My Mini Hydraulic Press

[Gerhard Gerber]

I visited a fellow local knife maker yesterday, and admired his new toy, a Log splitter

 

He has his own plans about how to turn it into a forge press, I had my own ideas.

 

Firstly, from this thread and others I suspect it will need another support.  The leg of the machine is actually the air storage tank, and to my eye the controls are held on by 2 bolts, weld another leg and supports in there and mount the controls elsewhere.
It looks fast enough, but I have zero experience that's not from FiF or a YT video.

Think it could work?  Not cheap..... 

[Brandon Bearden]

Sorry, I am way late on this... but I actually had the same idea. I own a small table top log splitter. It doesn't have a ton of force, but it is electric and hydraulic. It moves relatively quickly. As fast as the presses I see on youtube. I think it would work great for press. That is my next move after I get the HT oven done.

[dragoncutlery]

On 10/13/2022 at 11:30 PM, Brandon Bearden said:

Sorry, I am way late on this... but I actually had the same idea. I own a small table top log splitter. It doesn't have a ton of force, but it is electric and hydraulic. It moves relatively quickly. As fast as the presses I see on youtube. I think it would work great for press. That is my next move after I get the HT oven done.

i have a small electric hydrolic think its rated at 5ton im convinced they refer to the pressure the wedge edge can produce before it starts to penetrate or some other number magic as i have never seen a commercially available splitter with a cylinder that could out put what is advertised i am toying with the idea of using it for something but i know my 19 ton purpose built forging press has limits i have hit so im not expecting much from the little guy maybe split billets for folding im really hoping i can split feather damascus on it but ill be testing it on mono steel before i get excited