Persimmon Forge Hydraulic Forging Press - Introduction

This forging press was built after considerable research and planning and I use it every day and I am quite happy with it's operation. Like most other machines it's construction process and it's operation is inherently dangerous and requires considerable skill to mitigate risk. This information is made available as an explanation of "how I did it" and is not intended to be a recommendation to others. It is offered without charge but if anyone finds such information useful and wants to send me a few bucks to keep me encouraged about making this sort of post - Super!

This is first installment of a series describing the construction of my press.

I chose the "H" frame and cylinder-below-ram designs for strength and to keep the overall height to a minimum decreasing the amount of steel I needed to purchase for the frame.

The size of the I-beam frame was determined by what I was able to find in a stack of drops at a local engineering company. If I could have located a wider web beam at the time I probably would have used it to increase the working space.

The construction got heavy fast so I found it desirable to do as much work at table top height in subassemblies as possible before moving to the floor. Knee pads helped when working on the floor.

http://www.persimmonforge.com/