Workshop Press Tooling Part 2

Will Doggett makes a set of tooling for his press tool described starting in issue 285

- Will Doggett

Top beam piece

The top piece was made from the other part that was left after cutting the base from the same material this was 20 x 33 x 125mm. I used this on its side this is to give more support to the bending piece as this is normally done by the vice jaws so the 20mm face was marked out in the centre and also drilled and taped M8 to a depth of 15mm.

To hold the arbor to the chuck I used a piece of 5/8” steel and cut it to 40mm this was then faced and a chamfer put on one end then the other was drilled and tapped M8 also to a depth of 15mm these operations were done on the lathe.

The top piece and the 5/8” chuck pin are held together with a piece of M8 studding 25mm long. The finished top beam and the bottom packing are shown in photo 14 before assembly and photo 15 shows the parts assembled.

The assembled parts and the vice mounted bending tool are shown in photo 16. In this photo you can see the top section is deeper in section to give the support as earlier. The photo also shows the damage sustained when an early job’s material was harder than I thought.

Radius bending tool

Having made the square bending tool, I then made the radius bender as not all bending jobs required to be square. To form the half round in the die I thought about clamping a second piece of steel together with the die and then drill through the centre of the two this would then give the half-round that is required in the die.

The die