Canedy-Otto screw press

Some years ago I had the opportunity to use one of the big A frame screw presses at Tuckahoe (IIRC at least a 10ton model), fell in love with the action and finesse the machine afforded. Meanwhile I had one of the usual "12 ton" Northern tool hydraulic units (complete with warped table)- it works OK but I've never much liked it.

An opportunity came up to get a smaller press via this thread (Keystone Marine Motor Works (Essington, PA)) so I jumped at the opportunity, and eventually got it into the garage;






total weight is probably on the order of 600 lbs, an easy carry in a pickup;




but the center-of-gravity is challenging if you can't pick it from high up on the frame. A shop crane is problematic, would be good to drop the table to the bottom and put shackles thru the pin holes as high up as possible. I picked using the table which made the lift really sketchy.

The screw head adds a lot of weight up high but its fairly heavy so not easily removed unless you have a suitable rafter or similar. The head is retained by the obvious pair of bolts, and is tightly fit between the frame's upper members (when reassembling, jack the upper frame apart slightly.

Inside the head I found a set of loose balls forming a thrust bearing to support the free motion of the ram. The smooth upper face is the thrust bearing which applies pressure to a workpiece.



be sure to disassemble with a tray or cement mixing basin underneath, the balls go everywhere as soon as the head separates! The compounding lever system acts very cleanly up or down but is somewhat in the way when rotating the wheel by hand, perhaps something to get used to through use. I've not put floor anchors in for the other machines, I think I will need them for this machine once theres a length of pipe going into the compound lever knuckles...

The head is lubricated using a grease cup with screw-on cap to force lubricant into the screw and bearings, much like some old motors. The head was filled with mostly solidified circa 1920 grease.With oil as assembly lube the screw zips up and down very nicely. After reassembly I used #1 grease which worked well.

The arbor press tool is simple rack and pinion but it does have a lever and pawl, and a holding spring against the arbor rack teeth. I'm looking forward to broaching keyways on this, my cheapie hydraulic press worked but does not give a good feel for the cut.

A small assortment of possibly-OEM tooling came with the press; v-blocks, nice piece of plate to go on the table and some related bits which may end up being handy for the arbor press end of the machine. The machine does have an OEM v-head for the working end of the screw, its quite rough and will need some refinishing, but the set looks to be very handy for shaft straightening and similar.

That sure looks like a Manley press.
Do you know if they had an arrangement?

I don't- but the canedy-otto plate is bolted to the frame, seems like it'd be easy to rebadge. The compounding collar on this press is babbitted, if thats of any help.

Inside the head, whomever was doing the drilling and tapping that day messed up, 2 sets of holes tapped but the head only goes together using one of them. I guess the Bull said "Rotate it a smidge and put a new set in the right positions, and don't tell QA".

and for the record, when making a handle to go in the arbor press pawl knuckle, make sure to set the length so it can swing down past the table with enough clearance so your fingers don't get smashed...

Greg Menke said:

Inside the head, whomever was doing the drilling and tapping that day messed up, 2 sets of holes tapped but the head only goes together using one of them. I guess the Bull said "Rotate it a smidge and put a new set in the right positions, and don't tell QA".

Click to expand...

They could be "Jack out" holes.

digger doug said:

They could be "Jack out" holes.

Click to expand...

Ah no such luck- these are a set of 4 blind tapped holes taking the screws thru a ring that retains handwheel/thrust bearing together in the head. I had a good time clamping everything together to keep the balls in place so I could flip the head and look down thru the holes to find the set that would take all 4 screws.

a mis-drilled set would risk scrapping out the top half casting.

Definitely wouldn’t be the first time I have drilled extra holes to save a part

Here's a picture of one in an old catalog.

I also have one of these, I'd attach a picture but I'm stilled challenged by resizing a picture.
Here's another thread with picture of mine. https://owwm.org/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=234252

Having seen Greg's pictures here that makes only 2 I know of.
I've had mine a few years and occasionally search online trying to find literature or another (don't need one, just curious to see), not much out there.

35 ton seems kind of ambitious for this machine lol, but it does work pretty well. I could see that Tuckahoe screw press getting into the 30 ton sort of range- that press probably weighs well over half a ton itself, the compounding hardware sized to afford much greater leverage.

I just used the arbor press end to help disassemble some motorcycle forks, likely will use it or the screw press for another set when I get back home

Those "test centers" look interesting- nothing like that was on or near the press when I picked it up, any idea what they're used for? I was thinking they related to shaft straightening. Looks like that V support is OEM, I've wondered about it. No trace of the vertical support plates seen on the arbor press side of the unit... I've cobbled together various pieces of material to get workpieces up high enough so the table needn't be moved. I am thinking of a making a cone shaped nose piece for the screw ram, to make precise pushes on small parts easier.

Glad to meet someone else with one of these.. very happy with it. I have found it helpful to keep a bungee cord handy to restrain the compounding assembly to one side or the other when using just the wheel.

Greg Menke said:

Those "test centers" look interesting- nothing like that was on or near the press when I picked it up, any idea what they're used for? I was thinking they related to shaft straightening.

Click to expand...

Correct... they are for checking your progress when straightening a shaft or bar. I have a Dake straightening press with the same setup.

Followup for posterity;

the compounding lever on the machine has a babbitt bearing, so the lever can rotate on the handwheel assembly. It has journal and thrust faces- badly worn on my machine so that the lever dragged on the handwheel. I decided to bore it out and fit a bronze bushing.


Here, the babbitt bearing is removed- the worn out sections are apparent;





Set up for boring and facing. The only machined surface on the piece is the relief for the handwheel rim, so I clamped that rectangular block on the machined face and indicated from there. I inserted a boring bar in the pin holes seen to test perpindicularity- was pretty close. I think the part was originally put in a jig and the babbitt poured; so the rough casting was never involved in establishing alignments. The cap mating surfaces were very rough, not flat and out of square, and bolt holes are significantly splayed. I milled the mating faces to improve fit-up but didn't do anything with the bolt holes. With the cap bolts tight I face-milled the top surface to establish it flat. There were some hard spots which defeated the fly cutter, I ended up using an endmill.









Bored and facemilled for the bronze bushing, the babbitt retension holes were filled with metal epoxy before boring. I fit taper pins to preserve bearing cap alignment here...







Here the bronze bushing is test fit before splitting. Not knowing any correct dimensions I left plenty of allowance on the thrust bearing thickness- started with about .425", ended up with just under .250" which allows the compounding lever arm to fit properly.


Thrust face OD is just under 4.5". Bushing OD is 4.25" Bushing ID is 3.75"- that is the diameter of the handwheel journal surface.








Its kind of nerve wracking to saw a perfectly nice bushing in half... the handwheel journal has a radius to match. I put in the radius before splitting but had to re-cut it manually several times as I worked on the thrust face thickness. A burr in a die grinder while the mated halves rotated in the lathe worked pretty well...










I considered fitting a brass flat-head screw on both halves to retain the bushing segments but so far no need for it. A fairly loose running fit seems optimal.

Nice red cock up!
--Doozer

Setup and fixturing are the coolest problems, whatever gets it done. This press reminds of the Weaver Hi-Speed design.

Doozer said:

Nice red cock up!
--Doozer

Click to expand...

I bought that gizmo on a whim I think from Enco back when I got the machine and its a fantastic little accessory- works great!

Ohio Mike said:

Setup and fixturing are the coolest problems, whatever gets it done. This press reminds of the Weaver Hi-Speed design.

Click to expand...

It was fun working out that stuff. I'm using the press now and its a good fix but the long cantilever prevents really free rotation. Besides tolerating the coarse casting fitups, wear on the thrust face owers the latching pawl in the handwheel teeth so no loss of function, but more than about 1/4" thickness raises the pawl too high for it to fall into the teeth.

Its a classic design- I've come across at least 3 different implementations of it.