I put my lead wire extruding die in my 20 ton press with the air over hydraulic jack and had lubricated the 1” x 6” lead slug with STP and proceeded to apply pressure like I always do. The weather was warm.
About 3” of the 1/4” wire was coming out and the part of the press that the jack sits on and applies pressure twisted and the die went crashing on the floor!
It did that once before but I repaired it and it was working fine up until this time.
I straightened the bent guide pipe and cracked a weld about 3/4” long that won’t be hard to fix. I had a ring on the bottom of the die to hold it straight and that sheared some metal off the die body so I increased the depth of the shoulder from.050” to.100”
and I am going to make a new ring from a 1” thick 6” diameter disc that I got from the scrap yard.
I used my LBT Lead Hardness Tester for the first time and got 2 readings of 5 BHN , so it is not hard lead.
I have no idea what the cause is!