Tooling for 15T forging press

[Philip Davies]

This is the carriage I made up to slide up and down the uprights of the 15T hydraulic press I bought for forging. (It wasn’t warped when I installed it) The springs make the piston retract slightly quicker, but do not seem to diminish the thrust.

a bit of a glare from the window at the side, unfortunately, but I hope that you can make out the two pieces of angle iron which carries the tooling and beneath that an anvil, into which I have carved 4 grooves.


This is the rack of tooling, on top of the press. All of these have been ground from salvaged hammers, mostly 2lb lump hammers (I saved the wedges).

Recently, I ve been watching a lot of forging videos, and have been particularly struck by a series from GS tongs.




In emulation whereof, I made up an anvil guillotine, to make use of the tooling I’d made. Here you see a pair of butchers in the holder, to cut a shoulder into this bar (or a groove, by rotating the stock). You can see that there are inserts, from smaller box tube, to make up the slack.



Here on the anvil are some of the tools, the butcher, 2 swages and a fuller.
.

Glen, of GS Tongs, has another anvi guillotine, more refined than this, but the advantage is that you can vary the angle of eg the fuller to the stock as it is presented, rather than wave it about.



Like this. (The same fuller)



So far, I’ve made 3 tools that match the internal diameter of the tube.



But I chose this diameter tube because had other tubes that fit nicely within, allowing a range of punches and chisels. Because I did not want to turn tubes to fit. You see 3 here, but there’s 2 more.



On the anvil here are two holders for anvil tools, that would fit the hardy hole, but the holders are designed to use in the press.


Just to add, if you have been considering get a press to forge with, that, although it takes no effort to use, and is nice and quiet, it seems to suck the heat right out of the billet quite rapidly, so it is hardly any quicker than doing it by hand. I also ordered an electric hydraulic pump, with foot switch, which made it an expensive item. It comes in very useful if you want to make pattern welded billets, though. And of course, you can use it as you would a fly press.