Punch Press to Power Hammer Conversion

[tphaake]

Has anyone tried to convert a small punch press to a power hammer?

I purchased a bunch of machinery which included a Famco 53A 10 ton punch press. Real beauty and CLEAN. What to do with it?? It has a throat depth of 12 inches and a throat height of 12 inches. It came without any dies. I got the bright idea of using it as a power hammer with the addition of a few tool heads that I think I can machine up.

Any comments??

Thanks.

[tphaake]

Also, I know the "head" of the machine will have to be modified to not make a "direct" strike but rather "slap" the work with the head. The key will be to make some form of attachment or modification to allow that to happen. I have noticed the homebuilt power hammer on "anvilfire.com" that uses a car shock absorber. The Eckolds and others use a leaf spring arrangement. The kit version on metalcrafttools.com uses the leaf spring.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Tim

[Jacin]

A couple things come to mind.....the leaf spring thing is acarry over from the state of the art from the day - that day was MANY moons ago. Today - I just might try urethane as part of the tool holder. I have also had great sucess using a air cylinder that you can vary the pressure to to allow a firmness change - on the fly so to speak. Of course the "spring" technowlogy is WELL PROVEN.

ON the ENTIRE OPPOSITE nd of the spectrum - the Pullmax type tooling uses a "bottom dead center" type of philosophy. Meaning that there is NO ATTEMPT at allowing a forgivness in the hit. Instead the dies are "clearanced" (set up for the height or material clearance) prior to running your material through. Depending on the type of press you are using that might be worth looking into.


Pullmax : good
Power hammer : good
Planishing hammer : good

BUT they all are a little DIFFERENT . SOme gusy like Chevy's other Like Fords - then of course there's the gusy like me who just prefer them to start up when you need them.
Of course keep in mind I have been spotted driving a Rambler - so you migh twant to take that into consideration in weighing my comments. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/crazy.gif"%20alt="[/img]



P.S. - Of course I've also been know to swap out a part or two. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif"%20alt="[/img]

[D_R]

Tim,

Sounds like a good use for it. Does it have the later type of non-repeating stroking? The older presses had a repeating system such that when you hit the trip lever it might cycle more than once if you didn't release the trip lever quickly enough. OSHA mandated all presses be converted to the safer non-repeating mechanism which is not what you'd want for a power hammer. I believe it's easy to convert to repeating mechanism, there's a little dog that can be removed on some presses to cause a repeating action.

An issue some feel makes a punch press not so ideal as a hammer is the stroke length. The power hammers have a fairly short stroke, your press probably has at least 1" or more likely 1-1/2" stroke. There's no way to change stroke length.

Then we have the stroking rate, by using a larger motor pulley you can up the speed.

[tphaake]

Yes, my guess was 1-1/2 inch stroke but I will check today and see what it really is. I have seen other presses like this one for sale and sometimes giveaway. In most cases they were larger (30 ton or more) and or did not have any really useable throat depth. This one is easy 12 inches which ain't much for some in the power hammer catergory but then it does depend on what you are going to use it for too. In my case it is just sitting there aching for someone to use it and it is very clean. Not what I have been use to seeing with these things.

I like the home made one using metalcraft supplied parts. It has a throat depth of 26 inches and runs 900 blows per minute. The depth on my press I cannot change but the blows can be increased for sure. The Metal Craft unit uses the spring thing technology. I got my ideas for this one and it does included a spring but not the way Metal Craft does it.

This press is old. Perhaps 50-60 years I do not know. Famco is still in business and they were able to send to me a parts breakdown but no operational or specs.

I am in no hurry to convert so I will think on it and see maybe with a few more comments come up with the solution for converting this press to a hammer.
tim