The thread on how smart etc got me thinking on how big the stamping presses were and are today on how much force it takes to stamp out everything from panels to hub caps. I was doing some housekeeping and thought of that after seeing this old bell housing. It’s 1/4 thick and the force needed to stamp this out had to be amazing.....and loud.
When I lived in Mass, Wyman Gordon in North Grafton Mass had large presses. My Mother worked for them in the '50s. In 1953 they built a 50,000 ton press which is the largest press in North America and still in use. The ground will shake several miles from plant. Originally founded in 1883 in Worcester, MA, the Wyman-Gordon Company boasts more than 125 years of forging experience and first manufactured forgings for the aerospace industry during WWI. Recognizing the need for more expansive heavy manufacturing capabilities to support larger and more advanced aircraft designs, the Department of Defense built the forging facility now located in North Grafton, MA in 1946, equipping it initially with an 18,000 ton closed-die press. In 1953, the facility was expanded to include the 35,000 and 50,000 ton presses in what was referred to as the “Air Force Heavy Press Program”. From this program’s inception, Wyman-Gordon was chosen to operate the North Grafton facility due to the company’s long-term experience and reputation in the industry. In 1988, Wyman-Gordon purchased the facility outright from the U.S. Government and ran it as a private company until 1999 when Wyman-Gordon was acquired by Precision Castparts Corp. (PCC). Today, Wyman-Gordon has diversified its product portfolio beyond military applications to include forgings for many civil airliner and power generation applications. The 50,000 ton press is the largest operating in North America and is considered a strategic national industrial asset due to its essential nature in supporting various critical military aircraft production programs.
It's even more amazing now the thickness of steel that can be cut using hydraulic force instead of just mechanical methods. Water jet cutting will astound you. Goggle it. Here's an 8 inch anvil being cut just like butter.
We had a 3000 ton Baldwin press in a grinding wheel factory I worked in. It broke a 2 inch thick barrel mold with 1200 tons one day, very exciting. Seismograph sensors picked it up 35 miles away. Just guessing from my press experience, but the ones used in the early '70's appear to be 500 tons, and they may not be using that much force to press with.
That demonstration was impressive. My Great Uncle, helped perfect that system, many years ago. What caught my eye was that junk foreign anvil. Typical example of the junk they’re shipping into our country every day! Bones
As a tool and die maker we worked on several different dies from .004 copper to 7/16 railroad cart wheel die. The wheel die was a deep draw so several hit achieved the final product. The concrete bed was 20 foot deep or something and press was 3 stories high and shook the whole building and super loud . I am sure things are done a bit different these days as that was 35 plus years ago. I still have slugs in my tool box from that job crazy cool machine shop..
Sheetmetal press... can't imagine what it would take to stamp anything thicker than 3/16". Or frame rails out of 11 gauge, awfully long dies for '32 frame rails.
I talked with the former co-owner of Fairlane Productions, who were manufacturing '32 rails, supposedly in competition with American Stamping... Can't recall, but think it was 100 ton stamping, some misalignments and other problems, I shuddered to think the expense of any mis-calc, resulting in late delivery, etc. I remember Roy Fjastadt telling of 'renting time' on a press, only so many rails could be produced in a narrow time window...I'm sure someone can elaborate on facts.
Here are a few short vids for your enjoyment. These are some of the machines that I ran daily for about ten years. The big press in the videos is a 2500 ton press, we also have in our shop a 1500 ton & a 3000 ton. the other two video's are an 800 ton progressive feed press and a 600 ton blanking press (to make the steel blanks to feed the bigger presses) Might want to turn down your volume a little bit. These suckers are loud. We make parts for way off topic cars. I'm not going to mention which manufacturer though. Even though we're stamping out parts for modern vehicles, the die technology really hasn't changed much in the last 50-60 years. And for a size reference, the part in the first video is the firewall stamping that fits from where it meets the floor pan of the vehicle to just below the windshield for a midsize 4-door sedan.
I ran press for the A.O. Smith Corp. on time the largest frame maker in the world. We made car and truck frames for everyone and I mean everyone. I ran press from 100 ton to make brackets and small pieces to 4,000 ton to make truck tractor frames up to 3/4" thick. The bed was32 feet long and 3 feet wide. They were buried one story deep and two stories above ground. They had 200hp electric motors and we could make 600 truck frames, weighing up to 1,200 lbs each, per hour. Presses to make 3 foot sections of car frames were in the 250-500 ton range. The presses that were the most impressive were called kickups. They would take a perfectly rectangular sheet blank of steel the full length of the car or truck frame and stretch the two humps for the front and rear suspension, kickups, in one sideways stroke. This marvel was done by massive amounts of weight, that held the blank flat, preventing the blank from wrinkling while being stretched. Our smallest was 200 tons, largest 800 tons of weight. In 2000 I was running a 200 ton kickup that was installed in 1928 and had a plaque on it declaring that it was a national landmark.
As @wisdonm pointed out, a lot of large presses can have some age to them. At Carborundum Grinding Wheel Co., there were a half dozen Erie 500 tonners, that are over 100 years old. The 3000 ton Baldwin there was assembled in 1956, when the plant was built around it. The biggest issue we had with the older presses came from pitting in the cylinders, caused by the fact that water was used for hydraulic fluid in them for many years.
When I was stationed in South Korea got to take a tour of an aircraft plant where they were making Black Hawk helicopters under license. When we got on the floor front and center there was this humongous piece of equipment... big as a house and twice as tall very old looking cast iron press or stamper something that said "Ohio" or something like that, they'd simply brought the whole dang thing over there. I remember being pissed off, not at the Koreans but it never made any sense to remove our manufacturing base. I don't think we can even make a decent can opener anymore.
After WWII, we split up some of the Nazi machinery with the Russians, the Germans had the biggest presses in the world at the time. I recall tonnage-requirement calculations when I was a tool and die apprentice.
Spent the first 8 years of my working kife in a GM stamping plant. 3-4000 tons on the draw die for large panels. Thats a standalone press with generally 5 separate presses per line. Smaller or less depth panels can be run on tranfer presses where the entire ram moves in 1 stroke and the parts are shuttled between stations on a transfer rail. Most household items are run on contiguous lines where the steel is fed from a roll and the strip is pulled thru the line, only cut into individual pieces in the final station. Lot of good youtube videos on press lines running. Press technology hasnt changed a lot. How parts are tranferred has. Panel design has changed a lot, less panel depth means less tonnage and the ability to run in more tranfer and contiguous lines that run a much greater rate than the standalone lines.
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