20 ton pancake ram

[Frank S]

I have a formed part that was over broke beyond true 90°. I have a few 4T and one 10 ton porter power the spreaders though only have 1/2ton of force but it takes considerably more than that to spread the bend on 3/8" grade 70 steel. What I needed was a pancake ram with enough force to spread out the bend. I made a pair of 20 ton rams for this but only used 1 and a lot of bolts as jack bolts to hold the leg of the beam spread

[DIYer]

Thanks Frank S! We've added your Pancake Ram to our Brakes and Presses category,
as well as to your builder page: Frank S's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Pancake Ram by Frank S

tags: hydraulic, ram

[metric_taper]

I see in your 3rd photo the red painted spreader that comes with the kit of porta-power hydraulic jacks. I tried using mine to move what I though was an easy slide of a new wall I built in the basement, and the cast iron wedge piece broke. I made a new one from steel, after that fix, I've never used it again.
I'm impressed with your home built mini jacks. You must have repurposed some seals from a hydraulic cylinder set you had around.

[KustomsbyKent]

Frank,
Once you've put the jack bolts in place, I'm assuming this formed part will be welded into something that will keep the flange at it's correct 90 degree bend?
Or did you over-bend it back so when the jack bolts are released that it springs to a perfect 90?
Nice work on the pancake jacks!

[Frank S]

I see in your 3rd photo the red painted spreader that comes with the kit of porta-power hydraulic jacks. I tried using mine to move what I though was an easy slide of a new wall I built in the basement, and the cast iron wedge piece broke. I made a new one from steel, after that fix, I've never used it again.
I'm impressed with your home built mini jacks. You must have repurposed some seals from a hydraulic cylinder set you had around.

I had a 6 ft section of new 2 1/2" ID honed cylinder tubing I bought for a previous project but hadn't used so I cut a couple short pieces off squared the ends on the lathe bored 1 end about 3/8 deep then threaded it to 2 9/16"-20 TPI machined the piston/ ram to fit the cylinder and grooved it for the seal made the head nut welded a 1/2" thick plug in the back end of the cylinder welded half of a 1/4" pipe hex coupling for the port then drilled the hole to 3/16" for flow
The short ram gives me about 1/2" of stroke. when retracted the assembly is 1 3/4" tall

[Frank S]

Frank,
Once you've put the jack bolts in place, I'm assuming this formed part will be welded into something that will keep the flange at it's correct 90 degree bend?
Or did you over-bend it back so when the jack bolts are released that it springs to a perfect 90?
Nice work on the pancake jacks!

The part was bent too far when I picked them up I has specifically specified that I required a true 90° bend on all bends but when was the last time any forming shop ever done anything to specs in this country? At first they tried to tell me they could not achieve a full 90 in as tight of a shape as I needed with the grade and thickness of the steel requested. I was prepared to have to deal with a less than 90 bend, by clamping and heating until I had a true 90, then when I saw it was bent more than 90 I thought well this will be easier to correct than not being bent enough.
using the porter power and the ram to spread it out to between 80 and 85° the jack bolts held it in place while a gently warmed the bend to about 350 to 400° to relieve some of the stress after removing the bolts I had a very near true 90.
The thing that aggravates me is when I had a press break if I asked my people to form something formed to any degree be it 1° or 125° that was what they made first time every time any thickness up to 13MM by 3 meters long they knew exactly how much spring back there was going to be for which grade and thickness those young men spoiled me with the pride they took in their work

[hemmjo]

It is difficult to find good help these days.

[Frank S]

It is difficult to find good help these days.

A 300 ton press break is on my wish list. The problem with that is if I were to somehow wind up owning one I would need a concrete footing for it and then have to hire a couple guys and train them to operate it, that is if I would even have the patience to teach a couple of Apes, or if I would even still remember enough of the old tricks I learned over the years.

[piper184]

or if I would even still remember enough of the old tricks I learned over the years.[/QUOTE]

Boy ain't that the truth department?

Sure is too bad we can't start our careers with the insights we have at the end of them.

Nice work on the pancake rams. That gives me some ideas about how to repurpose some cylinders with bent rods. They aren't worth the price of new rods, BUT I bet they could be cut down into something useful. Lathes are sooooo cool.