Arbor Press anvil/daisy wheel

[tailstock4]

I have a couple of thoughts. The reason the originals are mostly gone is that they were mostly cast iron – long ago broken, repaired and discarded. I would make the plates out of 1” especially on an older American arbor press just because these tended to be built well and sometimes are overloaded. It’s a little like someone saying they will only ever need to lift 1 ton on a 2-ton hoist. Sooner or later it will get tested to the max.

As far as size, I would make it where it extends a little beyond the ram. If you make them too big, the plates can tip.

A 10” lathe I think would be a little small, but a lathe isn’t required. It just makes the finished product look a little more professional. I would say to build one at a minimum you would need a torch, angle grinder with a cone wheel, and a drill. If you are, you are going to make a snail plate, you need a mill to drill the holes and bore them to size. As I said, this would be a minimum, but there are lots of ways to get there. What larger machines get you is a little nicer finished product and rather than being a weekend project it becomes one done in an afternoon.

 

[intrepid]

I have a couple of arbor presses that I had to make daisy wheels and snail plates for. The smaller arbor press is a Greenerd 3 1/2 which may be closer to your size, I believe. The top plate is 1” thick. The daisy wheel is 2” thick, but 1” should work fine.

The larger arbor press is a Greenerd 5S. I used 1.5” steel plate for both the daisy wheel and snail plate. Both are 12” in diameter. The 1.5” is about right for this arbor press as the gearing is compounded which generates quite a bit more force. The idea is to get the ram to center up over the hole circle. I find the snail plates more useful than the daisy wheels, but mostly I leave them together and rotate the snail plate.

On mine I rough cut the plate with a torch and then turned the diameters on a lathe. Next, I used a bandsaw to cut out the daisy wheel.

View attachment 482535 View attachment 482536 View attachment 482537 View attachment 482538 View attachment 482539

Hi tailstock4. I made a drawing of what I want to cut. But after drawing, the slots look a little short. My ram is 2” and all the slots are centered under the ram. I could go deeper but is that necessary? What do you think? I hope to do this only once. The second photo I grabbed from online and it is 10”. The slots look much deeper.

 

[MyLilMule]

Hi tailstock4. I made a drawing of what I want to cut. But after drawing, the slots look a little short. My ram is 2” and all the slots are centered under the ram. I could go deeper but is that necessary? What do you think? I hope to do this only once. The second photo I grabbed from online and it is 10”. The slots look much deeper.

The depth of the slots are a function of where the daisy wheel pivots in relationship to the ramp. Deeper slots means your pivot point will be closer to the ram.

I would suggest you use CAD - draw it out full size on some cardboard, cut it out, and try it on the press and see if it works for you.

 

[Weldingrod1]

Don't be afraid to punch some holes in it too...

Daisy wheels are often used for pressing shafts/pins. Having the centerline of the round at the ram center is where I would put it. That gives you better support to your target part.

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk

 

[whitmore]

Yes, I think you'd want the plate to at least be large enough to reach the outside edge of the ram.

yes, it's the RAM to-pivot that has to be covered; a larger plate beyond ram contact radius wouldn't accomplish
any new capacity (unless you think it'd be a superior die-parking surface).

A die might be better adjusted with movement other than a disk; maybe just a magnetic clamp to a sliding
plate?

 

[DeadGuyAle]

This thread reminded me that I needed a press wheel for my Greenerd #2.
Went the ebay route with a 6 1/2", looking like it should work.