Asian Bolt Heading Press

I was sent a link to this press video, and it's very interesting on a couple of levels.

https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/hmt-forum/giant_bolt_head_press.mp4

First, can you imagine OSHA stopping by?

Second, the press mechanism is really simple and clever. If you look at the left side of the press, you can see a lever that shifts the axle of the two large disks left and right. When they go left, the right wheel contacts the horizontal wheel and drives the screw down. When it reaches the bottom, it can slip if necessary. Then the axle is shifted right and the left wheel spins the horizontal wheel in the opposite direction and raises the screw.

As the screw drives down, it is sped up as it is driven further out toward the rim of the drive disk. The retract slows near the top of the stroke. Reminds me of the small equipment variable speed disk transmissions. I bet it's very controllable with a skilled operator.

thats actually a motorized fly press. might be Korean- the Koreans like them, and use them a lot. A now deceased friend of mine brought over a container full of smaller ones like these 20 years or so ago, and sold them to blacksmiths, who love em. They can be configured in a lot of ways, easy to bolt tooling in. A slightly smaller version of the one you show is still in use at his successor company, Blacksmith Depot, in Candler NC, to make Blacksmithing Tongs. It does have a guard on it, but its pretty similar to what you show, and it seems to satisfy their state inspectors. They have video of it working on their facebook page. I believe its 100 ton.


Here in the USA, I sometimes buy bolts from a company in portland oregon that uses american style headers- and they are pretty cool to watch too- Making of a Square Head Machine Bolt - YouTube

Portland Bolt makes all kinds of reasonably priced custom bolts in the USA, AND they dont get hassled by OSHA.

Used to be lots of them about, we called them friction presses over here, last one I saw was at a Borg-Warner plant balling the ends of tie rods for cars, not as big but kind of hypnotic thing
Mark

Last year I saw one in use at Frilandsmuseet, a part of Nationalmuseet (The national museum) in Lyngby, Copenhagen. Other than that its fifty years since I saw one in use at a cutlery factory. I have a young who collects old fashioned machinery, I think he still has one and would be happy to sell it - to a caring customer.
fusker

If you’ve the headroom they make fantastic forging presses, really quite quick and controllable I’m told, sure I saw one making Damascus on a video a while ago, it may have been the slightly irritating on times Alec Steele ( who seems to be restarting over here for reasons best known to himself, perhaps he’s afraid of being deported lol)
Mark

So one that I think came through the hands of the first person (importer) Ries spoke of, was for a time owned by me (but never used), I decided the vibration would be too much in my machine shop, and so it was sold out of the yard of another smith we both knew, who has also died. Last I knew it was being used to make blacksmithing hammers.

They're no more scary than any other power hammer - and I think no more dangerous. Don't put your hand in there. And be ware of ill secured things be ejected from the press. But that's true of any press - in fact if you go to fabtech there's usualy a safety presentation which talks about loose objects in stamping presses turning into missles.

As for portland bolt - cool video, and I was surprized to hear that bolts used for power poles are ordinary A36, rather than the stronger steels used in other kinds of bolts. One suspects there are really good reasons for this....

bryan_machine said:

As for portland bolt - cool video, and I was surprized to hear that bolts used for power poles are ordinary A36, rather than the stronger steels used in other kinds of bolts. One suspects there are really good reasons for this....

Click to expand...

Bear in mind that the bolts are clamping around or through a wooden pole, not a metal one.

Here is a video of the machines and the guy Reis and Bryan mentioned above, sadly he passed away a few years back, RIP Grant, ,
There are a few other vids on his page that also show that machine.

Friction Screw Press Forging Tong Reins With Induction Forge - YouTube