A horizontal press from an old tube bender I bought from a muffler shop. I press billets and blades in top cylinder (28 tons) and squeeze mokume in the side press (15 tons). It’s two presses in one.

http://www.centercross.com/shop/press.jpg

http://www.centercross.com/shop/pressclose.jpg

Now here is a beast!!

You DON'T want to get your finger caught in it!:)

How fast does the cylinder need to move to squash 3/4" round bar into 3/8 thick flat?
Can I poor boy a press with a 20 ton 'porta-power' type set up, or will I need to spend the bucks to get a real cylinder.

I'm not doing any major forging with the press, but I'd like to be able to weld cable damascus with one occasionally.

Any reply is greatly appreciated

Hello Joe,
The press has to take little bites to keep things straight.
A one shot press will make Mokume but not damascus.

Damascus requires you keep the billet moving while working it.
Once you have a solid billet, then you press it flat, but that is the last stages.
Cable damascus can be made with a hammer and twisting while hot.
Twist, then beat, then twist, then beat and so on...untill the ripples are gone and it is about 2/3 as thick as it used to be, smooth and solid.
That is when you start to forge it.First you have to weld up the billet.
You could try to press cable, but you would only get one press per heat. It might take you a while but it could be done.
Just hollar if I can help.
..........................BE BLESSED!!!..............................

I was thinking of making up some 12" long squaring dies for the press to grab the cable and weld a foot long section at a time into a tidy square bar. I'll twist at low-orange heat after fluxing, and then reflux. How fast do your dies pull the heat out of the billet/steel? I don't know a thing about hydraulics yet, and have to figure out how fast I need to move the ram to keep enough heat in the billet to make it flatten. I'd love to be able to poor boy the press with an air-over-oil cheapie hydraulic bottle jack, or a porta-power deal if they're fast enough. Have you ever heard of a press being made out of a unit like that?

Sincerely,

Joe

I don't think you could do a foot at a time with a bottle jack, small bites maybe, a friend told me he saw a guy do some damascus by bringing to a welding heat and clamping it up in a whooping big vice.

Cable can be partially welded by twisting tighter at a welding heat. One of my too many projects is a forge for twisting cable right in the forge, thereby not losing heat from the trip to the vice (I'm not as fast as I used to be).

cool press Gene, bet it would be the thing for making Kukri's :D