to be built very beefy and you'll also need three or four small gussets on the top of your die holder that are welded to the piston rod just to stabilize the die holder. Can you cut off the shackle on the end of your piston rod? I had to cut off a big shackle on the end of my piston rod so I could optimize the stroke of my press. :D Before you cut off anything you need to make sure that you have 9 1/2" of piston stroke to use regardless of how much space you have. How far did the piston rod come out when you hooked the cylinder to your tractor? If it came out 9 1/2" then you should be good to go and cut off that shackle on the end of the piston rod. :)
 
Kyle Royer said:
I would bet that you could cut off the shackle on the end of your piston rod and make that 9" space become 13". You could make your dies use a total space of 1" on the bottom and 2 1/2" on the top and that would give you 9 1/2" of stroke. The reason I say you need 2 1/2" for the top die is because the die holder will need to be built very beefy and you'll also need three or four small gussets on the top of your die holder that are welded to the piston rod just to stabilize the die holder. Can you cut off the shackle on the end of your piston rod? I had to cut off a big shackle on the end of my piston rod so I could optimize the stroke of my press. :D Before you cut off anything you need to make sure that you have 9 1/2" of piston stroke to use regardless of how much space you have. How far did the piston rod come out when you hooked the cylinder to your tractor? If it came out 9 1/2" then you should be good to go and cut off that shackle on the end of the piston rod. :)
Click to expand...

That or cut out the top piece of I beam and the cyclider mount, move the cylinder mount up to where the I beam is welded and get a new piece of I beam to go all the way across the top. then build the sliding die plate so that with dies in place they just come together with the cylinder extended all the way. this will maximize the use of the cylinder travel and if you need to remove one or both dies to do a very large loaf/billet give you some extra room.

p.s. if you can get the other cylinder put them both in side by side. it will give you more squish and help in keeping your billets square when forging.
 
Hey Everyone...

Planning on close to the same controls.. I have a guy that is AMAZING and making neat things happen.. He is going to help me with all the electronics and controls along the way.

I am now working at a machine shop so I have an even better idea about more room :) I am going to shorten the cylinder.. I don't need 18-22 inches of rod so why not cut, and shorten it :) Easier than cutting all the welds and making it look worse.....

I plan to do that once we get the rest of the press together and see where I am...

I GOT SOMETHING REALLY COOL I am going to add to this press.. I KNOW it is going to rock!!!!!!

Upper die mount is almost all together now and I will be fitting that next... Lot's of photos to come shortly..

Also I will have a schematic drawn up and made a pdf and I will post it here of the controls shortly....

Dezi
 
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