Custom 30 Ton Press Modification

Needed more room in my press for making floor pans ect. had a new 30 ton air over hydraulic press 20" between the uprights. Used some 8" 13.75 structural channel. New inside width 48" this will let you stamp in floor pan channels across a sheet. I can now work a 30" square sheet and channels it across the sheet. I made a couple of dies to stamp in the channels and some flat dies for crimping and folding edges.Used the 200 DX in stick mode for the new 8" channels and the mig for die building.

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I was surprised to see that the side rails are pretty much the same as my little 12 ton press,,thought they would be more robust,,,,your cross rails seem plenty strong..

Very cool setup! That hat channel looks professionally stamped. I've been kicking around the same idea about doing some stamping, but I need some dash contours and gauge holes stamped out with rolled edges and the combination die for that project wouldn't be easy to build. Besides I still need a press and I have no floor space. Does your press flex a lot resting on those casters (as opposed to sitting flat on the floor)?

It's not much different on the sides mostly the cross members that are taking the load, 30 ton starts to move those 8" channels when you bottom out that little channel die. I am trying to find an old set of press brake dies to cut down and make it possible to bend 48" up to 16 ga. I have a small dual groove bottom die that will let you bend a 3/8" lip on a sheet but it is only 36" long. I miss my old brakes and shear 12' 1/4" shear and 12' 1/4 press brake in steel , had a 75 ton DK press brake with a flat table on the bottom to take uni punch frames with different dies in them and a bunch of small forming dies to stamp out parts in one step.

I know how you feel about missing the 12' shear and brake. I used to use those items daily at the sheet metal shop I worked at, plus the Big" press brake, the welders, the forming and turning machines,and the 124"x64" plasma table with Auto-cad and cad-duct programs installed. Home projects were a breeze with all that equipment at my disposal. Now I'm doing like you are and trying to find ways to duplicate the tooling I had previous access to, expect I'm doing it on a tiny budget with not very high expectations.

Good luck on your quest to find those dies. Some of those press brake dies are big money!

It's all gone A divison of Cargill bought our whole plant and my product line . They moved it to northeastern Iowa. 6 months after the move the night shift was forming floor 7 ga sheets with a 2" radius round die , the forgot to check and see what material the day ship was forming . The sides opened up about 1" thru the 5" wide side frames as the day shift was forming 10 ga and the older mechanical press did not give it just cycled once.

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Originally Posted by cbmkr

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Nice setup. Do you have the ram mounted on a slider, similar to the red base plate?

Yes it slides left or right to get in the position you need to. I have it setup with bolts to loosen and tighten in the needed position. The bottom die also tightens down.

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Originally Posted by cbmkr

Yes it slides left or right to get in the position you need to. I have it setup with bolts to loosen and tighten in the needed position. The bottom die also tightens down.

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That's a great design feature. It's probably easier to align the ram to the part than vice versa, especially with big, asymmetric control arms or other odd shapes. I'd like to mod a 20ton this way.

That is pretty neat. You could tack in some round bar on some dies as well to make radi in the corners or even a corrugated sheet.

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Originally Posted by cbmkr

Yes it slides left or right to get in the position you need to. I have it setup with bolts to loosen and tighten in the needed position. The bottom die also tightens down.

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That makes it so much easier to form sheet material that you're dedicating to one side of your project or the other. Even if you follow the correct sequence when forming your project, you can hit a "brick wall" on the last brake when the ram is stationary.

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Originally Posted by sportbike

That is pretty neat. You could tack in some round bar on some dies as well to make radi in the corners or even a corrugated sheet.

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That idea works really well. I use to have to form bull nose countertops from sheet metal at work and we didn't have enough of the factory produced dies for the brake, so we modified some leftover dies using rod. Depending on how you space your braking points, you can still achieve a gentle curve using a die with a tighter radius by "bumping" the material.

I used to have a full set of dies made to fab all the lower door parts for the old 73-79 chevy pickups, Floor pan dies also , the upper dies were made from 1/2" cold rolled round.

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Originally Posted by cbmkr

I used to have a full set of dies made to fab all the lower door parts for the old 73-79 chevy pickups, Floor pan dies also , the upper dies were made from 1/2" cold rolled round.

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But why would someone ever need to make patch panel sections for 73-79 Chevy trucks in the first place? They only began to rust right out of the factory, and most look like swiss cheese by now!;) My dad has an all original 74 Chevy 3/4 ton that he bought 27 years ago (back when it was actually nice), and the day he was hired in the Chevy dealership body shop (back in the 90's before it closed down), he slowly began using the employee discount to purchase front fenders, the dash pad, and numerous other OEM panels on the truck....something tells me that he knew the truck would rust away sometime in the future, and he wanted to prepare for it beforehand. :O

It is still a great truck though!

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Originally Posted by youngnstudly

But why would someone ever need to make patch panel sections for 73-79 Chevy trucks in the first place? They only began to rust right out of the factory, and most look like swiss cheese by now!;) My dad has an all original 74 Chevy 3/4 ton that he bought 27 years ago (back when it was actually nice), and the day he was hired in the Chevy dealership body shop (back in the 90's before it closed down), he slowly began using the employee discount to purchase front fenders, the dash pad, and numerous other OEM panels on the truck....something tells me that he knew the truck would rust away sometime in the future, and he wanted to prepare for it beforehand. :O

It is still a great truck though!

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We had several of them on the Farm and at the shop. We used all the 18-20 ga cover sheets from our steel shipments from the decoiler to make the parts. The steel was free and a lot of people we knew needed to patch up some rust. A lot better than a 2x8 piece of lumber on the floor and mud coming thru the floor and door bottom.