h-dom
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Just thought I would post up a few photos of my new fly press. As per wanted ad I had been browsing for a while and plan to use it for balcksmithing to save my arm and hand a bit from swinging the hammer.
Photos from eBay ad
I could see it was a big old lump and had a homemade die bolted on. These are supposed to have a 1" round hole to accept dies in the bottom of the ram. The press was up for £100 and I got it for £75 so I wasn't too bothered about the condition as I knew I would be going over it anyway.
Got it home and out of the car somehow and started stripping it to have a proper look.
I managed to slacken the lock nut and remove the split nut from the ram. The whole thing was covered in years old grease that had gone hard and attracted any and all dust, so I gave it a good gentle wire brush to remove and cleaned it all up. Inside the ram where the split nut threads in there is supposed to be a round slug which the base of the screw(?) would seat into. This wasn't there and there was nearly 1/4 of a turn play in the movement of the ram. So I machined up a lug from some en19, hardened it and popped it in, a little oil and seated the cleaned split nut and lock nut back in, backed it off a bit and then tightened it all down and managed to remove all play! Before refitting the ram I greased the slides and the ram and it all moves a lot smoother than it did.
As I mentioned, the bottom of the ram should have had a 1" dia hole to fit 1" round tool shanks. This seemed to not exist so I got the wire wheel on the grinder and discovered there was one once, but clearly a tool had got stuck and had been cut off and ground flush. I knew I would need a new one so I proceeded to attempt to free up the stuck tool shank. As I'm sure most of you know anything like this never seems to go smoothly! My first attempt was to drill an 8.5mm hole in the old shank and tap to m10, screw a bolt in tight to try to twist it to free up the years of rust that had seized it. Drilling was easy, the steel was soft. But tapping the M10 thread my bottoming tap snapped in the hole and I knew the only back from this was to use heat and weld.
Having recently discovered stick welding I whacked a few blobs on the top of the shank. The heat I knew wouldn't hurt and by welding the heat mainly penetrated into the shank and not the surrounding areas of the ram. I could see the crack open up around the tool shank and I knew I was in business.
A swift grab and twist with some channel locks and we were free! Cleaned up and ready for some new tooling to be made.
Finally a little wire wheeling to the base and it is all back together and ready to do its job. Apart from now I need to fab up a bench and figure out how I am going to lift it onto said bench.
And if anyone has any 1" diameter bolts lying around they want rid of, please let me know as I would like to use them to make the tooling. Nothing is going back in that home without a collar!
Photos from eBay ad
I could see it was a big old lump and had a homemade die bolted on. These are supposed to have a 1" round hole to accept dies in the bottom of the ram. The press was up for £100 and I got it for £75 so I wasn't too bothered about the condition as I knew I would be going over it anyway.
Got it home and out of the car somehow and started stripping it to have a proper look.
I managed to slacken the lock nut and remove the split nut from the ram. The whole thing was covered in years old grease that had gone hard and attracted any and all dust, so I gave it a good gentle wire brush to remove and cleaned it all up. Inside the ram where the split nut threads in there is supposed to be a round slug which the base of the screw(?) would seat into. This wasn't there and there was nearly 1/4 of a turn play in the movement of the ram. So I machined up a lug from some en19, hardened it and popped it in, a little oil and seated the cleaned split nut and lock nut back in, backed it off a bit and then tightened it all down and managed to remove all play! Before refitting the ram I greased the slides and the ram and it all moves a lot smoother than it did.
As I mentioned, the bottom of the ram should have had a 1" dia hole to fit 1" round tool shanks. This seemed to not exist so I got the wire wheel on the grinder and discovered there was one once, but clearly a tool had got stuck and had been cut off and ground flush. I knew I would need a new one so I proceeded to attempt to free up the stuck tool shank. As I'm sure most of you know anything like this never seems to go smoothly! My first attempt was to drill an 8.5mm hole in the old shank and tap to m10, screw a bolt in tight to try to twist it to free up the years of rust that had seized it. Drilling was easy, the steel was soft. But tapping the M10 thread my bottoming tap snapped in the hole and I knew the only back from this was to use heat and weld.
Having recently discovered stick welding I whacked a few blobs on the top of the shank. The heat I knew wouldn't hurt and by welding the heat mainly penetrated into the shank and not the surrounding areas of the ram. I could see the crack open up around the tool shank and I knew I was in business.
Finally a little wire wheeling to the base and it is all back together and ready to do its job. Apart from now I need to fab up a bench and figure out how I am going to lift it onto said bench.
And if anyone has any 1" diameter bolts lying around they want rid of, please let me know as I would like to use them to make the tooling. Nothing is going back in that home without a collar!