I would be willing to bet the person who made the first wheel, screw & bolt & nut never got a patton for it. The first press fit was before the first car’s furniture & wagon wheel makers would use green wood for the part the spoke’s or spinldles went in & dry wood for the spoke’s & spindles then put them together when the green wood dryed it was a press fit.
3 Likes
Now you mention it @Renegade , I recall an episode of the PBS show Woodwright’s Shop where they made a wagon wheel. I don’t recall anything about green vs dry wood components, but when they installed the iron ring around the wheel they heated it up really hot in a fire so it would expand enough to fit, then when it cooled off it was sort of a press fit on the rim. Didn’t involve any pressing action though. I think once the iron ring was installed, it wasn’t possible to remove without damaging the wheel.
Native Americans used to use wet leather to wrap around stuff (like to hold an arrow-head to an arrow), then when the leather dried it would shrink, another sort of press fit.
So, yes, it is possible to achieve a “press fit” without pressing anything. But when was the first press fit part that required actually pressing it into place?
2 Likes
[quote=“George_San_Jose1, post:22, topic:120344”]
So, yes, it is possible to achieve a “press fit” without pressing anything. But when was the first press fit part that required actually pressing it into place?
Possibly about the same time era when they would drill hole’s through the piece’s of wood the wanted fasten together & drove slightly larger dowle’s through the hole to hold it together. But if you are talking about using press as we know it now a day’s I don’t know.
1 Like
before the big hydraulic press we use today folks had something called an arbor press. I forget what they used it for though. Presses were used in printing, winemaking of course, but those weren’t for press fit parts. The crimped lid on a beer bottle maybe was the first press fit part.
I forgot about the arbor press or as we called them cider press & you may be right about the beer bottle lid.
Blockquote
I corrected myself re Bearings & Supply @Scrapyard_John. Your source is a Mississippi corporation it seems and apparently the Tupelo store was where the corporation began. My Alzeimers is becoming difficult to deal with. The Tupelo store has been around for 40 years or more and they have in the past had some great help on the counter.
But about those bearings, all bearing manufacturers seem to be sourcing from China with NAPA/Motion chief among them.
Have you ever watched a cooper make a wooden barrel with metal straps? He fits the wood and then hammers the heated metal bands over the ends. The bands are technically a press fit that gets a lot more “pressed” as the straps cool.
That works with car stuff, too. I replaced a pressed in wheel bearing before I bought a hydraulic press by chilling the double row ball bearing in the freezer and heating the iron knuckle up to about 350 F in the oven. I have a piece of 1/2 inch threaded rod through the center to drive it home but when I placed the cold bearing into the hot knuckle, it just slid right in with only gravity. I did calculate how much the knuckle would grow to match the bearing OD plus a little more. Apparently math works!
1 Like
Why would it be “required”? My Dad was a machinist, tool and die maker etc. They often cooled bearings and dropped them into position or preheated the housing if that was preferred. Pressing takes a lot more precision, skill and tooling to accomplish… about the only things we press in at work now are PEM type fasteners.
1st job was at crane factory. we made a gearbox that was 6’x8’x12’. had a 18" dia shaft about 8’ long that went into a 60" dia gear that was perhaps 2’ thick? had a 3"x3"x 2’ long key. we built a wood crate and filled it with dry ice for the shaft and had a hot tub with oil for the gear. had to use overhead crane of course to lift shaft into position to slide it into gear. ah, the good old days.
yes, it was press fit when it got to room temp
Interesting. Reminds me of a locomotive wheel bearing install u-tube vdo. They used liquid nitrogen to cool the part to near absolute zero.
Do you ever notice when doing a job like this that you eventually end up with almost all your tools from your tool box laying next to you the garage floor? … lol … I always start out thinking I’ll just need 3 or 4 tools from the tool box, but it never ends up that way. Putting all the tools back to where I got them turns out to usually be a big part of the job.
1 Like
hydraulic frame press is NOT needed, this works quite well
$60 at Amazon or HF equivalent ($110)
(do NOT use an impact wrench
wouldn’t doing that permanently alter the metal, making it more brittle?
If this is for simple hubs… the tool you meant to reach for was a Sledge Hammer.
Only one moving part… and never fails to remove the old bearing / hub…ever.
No. Super cooling the metal won’t hurt it a bit. In fact, there is a controlled supercooling process that will actually toughen the metal. Cyrogenically treated metal improves its wear characteristics.