1000 Ton Press Brake

[bigcreek]

I was perusing an auction listing of a railcar manufacturer liquidating its assets. There was a ton of cool stuff posted unfortunately clear over in Pennsylvania so too far for me but two things made my eyes pop out. I wouldn't want them or need them but one was a plate roller with 20' long rolls and each roll was 24" diameter. Yeesh.. Second thing was a Niagara 1000 ton press brake. I think around 14' maybe, cant remember but 1000 ton? Dang. I wonder what thickness of metal that would bend at full length any ideas?

[idacal]

Basicly about 16’ Of 1” if it has the Proper lower die

[Welder Dave]

They make press brakes up to 6000 tons. A shop here has one of the largest plate rolls in N. America. Can roll 7" thick cold and 12" thick hot. Steel is heated to 1650 deg's. for hot rolling. Stainless even hotter. Rolls might be bigger than 24". You sure don't want to make a mistake with an expensive chunk of steel.

https://www.edmontonexchanger.com/wp...ochure2010.pdf

[bigcreek]

They make press brakes up to 6000 tons. A shop here has one of the largest plate rolls in N. America. Can roll 7" thick cold and 12" thick hot. Steel is heated to 1650 deg's. for hot rolling. Stainless even hotter. Rolls might be bigger than 24". You sure don't want to make a mistake with an expensive chunk of steel.

https://www.edmontonexchanger.com/wp...ochure2010.pdf

WOW incredible.

[Welder Dave]

I went to school with the foreman there. He went for work experience and they hired him when he graduated in 1981. Just the luck of the draw that he went there for work experience. The shop is busy and claims to have a stock of 30,000 tons of SA516-70 boiler plate!

[bigcreek]

I went to school with the foreman there. He went for work experience and they hired him when he graduated in 1981. Just the luck of the draw that he went there for work experience. The shop is busy and claims to have a stock of 30,000 tons of SA516-70 boiler plate!

30,000 tons? Good effing grief! For reference a loaded 100 car grain train weighs about 13000 tons. That's a lot of boiler plate.

[Welder Dave]

One of the largest inventories of boiler plate in the world. They also designed and built a 3000 ton head press. The hyd. cylinder is 6' in diameter. Not too many pics. of it. I'd guess so another shop doesn't try to copy it. The plate rolls are commercially available if someone had the millions to afford them with all the supporting equipment. They built a new shop especially for the big rolls and installed a 100 ton overhead crane. They have a lot of huge equipment they've scrounged from all over the world. They have 40 or more radiagraphs plus other cutting machines and buy 200 cutting tips a month!

https://www.edmontonexchanger.com/pr...-vessel-plate/

[JayWal]

They make press brakes up to 6000 tons. A shop here has one of the largest plate rolls in N. America. Can roll 7" thick cold and 12" thick hot. Steel is heated to 1650 deg's. for hot rolling. Stainless even hotter. Rolls might be bigger than 24". You sure don't want to make a mistake with an expensive chunk of steel.

https://www.edmontonexchanger.com/wp...ochure2010.pdf

Thats insane. There's a metal shop near me with a big plate roll as well,I watched them roll 1" plate into 3' diameter pipe, 20' long. That amount of force is pretty incredible to see. Cant imaging cold rolling 7" pieces

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[VaughnT]

I was perusing an auction listing of a railcar manufacturer ...

Wasn't that a great auction?!?! So many things I wanted to bid on just so I could help preserve a little bit of that history. Hate to see shops like that closing down and I can only hope that there weren't going entirely out of business.

I wonder what it would cost to move that huge roller?

[bigcreek]

Wasn't that a great auction?!?! So many things I wanted to bid on just so I could help preserve a little bit of that history. Hate to see shops like that closing down and I can only hope that there weren't going entirely out of business.

I wonder what it would cost to move that huge roller?

Ya I wondered the same thing. Cant imagine how much it would cost to just load it. Also wondered what kind of power it would take to run that thing under load. I read they were going out of business. Once their tank car contract ended they didnt have anything else.

[UserJB]

How do they join two edges of 7-inch thick plate? You can't weld at that thickness, right? Or can you?

[lotechman]

How do they join two edges of 7-inch thick plate? You can't weld at that thickness, right? Or can you?

You tack weld with preheats since a simple tack cools too fast. The root pass often is done on a tight joint with flux core or in some cases submerged arc. The root of the sub arc is gouged to sound metal and then it is pass after pass of submerged arc welding. Submerged arc is generally cheapest since you use bare wire and can tailor weld metal by altering the type of flux. No gas and the flux can be re-ground and used again if doing large weldments.
I spent ten hours helping fit two cans together that were three inches thick and about four feet in diameter. Me and the boilermaker I was helping got about 1/4 done. We had a hydraulic porta power cylinder that I could barely lift and the power pack was on a skid beside it connected up to the 3 phase by a power cord from the wall. It is real fun when one part was egg shaped by about a quarter of an inch.
It was over five shifts before they got the cans matched.

[Welder Dave]

Usually the really thick plates have a double bevel and like was said above, after one side (usually the inside with not as deep a bevel) is welded and then the weld is back gouged from the other side, ground clean to sound metal and welded from the outside. Preheat and interpass temperatures have to be closely monitored.

Look at the 4th pic. in the link below. It shows the double bevel.

http://www.dacro.com/index.php?page=...ll-fabrication

[weldaholic]

I was perusing an auction listing of a railcar manufacturer liquidating its assets. There was a ton of cool stuff posted unfortunately clear over in Pennsylvania so too far for me but two things made my eyes pop out. I wouldn't want them or need them but one was a plate roller with 20' long rolls and each roll was 24" diameter. Yeesh.. Second thing was a Niagara 1000 ton press brake. I think around 14' maybe, cant remember but 1000 ton? Dang. I wonder what thickness of metal that would bend at full length any ideas?

Just ran across this thread , when I first started in the steel fabrication business in 1968, we had a 1000 ton hydraulic press, we pierced ,and corrugated big culvert pipe sheets. We then curved them to the desired radius for large culver pipe ,as much as 20 plus feet in diameter. We did anywhere from 12 ga. to 1ga. It kept breaking down , so we finally got rid of it . We went with a new 1250 ton brake press, it was impressive. We actually had a culvert job that they wanted 3/8 plate , it handled it great, the sheets were 27 pi. we called them , just over 84" wide ,and 12 feet long after they were pierced ,and corrugated.

I ran both those machine, it was actually a fun time in my early years with that company that I spent just over 42 year with, and retired from in 2010.