Cold forging machine with your own hands: drawing, instruction and video
A homemade cold forging machine can come in handy, if you like to do crafts and you do not mind making your own hands something beautiful for a country estate, home interior, for gifts to loved ones or just for the soul.
Majestic appearance of products, made by forging, attracts with graceful lines and fascinates the eye. From ancient times, in all the best houses, you could definitely see such jewelry, as metal openwork curls. And today, when a huge number of various materials and technologies are developed, forged products have not lost their relevance.
Ware, made by forging, used in design along with glass, plastic and other decorative elements. Forging of metal is cold or hot. Many special conditions must be met to perform the hot forging process, therefore, it is very difficult for her to practice at home. A more affordable way is artistic cold forging. It is much easier for her to learn, and if desired, you can make homemade machines for cold forging with your own hands.
The process of cold forging
The cold version of forging will require two main processes:
- press;
- bending.
To hold these events, it is not necessary to inform the metal of any temperature. But some heat treatment must still occur between stages of work.
It is not necessary to have full-fledged forging machines, often amateurs make tools with their own hands. With the help of homemade equipment, you can give the workpieces all sorts of bizarre shapes. You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people. So get ready for it, what for, to bend the desired shape, will require drawings and considerable effort. Execution of works is possible only with use of raw materials of necessary thickness.
Ware, which are obtained using a homemade machine for cold forging, much stronger than those, which are made or cast by stamping. This is due to the fact, that metal rods, which pass through the equipment, are pressed together with giving them the necessary form. With this method of forging you need to avoid mistakes, since they are virtually unrecoverable. With the acquisition of skills you will be able to create attractive and wonderful products with your own hands.
Using a homemade machine for cold forging, it is possible to make such products, as:
- elements such as balcony canopies, handrails for stairs;
- bars on the windows;
- fences and fences;
- home furniture - tables, chairs, beds;
- elements, used in home design: lattice fireplaces, tripods for flowers.
During hot forging, the master needs not only a separate room, but also equipment for blacksmithing, as well as special conditions. With the cold method there is no need to preheat the workpiece, and the process itself is much more economical.
When processing a large batch of similar products with your own hands, everything can be done with stencils and drawings. This can significantly reduce labor costs and reduce manufacturing time. Sometimes the parts need to be heated, warming up is done at the joints, so that there is no curvature. Beginners are advised to carefully consider the manufacturing plan before performing the work, it will be useful to have a video tutorial and make drawings of the future product.
Tools and equipment
The manual machine for cold forging includes a number of elements. Required devices, which will be needed for work:
- twister;
- snail;
- gnutik;
- wave;
- the globe;
- flashlight.
Many names will seem ridiculous, but it is quite convenient for home use devices.
The main tool for work will be a flexor, which is used to change the shape of the metal. Its function is to bend the part at the required angle or to bend arcs with different radii.
Used in summer, usually, for twisting in a spiral of steel rods. This is a tool for bending rods, smug, tubes, squares and profiles to the shape of a spiral, products with different shapes and radii. When using this tool, you can not limit the radius of the spiral and make that value, which is needed.
The "flashlight" tool is necessary for bending of metal details. It is used to process metal rods, whose cross section is smaller 30 mm, or square profiles with a smaller cross section 16 mm.
With such a device, like a wave, make wavy curved elements. It is also used for processing pipes, which have a hexagonal or round cross section.
Twister is like a flashlight. With these two tools, you can unscrew the rods around the axis.
With the help of a globe you can make a large arc of a profile rod up to 12 mm. Moreover, the ends of the workpiece are also smoothly bent.
This tool for cold forging is not complicated at all, so you can often see homemade. Factory, he is almost second to none.
Forging machines
Most often at work, to make machines for cold forging with your own hands seems much more appropriate. Since not every element can be fully processed using only manual forging equipment. And the price of this equipment is quite high, even when it comes to the simplest snail machine.
If a home craftsman will make a product on a self-made conductor, then the thing will be unique, although in some respects it will be inferior to that, which is made in the factory. If you plan to make a large number of parts by cold forging, it is best to make a conductor with an electric motor. This will make your workflow easier.
It will be useful to provide for the manufacture of the main types of work - hoods, flexible and twisting. You can combine these devices when creating a conductor with your own hands.
During the extraction of the product is given a certain shape. Why it needs to be passed through rollers or a press, moreover, the cross section of raw materials will decrease.
The flexibility process is, that the part is bent at the right angle. You can perform this operation using templates. They are made this way: the drawing of a product is prepared, which is then followed by a template. Weld the curls on the steel plate, then the sheet is attached to the machine in the holder. The end of the workpiece is installed in the slot, the other end is fixed. With the help of the lever there is an impact on one end of the product, which must be stretched along all the bends of the plate, used as a template.
Making a template, the weld must be made from the outside, otherwise it will interfere with further operation of the product.
Often the masters themselves assemble simple devices, with which you can make quite original products. It all depends on the experience of the master. Consider one of these homemade models, to understand the principle itself.
"Snail" machine for forging with your own hands
With the help of this machine home craftsmen make all kinds of rings and ??spirals, wrappers, waves. To make this kind of machine, you need to act according to the drawings and technology, which includes a number of stages.
Before making any adaptations, hand tools or machines for artistic forging, graphic images should be followed, templates, sketches, drawings of the future device.
To get more accurate markup, it is best to use graph paper. Draw a spiral on it, in which the radius of turns gradually increases. The same step must be followed between turns. I must say, that this condition must be complied with only in cases, if symmetry of patterns is required, usually, do no more 4 PC.
Also keep in mind that, what will be the blanks, to work with. The distance between the turns should be done as follows, so that it is slightly larger than the diameter of the metal rods, otherwise it will be difficult to get the finished product from the machine.
Sheet iron will be required for the work surface. A thickness of four millimeters is enough. Sizing is based on the dimensions of the required parts. To make a shape, requires sheet metal in the form of strips three millimeters thick. You can work with this material with hand tools. It is simply bent in a spiral pattern with pliers.
To create a full-fledged work process, it is necessary to make reliable fixing of one end of a product. You will need a piece of rod here, which is equal to the width of the strips. A workbench will be required to secure the work area. Often a piece of thick-walled pipe is used as a rack. The main thing is to ensure maximum fixation, as at cold forging efforts are put big enough.
machine assembly
To make any machine for cold forging, there are many options. It can be made collapsible, monolithic or solid. With a monolithic structure, the device in whole or in part "Snails" are welded to the site.
Along the length of the structure, you can weld small pieces of rods from a distance 5-6 cm, they need to make special holes in the work area. Do not forget to carefully fasten the ends of the products, which will bend.
Cold forging is especially popular among beginners in blacksmithing. A well-equipped workshop is not required to make products in this way (you can do with a garage or barn), no possession of extensive experience, no special knowledge of the behavior of metals is required. As for the devices, then all the necessary machines and tools can be made with your own hands at home.
