My Mini Hydraulic Press

[Tom Megow]

Thunder

Can the air assist be adapted to their 50 ton jack?

Removing the manual apparatus then screwing

the assist to the manual "port"??

[Thunder]

Tom M.

I am not sure if that is possible or not, it would be sweet if you can do it. I think it would require removing the air assist from the 20 and then maybe adapting to the 50 ton. I do not know if the 20 ton assist will drive the larger jack. It would certainly be worth experimenting with. I would think that the assist is nothing more than a hydraulic motor providing the pressure to push the jack, 20 ton to 50 ton? I'll look at my jack, when I get home tonight, to see the port configuartion.

Great idea if we can make it work and it doesn’t slow the progress of the ram down.

I am getting ready to attend the ABS school next week,(it's about 10 days long) maybe 15 -20 days before I can do much research on this idea.

T. A. Toler

[Tom Megow]

I am NOT jealous abit!!

have aball !!

 

ABS school next week

[Christoph Alpermann]

Hi Thunder,

 

thanks a lot!

 

Even found one over here in Germany.

 

Regards,

 

Christoph

[Tom Megow]

HF has a 50 ton air/hydraulic bottle jack now.

No screw extender or return springs according to picture

Product # 97548

$189.99

[Guest Kyle Hershey]

Excellent!! I give this topic five freeking ninja heads!!!

[Thunder]

Tom

50 tons, man that’s enough to get the ram bar width dimension wider for a longer press area. If my little air compressors will pull it, I think that may be a very good thing. I will check to see if I can get it locally, if not I probably will order it sometime next week. Thanks for the item number and info.

 

Kyle -

Thanks for the ninja heads - I think thats a good thing?

 

Christoph

Great that you can get the HF press in Germany, I would love to see pictures when you get it built?

 

 

T. A. Toler

P.S. The ABS Bladesmithing Course was absolutely fantastic.

[Tom Megow]

Thunder

I just got a rain-check for the 20ton air-over $69. If you look at the 50 on the HF website

can you tell if it will "work" since it has no spring return?!?

HF has some air compressors on sale as well. What would you recommend as a min

for the mini-press

Thanks

Tom

[Thunder]

Tom

The 20 ton jack works fine. I am pressing on 2 inch width die sets right now with no trouble at all. I can get 1 weld 2" wide per press and I can get about 5-7 presses when sizing an already formed billet. But if you could extend the press area to a 4" X 4" surface you could do that much more work per press. Increase speed by a 100%.

 

In fact the 20 ton may actually do the 4X4 work, I just haven’t tried it yet. If I understand hydraulics correctly a 20 ton press is pushing 20 tons over the surface of the top area of the jack ram, as you add surface area it distributes that 20 tons over what ever area you have so you do not get exactly 20 tons over a 4 X 4 press area, if the ram is some where in the diameter of 1 1/2" - 2". It dosent take 20 tons to make a forge weld.

 

The return springs could easily be fabricated on the lower ram bar and connected to the press uprights, I do not see that as a major problem. What may be a problem is how fast that ram on the 50 ton jack moves under my small air compressor’s relatively low CFM. Also I would have to make some kind of adjustor for height since the HF 50 ton jack doesn’t have that screw extender. The screw extension saves a lot of time in pressing different thickness billets. One of the things that speeds up the pressing operation is to not have a lot of ram travel before you actually start pressing. I try to have the thickness of the billet plus ½” clearance or less for pressing operations.

 

My little air compressor's is a Sanborn 3 HP, 22 gallon tank, pressure is set at about 110 psi, I do not see a CFM rating -it pretty old machine. I would get as large and fast a compressor as you can afford.

T. A. Toler

Thunder

[boilermaker]

Thunder, about the 50 ton jack , i got one here in Australia (NOT 50 BUT A 30 TON OMEGA AIR OVER HYDRAULIC) and it moves waaay to slow also needs a heck of a lot of back pressure to retract the ram because it has no return springs.The jack itself weighs about 60Lbs and is about 5.5" in diameter. My compressor is a 50L 8CFM 3.5HP model that puts out up to 150psi and using my jack drained it in no time (like pushing the ram out 1" ), i have now ordered a HF jack like yours and put my 30Ton aside for a different project. Maybe if you had a big industrial duty compressor the bigger jacks would be OK? hope this helps save everyone some money and trouble. cheers!

Edited June 30, 2008 by boilermaker

[Thunder]

That’s what I was afraid of Boilermaker.

Bigger jack - slower press. If you have to go out and buy a 2000.00 air compressor, one might as well pop for the big hydraulic forging press anyway.

Thanks for the info.

T. A. Toler

Thunder

[Tom Megow]

Thunder

Here is another use for your fine little press, just scroll down abit

Tom

So.Ga.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=566520

[Thunder]

Looks cool Tom.

Tang / logo stamper.

 

T.A. Toler

Thunder

[Madmike]

Thanks for the link Tom, I'll try that way on next blade

[Ken Kelley]

Tom Megow alerted me to this thread a few months ago. I looked at it and thought about it and thought about it some more. Dang! Do I REALLY need to spend more money building yet another gadget for the shop??? Happily, the logical part of my brain completely shuts down when I think about making gadgets so obviously, the answer was YES! YES! YES!

 

I'm using 2x2x1/4 wall A36 tubing for the base and uprights. I plan to make the upper anvil adjustable and bolt it in place with 1/2" grade 8 bolts. I'll make drawing dies out of a couple of chunks of an old pry bar that's been laying around the shop forever. Might as well get some use out of it. I plan to weld the dies to plate and make some sort of slide in arrangement with set screws to keep them in place. I'm designing as I go so right now I'm spending more time staring off into space pondering than I am making sparks. Does anybody have a good source for the Bimba spring return air cylinders shown in one of the posts?

 

Thanks to Thunder for pointing the way on this project.

 

K

[Thunder]

Ken

The 20 Ton Air/Over Hydraulic Jack a lot of us are using is the Harbor Freight jack at this link Bottle jack link. If you have a HF locally they range from 100.00 to 70.00 on sale. I always wait for the sales. I am not sure about the bimba or where to get that model.

 

I have been building forges since I got back from the ABS bladesmithing class and haven’t worked on my jack in a few weeks. I have a vertical 16" diameter X 17" forge with power burner just about built and a 10" dia X 16" horizontal 2 burner aspirated in the works, these are my renditions of the forges we used at the ABS school. Also a 10" vertical staged up, like Foggs design.

 

OK I have to mention the ABS school. The ABS class is well worth the money and I would recommend it to anyone who asked. Hard hot work and mini seminars by mastersmiths every day or two, Kevin and Heather Harvey taught the class, they are Mastersmiths from S. Africa, very knowledgeable, great teachers. Mini classes with Mike Williams, handle inlay with Hicks, a visit to Jerry Fisk's shop - wow what a wealth of knowledge, and a trip to Uncle Als shop where there were 6 Mastersmith and many Journeymen Smiths in attendance JR Cook, Fisk, Williams, Rhea, etc !!

 

Sorry I am way off topic here.

 

I would love to see your jack when you get it built up, there are so many cool innovations from Tom, Murdock, Frogfish, boilermaker, and others that I hate to start making changes to mine cause everyone keeps coming up with new ideas. I am considering bulking two jacks together with two upright per side which should allow me to press the long length and the short length of the press. I'll post when I get around to making the changes.

 

Good Luck with yours

T. A. Toler

[J.Fisher]

OK finally got my version working I made the top anvil adjustable and I did a different take on securing the dies.

 

 

Dies are made from 1" x 2" mild steel and are 3" long welded to 1/4" plates secures with a 1/4" hold down bolt.

 

 

 

 

I have another set of plates that I'm adding 1/2 of a 1 1/2" round stock too for drawing dies next project is a foot switch for the air supply to speed up the process I've only done a few test runs and without the tee handle I got a few presses on a heat.

 

Tim

 

 

 

I want to make mine like yours.... as soon as I saw he video on youtube and did a google search I found these postings. When I saw the video my immediate thought was that it needed to have an adjustable top crossmember, knock out die plates and a footswitch for the air.

 

I'm a bit weak in the material engineering department however and would like more details on what materials you used.

 

Is the square tube 2"x2"x3/16" or is it 1/4" wall? What did you use inside the crossmembers? Tube supported by 3/16" "straps" ?

How tall are the side posts and where are the bolt holes located? are they 1" grade 8 ? How wide is it inside? would you make it wider or more narrow? I see that yours is mounted at an angle while others have thiers mounted facing square.

 

After using these for a while are you finding the mild dies acceptable or would you use a higher grade steel?

Any frame warpage, breaks ? Any recommendations for drawing dies that will minimize pattern "spillage" ?

Has anyone found the need for a "shield" to protect the air lines from flux or scale?

 

It's great to have all the wisdom of several builders all together. I'd have not suspected it works best in the first 3" of travel. I would have thought it would crush better at the other end with full bottle pressure behind it....

 

I'm planning on building one in the next week, I'm assuming you guys used a stick arc welder for penetration?

 

 

Thank you,

 

James Fisher

[Ken Kelley]

"Ken

The 20 Ton Air/Over Hydraulic Jack a lot of us are using is the Harbor Freight jack at this link Bottle jack link. If you have a HF locally they range from 100.00 to 70.00 on sale. I always wait for the sales. I am not sure about the bimba or where to get that model."

 

I picked up my jack a few days ago from the Harbor Freight store over in Lexington. It was on sale so I only paid $69.95 for it. Had several in stock. I looked around on the web a little bit and found some spring return pneumatic cylinders that might work on the Surplus Center site. Ebay has a few but they don't sound like they would fit the requirement. I'm in no hurry so a usable one will turn up before too long.

 

Guess I better go pick up some fresh 7018. The old stuff I have laying around the shop has probably picked up so much moisture that it won't even light off.

 

K

[Thunder]

J.Fisher

I cant answer for Frogfish's excellent construction methods but I can answer about the flux. There is some flux that will find its way into the screw of the jack, making it hard to adjust on occasion. Nothing that a 100 pounds of shop air wont fix combined with a couple of screws up and down to loosen the stuck stuff. A small shield just below the screw head would be helpful or may be - if I just cut down on the flux. I only notice this problem when welding up cable billets where I use a lot of borax.

 

T.A. Toler

[Tom Megow]

OK Thunder, Ken, Frogfish.my engineering experts I am thinking about dies. What kinda work area works best for this mini? 2" X 3" 2" x 2" ?? I am assuming the workarea needs to be directly above the jack cylinder. The pic of of a dual purpose die. What kinda radius are y'all using or recommend for fullering. I would make two small dies rather than a dual purpose

 

 

[Frogfish]

Tom,

 

My flat dies are 2" X 3" and my fuller is a 1 1/2" piece of round bar cut in half to form the dies again 3" wide just to give me some room of course you'll want to concentrate the work area directly over the jack cylinder.

 

Tim

[J.Fisher]

Just picked up my Air-over Jack on sale today and dropped an additional $20.00 on the 2 year replacement warrantee.

 

Got my old 20% Employee discount too...

 

I'm going to go with the 1/4" wall 2"x2" tube and 1/4" x 2" flat stock. I'll be doing knock off dies made with 1" x 2" x 3" bar welded to 1/4" x 2" x 4" flat. I do plan on adding a small shield to catch flux and scale. I'll also do some drawing, squaring and fullering dies to start with as well as a few stop blocks. Maybe a cut-off/hinging die too.

 

Dumb question time... How did you guys get an even lengthwise cut on the round stock ?

 

After I get everything measured out I'm going to price out having the welding done, as niether my small Oxy rig or my Mig is up to the penetration I need. Might be cheaper to bite the bullet and get myself a smaller stick welder.

 

I'll post pics in a few weeks after its done. I'll hit it with some BBQ paint. I have almost 40' of 1 1/2" lift cable laying around, a few L-6/1084/nickle stacks, numerous RR spikes as well as stacks of copper & bronze that are begging to be played with.

 

Wish me luck the bug has bit hard again after a few years off...

 

James Fisher

Edited July 23, 2008 by J.Fisher

[Thunder]

Fisher

On my drawing die, the round bar was just laid on top of a piece of 1" X 2" flat bar and welded down, to the 1" side. I then filled the sides and under the round bar to smooth out the construction, ground everything smooth. The round bar is 3/8" cold roll. I didn’t cut it in half. It is a little too tall but the concept works, I would make it about 1/2 as tall if I remade the die.

 

My die sets all vary in size, 2" X 2" being the smallest.

My press was made from scrap laying around the shop, I used what ever I had and adapted it for function.

 

 

T.A. Toler

[J.Fisher]

Thunder,

 

Thanks for the pic and the reply. I wish I had the materials just laying around but I'm going to have to shop for scraps or buy new.

 

My concern in the drawing die is accuracy to minimize pattern spillage. Have you used stop blocks to controll thickness? I'm also planning a die for slitting... people just love those RR spike hawks.

 

When I'm done this is going to be my main workhorse untill better can buy it's way in. My shoulder just isn't up to my 8lb sledge with a 14" handle anymore. Let me know when you start selling plans and I'll be sure to direct folks your way for them.

 

Regards,

 

James Fisher

[Thunder]

Fisher

I haven’t used stops yet,

just been eyeballing mostly

stops would certainly be easy to incorporate.

I would think that if everything is square and level the pattern would be also,

be sure you work HOT on this little press

and keep your die sets as close to the thickness of the work as you can.

Much of the speed in pressing is related to how much extra travel the ram has to make,

the T bar handle being positioned correctly, the air supply valve being easily accessed, and the air pressure/volume.

On the pictured drawing die I can get about 6 squeezes on a good hot billet.

Also remember it is only a little press, it isn’t going to do the same work as one of the $3000.00 hydraulic monsters many use, but it will do a excellent job for its size.

 

I would be interested to hear from everyone else about their original expectations of this press and what their actual experiences are. Is it doing what you hoped, is it not doing what you hoped. Problems encountered / problems solved?

 

Thanks

T. A. Toler