Hey, David, and all the List, Well, I finally got around to it; pictures of my modified press are attached. The first photo shows the parts I added. One lesson learned: my first idea was to get another center pin remover, like the one that came with the press (shown at far right), and pull or drill the pin out and replace it with a 7/64² pin. Bad idea. The pin won¹t pull out, and it is so much harder than the brass that it¹s about impossible to drill it out and stay on center. The result is that the ram and the anvil don¹t quite line up on my press. It¹s usable, but it¹s not as nice as I would like it. The ram pin I made is second from the right. A much better idea would be to get another small hex machine screw, like the one in the middle of the picture, and put the ram pin in that, or maybe epoxy the pin in another piece of metal and then epoxy that assembly onto the screw head. I use JB Weld for everything, just to make sure it is sufficiently over-built. :-) On the left you see the anvil, which is a piece of 1/2² baltic birch plywood with the rest of the old 7/64² drill bit in it, positioned to come up through the hole in the press base. The wood is shaped to fit in the recess in the press base. Again, I just pushed that through the bottom of the wood, so it would be better to set the anvil pin in aluminum or steel, whatever you have handy. The second photo shows the assembled press, and the new handle I made. I made a mistake in my earlier email; the handle is 1/8² thick steel flat stock, available at any hardware store. I went a little overboard with the screw posts. Two would have been fine. You can also see how I shaped the tail of the handle for clearance and the slot I cut for the ram attachment pin. The biggest problem I had with the handle was that the stock I bought wasn¹t quite flat. It was cupped slightly in cross-section, like a board will warp across its width, so I had to file it a bunch to get it to fit into the yokes at the pivot point and the ram. I can¹t say exactly how much time I have in this project, because I did the original modifications a number of years ago and then made the new handle last year. If I subtract the time I spent messing with that brass piece, I suppose I could get the whole thing done in less than two hours. If you get a nice piece of steel for the handle, that is really flat so you don¹t have to spend a lot of time filing, you might get it done in a little over an hour. Anything you get you will have to modify some. Even the Micro Mark press, which is very nice, would require some work to turn it into a swaging press. When I did this I had more spare time than spare cash, so I bought the inexpensive press and worked on it. I like a press in general, as opposed to a hammer and punch, because you can feel what¹s going on as you are doing it. I don¹t have to learn and remember how hard to swing the hammer, and hope I get it right. I press down until it feels right, then I stop. I think I have broken one or two hammer moldings in ten years, and I have never had a hammer weight come loose (that I know of!). Hope this helps, Ken Z. -- Ken Zahringer, RPT University of Missouri School of Music -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20060909/9408e9f2/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Swaging Press Parts.JPG Type: application/octet-stream Size: 42399 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20060909/9408e9f2/attachment-0002.obj -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Swaging Press.JPG Type: application/octet-stream Size: 45758 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20060909/9408e9f2/attachment-0003.obj
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