High-quality black-and-white photographs of large old machines and tools

[Jon]

I am amazed by the size of this machinery. What types of products would have been made?

At the time of construction, this press (and a similar 50,000 ton forge press) were the largest tools ever created.

The presses did (and still do) make lots of stuff, most notably airplane parts.

Basically: per the Treaty of Versailles, which ended WWI in 1919, Germany agreed to surrender some its most valuable iron-producing regions that made steel. You can't really wage a war (let alone a World War) without excellent metalworking, especially in that era. Lacking steel, Germany figured out how to form magnesium, which was reasonably naturally abundant, although it had previously not been practical to form because magnesium is very fickle (prone to cracking, brittleness, etc.). Allied forces noticed these advanced magnesium forgings in downed Axis airplanes. When Allied forces overran Germany, they saw the enormous forge presses that the Germans had built. When US and Soviet forces found these presses (and blueprints for more of them), they dismantled them and shipped them home. The Soviets got the largest press to survive the war (33,000 tons), as well as plans for a 55,000 ton press.

After WWII, relations between the Soviets and the Americans turned cold. America, realizing that the Soviet invading forces got the largest press AND plans for an even larger one, decided to invest in 10 similar enormous presses - of which I believe 2 are still in operation today. This was the Heavy Press Program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Press_Program

Under the Heavy Press Program, ten presses were built: six extrusion presses, and four forging presses. And of those four forging presses, two were 35,000 ton machines, and two broke the record for the world's largest machine. They were 50,000 ton press forges: the Alcoa Press and the Wyman-Gordon Press, pictured above.