August 2025 Volume 7

MAINTENANCE

bushings in the Toggle Link Assembly. As excessive clearance develops in the die space the tools have to be shimmed to hold the tooling on the proper centerline during operation. The same as with any press machine the die requires a perfectly square environment with repeatable tonnage. Due to wear in the toggle linkage and the running way surfaces for the grip slide the die pocket can vary in parallelism. I have seen many times the dead wall side of the pocket crack at the bottom of the pocket due to overloading which causes a relief to occur during operation, this relief makes it very difficult to grip the steel bars during the upset process allowing out of tolerance parts. Upsetters can take a lot of abuse, however it is much cheaper to maintain the bushings and wear surfaces than to experience a major machine failure, thus requiring welding and machine repairs. Just as with any forging press regular inspection of the working components can save time and money, fix the problem when it is discovered, and you will be much better off.

Jeff Fredline PRESTRADE www.prestradesolutions.com 615-517-4282

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