20 ton hydraulic press?????

[Dick Dastardly]

Ok, I'll ask the dumbest question yet....

Has anyone used a 20 ton wood splitter to swage bullets? I've got the wood splitter standing around doing nothing most of the time and got to thinking about having a die made up that would fit the ram. I have a friend that can do the tooling.

So, I'm looking for experience and insight here.

Thanks,

DD-DLoS

[wonderwolf]

That sounds like a neat idea. I've heard of guys using log splitters to size and load 20mm with. 20 tons is a lot to work with......

[garandsrus]

Dick,

It would probably make a great press to extrude lead wire for swaging...

John

[Buckshot]

...............Lottsa potential and you'd better have damn good dies I used a 2 ton bottle jack to fully form 58 caliber Minie' boolits. That was pure lead though. A 6 ton jack had lead extruding back past the base plunger in pieces almost thin enough to read the newspaper through!

................Buckshot

[Dick Dastardly]

I'd have a solid stop built into the die set. The only reason for using the wood splitter is that I have one. Usually it is sitting around doing nothing. I have a Honda motor on it rated at 5.5hp. I'm thinking that I may have several dies made for it. One would swage rough slugs and the other would swage finished bullets.

I'd use 20:1 alloy.

DD-DLoS

[Bret4207]

OOOOOO!!!!! My 27 ton splitter would (wood?) work too. Dang you guys, ya got me thinking thoughts again!

[georgeld]

Does it have a spring loaded/or powered return?
Otherwise it'd be mighty slow to make 'em with.

IF you do have dies made for this set up. Get the guy to make them
from at least two inch dia. round stock of good tool steel. Other wise
you'll be taking a chance on busting the dies them selves.

And make sure there's a stroke stop so it can't possibly go past a certain setting
and keep pressing.

Good luck, that would be interesting to see working, or at least still pics at each step.

[Red River Rick]

Dick:

That 20 ton wood splitter could also extrude lead wire. My Corbin Hydro Press puts out 10 tons which is more than adequite for this job. In your case, with the additional 10 tons, lots of stroke and a custom set of extrusion dies, you could make some nice long lengths of lead wire. Probably long enough to roll and perhaps retail.

The length of the finished wire would all depend on the size of the lead slug being extruded. Which would be dictated by the size of the custom extruding die.

RRR

[mstarling]

Hmmm ... some years ago I built a 30 ton hydraulic press for working damascus billets. Is energized by a 5 hp 220v motor driving a hydraulic pump. Weighs some 1400 pounds.



I'll bet I could make plates to hold dies and punches. Will have to think about this one a while. This may be a little like using a .458 Win Mag on rabbits.

A note for those who have not used hydraulic or pressure systems ... beware of "stored energy" accidents. When you put huge amounts of pressure on something and then it is suddenly released (as in when something breaks) ... all hell breaks loose. If you're in the way of flying parts you can be seriously hurt!

[georgeld]

THAT'S where a pressure gauge come's in handy!!

[Three44s]

I would be looking at adjusting the pressure bypass down to just what was needed ..... so if things get balky ..... you don't just lean harder on the lever ..... you look for the reason things have some how changed.

Three 44s

[montana_charlie]

I've been using a 30-ton H-frame shop press to develop the parts for stretching (re-drawing) cases that are a bit too short.
It works fine, even though it is a big, clunky, press that takes a long time to retract.

The die I was (am) using is made in a way that IT guarantees accuracy...even if the pressing tool is wobbly.

But, I got fed up with two things...
- Drawing a case on the press out in the shop...then carrying that case (with the punch stuck in it) into the den to jerk the punch out with my reloading press.
- Drawing cases in a very cold shop.

So, in order to have a 'portable press' that can be used in the warm den right beside my reloading press...I have been supplied with a frame (that we call a 'jig') that holds my die arrangement (which we call the fixture) and the push is provided by a four-ton Porto Power.

The earlier poster, who mentioned that his Corbin has a 10-ton capacity, is the same individual who built this 'jig'. It might also be interesting to note that Porto Power equipment is available in 10-ton capacity.

Does this provide any potential swagers with a new thought?

CM

[DLCTEX]

I have an electric/hydraulic system with 30" stroke that I salvaged from a lift system that lifted patients in and out of a bath in a nursing home I was doing some remodeling in. I had been thinking of using it for swaging for some time. I will be buying a lathe in the future to make the dies. You guys are spurring thoughts and ideas galore, I may have to move the time schedule up for the lathe purchase. I wanted to get some debt retired first, but I may have to take on extra work and get it done. Keep the information flowing. I can buy a small used lathe cheaper than Corbins die sets. Dale

[georgeld]

I'd like to understand how you'd feed hunks of lead to produce wire.
I've got tons of 1lb ingots.
Anyone have something constructive we could learn about?

They only "wire drawing" I've ever seen was steel wire, rolled smaller from stock
at the wire mill.
Thanks,

[Linstrum]

I used my guillotine frame log splitter for drawing jackets for big bore stuff, I also used my Caterpillar D4D dozer to provide both the power and motion to draw jackets from 20 foot lenghths of copper plumbing tubing even faster than my 31-inch stroke log splitter. Both work great.

For extruding lead, think of extruding Play-Dough. The machines for extruding lead have a cylinder that the lead billet is placed in sort of like a giant cake decorator press. Lead for extruding has to be fairly pure, if a lot of antimony or other alloying stuff is in it, it is hard and won't extrude without needing a lot more pressure. Highly alloyed stuff also causes problems from being brittle and tends to be split up and crumbly coming out of the extrusion die.

Interesting thing about lead and tin alloys, they do not possess enough tensile strength to be drawn through wire sizing dies and that is the reason why they are extruded instead of being drawn. A long time ago when I was in the jewelry finding business I tried pulling solder wire through my wire drawing mill and it just pulled the solder in two! Some lead-free tin alloys draw okay but are far, far too expensive to use for boolits except for special hunting applications where only one or two shots are needed.

It was a lot of fun messing around with the log splitter and dozer as boolit making tooling. I have a fairly complete machine shop with an old U.S. Burke Mill Rite Bridgeport-style milling machine and a recently purchased Jet 13x40 lathe to make all of my own drawing and extruding dies. I used AISI 1045 steel salvaged from water well pump drive shafting, all water well pump shafting is made from that alloy by industry standard mandate. Oil or water quenched it is great stuff.

[georgeld]

Linstrom:
You got any pictures of this? OR sketch's on how it works maybe?

Where's Otero Cnty NM??? I'm in Pueblo, there's times I like taking a drive.
Thank you sir, I just can't seem to grasp how large hunks can be run thru
die hole's that small.

Play dough you mention needs to be rolled around to reduce it.
Shall be awaiting better explantions.

[Linstrum]

Hi, Georgeld,

Nope, no pictures available, when I moved operations from Kalifornia over to here, all that stuff disappeared who knows where.

Play-Dough makes a toy press for extruding the dough into long strings the same way spaghetti is made and if you saw one work you'd catch on how lead is extruded. When I was a real little kid helping my mom in the kitchen I saw how things are extruded when she made cookies in a cookie dough press and decorated cakes with flowers and writing in frosting. Remember you can nick pure lead with your thumb nail, so it is pretty darned soft and easy to extrude. If you push on most stuff hard enough it can be extruded, copper plumbing pipe is extruded, most aluminum shapes are made that way, even some steel items are extruded now. Aluminum beverage cans are extruded and now the steel tin cans for soup and tuna are made the same way. Steel cans are extruded red hot (in an innert nitrogen atmosphere so the iron doesn't oxidize and form scale) to prevent cold work hardning that is a property of iron and a great many other metals. Brass, steel, and aluminum cartridges are all made by both extrusion and drawing operations, both are needed to form them rapidly in a mass production operation. Actually, the operations of drawing and extrusion are closely related down at the point where the metal is being worked and flowing.

There are only a few technical books available on extrusion methods used in industry, it was originally a British development back in the 1840s, 160-some years ago. Inexpensive lead and tin pipe for household plumbing was made by extrusion until it was replaced by inexpensive rolled and hot-dipped galvanized iron plumbing pipe around 115 years ago in the 1890s. The images on our coins are even extruded, coined surfaces are a form of low-profile surface extrusion.

Otero County, New Mexico is where White Sands National Monument is located, up about 80 miles north of El Paso, Texas. That would be a long drive from Pueblo, Colorado. We have some outstanding oryx hunting here. See:
http://www.nps.gov/archive/whsa/Animal%20List/oryx.htm
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_S...ional_Monument

Oryx hunting tags are obtained by special lottery.

[KTN]

This is my extruder.12 ton bottle jack,o-frame and homemade die that extrudes 0.75"x3" lead cylinder to about 4 feet of 0.18" wire.
Just remember to lube your lead before extruding it.Shortly after taking this picture I forget it and base plunger stuck tight.


Kaj

[teddyblu]

Need help on the extruder die design.

Where is the extruder hole placed in the die design, side, bottom ????

I have a 50 ton hyd press and equipment to make the die, just need design.

thanks Larriy

[DLCTEX]

Just picture a syringe , an extruder works on same principle. DALE