Upsetting tongs - the never-ending story

[Grant]

Made a quick video of the first step in my tong making process:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYVxzD4MlmE

[david hyde]

Those induction heaters sure rock don't they.

You meantioned the air hammer that was attched to the end (and is now freestanding) what was the purpose of that ?

[Grant]

What was the purpose in a 100 pound air hammer? Gosh, I don't know, maybe for forging steel, ya think?

A number of air compressor/drilling tool companies made machines for maintaining drill steel. Gardner-Denver, Ingersoll - Rand and Sullivan. They usually had a means for upsetting the collar and star-drills on the end. In order to make it a better all-around machine the Sullivan also incorporated a pretty nice little hammer which could be used for chisels and points and such.

[Grant]

That was a real butt-kickin' little hammer. Solid single blows and ran up to 700 (!) blows per minute! But (and this it a big but) even the factory literature says 96 CFM of air! That's like a good 20 - 25 HP compressor. And I can attest to the fact that it could use all of that. Been long since made into Toyotas now.

[david hyde]

Been long since made into Toyotas now.

why dear Lord WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ries]

Actually, here in the northwest, most scrap never makes it anywhere near Japan- West Seattle is more like it-
Nucor sucks up 500,000 tons of scrap a year for the mini mill right here.
I dont know how much scrap Washington State produces, but my guess is we recycle a large percentage of it at home, so its more likely to be made into mini-mall roof trusses in Redmond than Toyotas.

[Mike B]

I thought most Toyotas sold here never made it anywhere near Japan either . . .

[nuge]

So, the gripper is basically an air powered vise? After a quick search I found a bunch of pneumatic vises for sale from enco and such. Would these work for production under a hydraulic press? How would you guys go about rigging up a gripper?

[Grant]

Rule of thumb is 1/2 X ram power for grip. So if you have a 20 ton press, you need 10 ton for grip. I don't have anywhere near that, around 50 ton of push and 15 ton of grip, but I usually have a backstop to keep the part from pushing through.

[Phil]

When you see old big upsetters they will often have a piece of large steel beam concreted into the ground infront of the upsetter and in line with the gripper jaws, especially when the machine is getting old and has been used and abused. The modus opeandii here is to pack the job in place with packing pieces against the steel beam it tries to push its self out of the gripper dies when the header die does its stroke. Not real safe, especially if you get between the upsetter and the beam when a bar gets shoved backward, you could end up skewered.

I seem to recall you could even buy a factory made backstop from Ajax to fit some of their machines.