Lets make a Swage press

[kdbarker]

Wanted to thank everyone for all of your work (and more importantly) sharing it here for everyone to gain from.
Has anyone tried drilling the holes for the toggle arms "before" welding to the toggle bar? My vertical mill is a bit to small to drill the holes in the toggle arms after they are welded to the toggle bar.
I'm thinking of drilling the holes first, then insert the pins, clamp in place to the toggle bar, mig weld the arms in place on the corners, then complete the welds with the arc welder. Then hope and pray that nothing moved out of place and the pins come back out...

[massmanute]

Would ordinary A36 hot rolled steel work as well as cold rolled steel?

I found the answer to my question. It's amazing what you can do with Google. A36 steel does not machine well. Too bad, because it's inexpensive and widely available.

[Blublister]

I drilled my holes for the toggle before welding. Took the four outer toggles and super glued them together. Then skimmed the sides of all as one unit. Drilled the hole through all four pieces while still glued together. Heat a little bit with a propane torch and the super glue lets go with a slight tap.

Then placed them in position and lined up the holes with drill rod or silver steel rod. Clamp the heck out of them with every clamp you can find, borrow or scavenge. Give it a decent amount of small tack welds all over the place on all sides. The more tack welds and clamps you can get on the less the risk of warpage.

You then run the final welds once you think you have too many tack welds. Do the same with the centre toggle arms for the ram.

A second set of hands go a long way with the clamping and allignment. Do the outer arm sets first or the drill rod wont go through. Once the are welded do the arms for the ram using the holes and drill rod to align it.

Hope this helps.

[MaxJon]

Anyone else making a hydraulic version of this press? I saw one example on post #434 looks the goods! Be easy, but costly I think? Or pneumatic cylinder operated, for that matter?

[20nickels]

I am building a 50Cal hydraulic powered version of the press. So far so good but one question has me stumped. how much clearance would I have to give the top punch for float. I am making the punches from 5/8" round bar with the initial stepdown to 9/16" then the actual punch dia. I am using 2" hyraulic ram rounds for the ram and side columns. The top beam is 2" of 4140 6"X12" cold roll about 135 ksi, the bolt holes on 9' centers 1" gr 8 bolts, the bolts are the sacraficial items for overpressure. My dies will be 2" od. I am using a 4" enerpac cylinder and 4 trampoline springs for ejection force/return

Any progress? Pics? The hydraulic rams got me thinking.

[Swede43]

Hello folks !
I could not resist to do my own press now when I have seen all of your beutiful work. I had to convert everyting to mm cause Im Swedish and I will also make my dyes so thats much more easyer to do it in mm.
Some pics on the machine


Here Im doing the holes and threading..

and som testing Before final assembly..

And more...

I hope to get it funktionally redy until this weekend,, I my gouverment here at home give me a freecard to the workshop

Hope you enjoying the pics and inspire som more to get the thumb out of,,,, and start to do your presses,, Im really enjoying this and will be more when im made my first 0,375 bullets,, then 6,5, then 0,30,and more and more,,,,
I hope .
I just have to figure out how to make dies,, I will try to use copperpipes and start doing 300gr 0,375 bullets with round leadtips,, later i will try to make bullets to my sniperrifle,, 340WBY Mag,,
Take care all of you.
If there are any questions,, just ask, and forgive me for my bad Spelling,,, Im an foringer
//Swede

[R.Ph. 380]

Hello folks !
I could not resist to do my own press now when I have seen all of your beutiful work. I had to convert everyting to mm cause Im Swedish and I will also make my dyes so thats much more easyer to do it in mm.
Some pics on the machine


Here Im doing the holes and threading..

and som testing Before final assembly..

And more...

I hope to get it funktionally redy until this weekend,, I my gouverment here at home give me a freecard to the workshop

Hope you enjoying the pics and inspire som more to get the thumb out of,,,, and start to do your presses,, Im really enjoying this and will be more when im made my first 0,375 bullets,, then 6,5, then 0,30,and more and more,,,,
I hope .
I just have to figure out how to make dies,, I will try to use copperpipes and start doing 300gr 0,375 bullets with round leadtips,, later i will try to make bullets to my sniperrifle,, 340WBY Mag,,
Take care all of you.
If there are any questions,, just ask, and forgive me for my bad Spelling,,, Im an foringer
//Swede

Perfectly understandable to me. Welcome to posting. First post in 3 years. Nice hearing from you. Nice to see some of the interest from all you ferriners..........................................hehehe.

[Swede43]

Hello Sir !
Yes, i have been here for many years, but it has been Reading and try to understand swaging, and now I Think iam up to the job and start konstrukting Equipment and so on.
My normal occupation is as an gunsmith, but since a year back im recovering from a wery bad motorbike accident. As an startpoint the doctors said to my wife was that i will not survive the weekend to Learning walk and using my limbs, the one of them working so I started to work fore some small time at a time and right now I said to my self, damn, I will try to do some swaging,,, as usual, reed first, do later.

After hawe seen all of you making fantastic dyes, Tools and presses,, Now I will try.

Damn, do anyone tell me how to turn on this program that "helping" me with small and big letter ? This is really mocking me,,,

Take care all of you,, I will soon start with the questions
//Swede

[R.Ph. 380]

Whatever I can do to help, you have it.

Bill

[Swede43]

Hello friends !
Finally I started to do the last tipofs on my press, some minor adjustments and then,,,,



Some pics on the progress so far...


Boring out holes for my plastic guides, I Went out on brons so I had to use very hard plastic, seems to do the job.




pics on final essambly...



Time to start making draw dies for copper pipes, dies to flatten the base on the copperpipe, some cutting dies, leadsquirting dies, coreseating dies and Point forming dies,,,,,,,,,
almoust ready

Take care,,,,
//Swede43

[Swede43]

The last attchment was not supposed to be there,,?
Sorry for the problems,,
//Swede43

[Faret]

So how is everybody boring out the hole in the ram?

[Swede43]

I do it in my Little lathe,,


I can pull quite large stuff in it,,,, the bead is over 13 feet and I havent find anything I couldnt work with yeat.


//Swede43

[Swede43]

Folks,, I have some small troubles,,
I have made a couple of dies and trying to make a jacket out of an 10mm (25/64") kopper tube, I have tryed different angles of the bottom but still I Think that the force needed to do the bottom of the jacket is tremendeus,
Do I have to have a Moore mirrow finish in it, what kind of angle on the base inside the dies are you guys working with ?
//Swede43

[just bill]

I do it in my Little lathe,,


I can pull quite large stuff in it,,,, the bead is over 130 feet and I havent find anything I couldnt work with yeat.


//Swede43

130 feet, do you use roller skates to get around it???

[Swede43]

130 feet, do you use roller skates to get around it???

Sorry if that came out wrong,, me and feets and hands,, we are working with meters, cenimeters and so on,, in metric system it is about 4,8 meters long. That has to equal someround 13 to 15 feet ?
My bad, , again
//Swede43

[just bill]

Sorry if that came out wrong,, me and feets and hands,, we are working with meters, cenimeters and so on,, in metric system it is about 4,8 meters long. That has to equal someround 13 to 15 feet ?
My bad, , again
//Swede43

That's ok, it's all good. I have a little one, 2 feet.

[Swede43]

That's ok, it's all good. I have a little one, 2 feet.

Nice,, My small lathe is an Emco 10, verey nice Little machine and quite accurate, there is a "slight" differens in the stability with these two lathes but still I like the Comfort with the small one if im not have to shave of som big things.
I am really considering ti make an CNC conversion on the Emco, Im collecting info and programs, parts for this.
I have also wanted a really small nice Lathe, I have seen some here among other forumguys, It would have been really nice to make small things on the desk
Around 1 feet or so,,

BTW, Im finished with my Jacket base forming die, My jacket drawing die and on the go with coreswaging die plus making coreseating die at the same time.
Soon it is only Point forming die and Im off,, with this caliber,,, 15 more to go,,,,
I really thing my next dieset will be to 44mag,, I Always wanted some Heavy jacketed bullets to my gun, for pighunting. Like now im using 310gr solid leadbullets with gascheck, works nice but I will try some jacketed 350is gr,,
Take Care
//Swede43

[Faret]

So how is everybody boring out the hole in the ram?

I thought a lathe but how on the lathe? Drill then boring bar?

[ratboy]

i used a lathe. steadyrest and a large drill bit and a lot of time and chips.