bulldoze bender | Page 2 | Power Hammers and Presses | Forum

I've done it in ever position! Bent 3" cold but is really to slow for forging.

Bruce Macmillan;6955 wrote: Passing along near death,death, or near injury, injury events is an important function of these websites. Smart people learn from others mistakes, I think allot of people who paid attention to the Paw Paw tragedy are the wiser for it.
I've heard that high pressure hyd leaks can cut or inject oil into people, not a pretty picture........
Sounds like I haven't really lived if I haven't had the pleasure of working with French standard thread fittings:banghead:bm

Paw Paw tragedy?

Yeah, that Paw Paw story broke my heart, my he rest in peace. I am a union ironworker (rodbuster) and i talk shit to all the strucural ironworkers welding and cutting galvanized decking with no protection. they all claim to drink milk as a cure. Bullshit! milk doesn't do anything. I told one guy that drinking milk is a myth and he didn't believe me. I told him Paw Paws story and he was thinking twice! I've watched those guys weld in a plume of galvanized smoke for hours on end, they even say it makes them sick! I'm surprised osha hasn't done anything about it.
As for the 10,000 psi hydraulics, i have worked with those pumps ( the hoses are super heavy duty) for 14 or 15 years now and never seen hose break. I have seen a fitting pop off a ram, but it was non-eventful. I'm sure running s hot piece of metal or slag into a hose would be another story. I've seen alot of hydraulics fail on large equipment (cranes and forklifts) and it makes quite a mess. I'm sure being right next to a hose when it breaks would not be fun at all. Lets just say i keep an eye on my gauge at the pump while i'm working and don't exceed the 10,000 psi.

Took some photos of our horizontal press, not the best photos, it is covered in grinding shit as our apprentice has been grinding near it. It has an eighty ton ram on it that came from the main lift ram on a continuous miner, (used in underground coalmining), the pump is getting a little sad these days though. If I ever rebuild it I'll use BIS on the plattern out the front as the current one is mild steel and we are always having to reweld the holes. The pins are 4140 q and t to about 311 HB. We had an almost identical press where I served my time, the foreman ended up with 3 compound fractures of his thigh when one of the pins broke and a forklift blade came out and got him. If you build one of these be carefull of bystanders being downstream of the press when applying pressure as there is always a danger of a pin breaking or the job taking off.

Thanks for the pictures Phil looks like a pretty stout press but fairly simple. Are there holes in the I beams underneath for the pins to bear on or do they only go through the top plate?

JNewman;7042 wrote: Thanks for the pictures Phil looks like a pretty stout press but fairly simple. Are there holes in the I beams underneath for the pins to bear on or do they only go through the top plate?

The plates are as i recall 36mm plate on top with a 25mm plate beneath seperated by about 25mm packer strips welded where we could get a weld. In the holes up near the ram we have inlaid BIS80 inserts with holes in them as those holes were copping the most work and were elongating. We have also inlaid an insert for a 3" pin down in the middle of the bed that we use for breaking the back of hooks or as a pin to push shackles around. I should really get around to putting in more of these 3" inserts as well as a 4 inch insert for a bigger pin for when we make the larger hooks. Where the holes go over the beams we did not have holes originally but they filled up with shit so well that we blew holes through the flanges of the beams with the gas axe. The Pins are forged machined 4140 now heat treated, they are about 2 1/4" dia that neck down to 1 1/2" where they enter into the bottom plate (to stop them falling through) I did it like this so as I did'nt have a change of section at the top plate where the most stress comes on the pin.

Hey all, dug out and scanned a photo from my apprentice days of a hook getting bent on the press that I copied the design of mine from. The photo was taken by me sitting on the starter switch box, (which puts the apprentice out of the way) and I drove the press with my foot on the control lever, while taking photos until I was told "enough with the bloody photos phil, concentrate on the job in hand son". This looks to be a 20 ton mild steel shank hook, we are up the the third bend, having "broken" its back (put in the first bend up in the back of the hook) and bent the nose, we are starting to bend the body of the hook. I reckon the body of the hook may have been 5 1/2 dia or so. The set of hook bending tools on the press were used for starting all sizes of hooks, we'd just back them with wedges and roundbacks to get the different sizes. After bending the hook on the press we'd wizz the hook up to the 20cwt massey and flatten the body, then pull the feather (taper) out of the body to give the hook its trapazoid shape, then straighten it get the feather true and in line, back to the press to get the shape right, then on the ground to cool. Then the next few days I would get to spend grinding the sucker.