Chris Railey
Well-Known Member
I am a hobby blacksmith who also makes knives here and there. I bought the Coal Ironworks 12 ton press about a year ago. The press came with everything except the hydraulic fluid. It also came with flat dies and drawing dies.

The dies look like this and are extremely easy to make. They are welded to a simple 1/4 inch piece of steel with bolt holes drilled. Thus far I have welded up fullering dies and squaring dies easily. If you slot the bolt holes the dies are very easy to change out.
I mounted the press to a heavy duty cart and it easily rolls into a corner when not in use which is great for a small shop. It plugs into a standard 110 volt outlet. I have found the press to have plenty of power for my needs. I have made a straight peen hammer with it and it would have over pressed my hammer blank quickly if I got carried away. I have forged 2x2 and 3x3 canister billets with it and again it will over press if you get carried away. Big fat stack for a damascus billet? No problem. It is an H press so width may be an issue if you want to make extremely wide billets.
Coal Ironworks was great to deal with, they answered all my questions quickly and were eager to help even after I bought my press. At one point they discovered a supplier may have sold them faulty hydraulic lines so they not only sent me three new hydraulic lines free of charge they also sent me two big wrenches in case I needed them for the fittings. That is class in my book. I of course kept using the faulty hoses until one broke but I had the new ones ready to go so I was back up in a matter of minutes. I have done a lot of forging with this thing and I still love it. For the hobby shop or even a part time situation for the money I do not think you could go wrong with the 12 ton press. I would not recommend it for a full time production shop but I bet it would still get the job done in that setting too.
The one thing I do not like is that because it is a smaller press you really cannot make a large set of combo dies for it. They make a set but in my opinion they are just too narrow to have enough of both die types. Not a deal breaker for me though, changing dies is not hard. Like I said in a full time shop I can see this being a negative.
The only other downside I can see is that I am now addicted to forge welding billets and canisters.

The dies look like this and are extremely easy to make. They are welded to a simple 1/4 inch piece of steel with bolt holes drilled. Thus far I have welded up fullering dies and squaring dies easily. If you slot the bolt holes the dies are very easy to change out.
I mounted the press to a heavy duty cart and it easily rolls into a corner when not in use which is great for a small shop. It plugs into a standard 110 volt outlet. I have found the press to have plenty of power for my needs. I have made a straight peen hammer with it and it would have over pressed my hammer blank quickly if I got carried away. I have forged 2x2 and 3x3 canister billets with it and again it will over press if you get carried away. Big fat stack for a damascus billet? No problem. It is an H press so width may be an issue if you want to make extremely wide billets.
Coal Ironworks was great to deal with, they answered all my questions quickly and were eager to help even after I bought my press. At one point they discovered a supplier may have sold them faulty hydraulic lines so they not only sent me three new hydraulic lines free of charge they also sent me two big wrenches in case I needed them for the fittings. That is class in my book. I of course kept using the faulty hoses until one broke but I had the new ones ready to go so I was back up in a matter of minutes. I have done a lot of forging with this thing and I still love it. For the hobby shop or even a part time situation for the money I do not think you could go wrong with the 12 ton press. I would not recommend it for a full time production shop but I bet it would still get the job done in that setting too.
The one thing I do not like is that because it is a smaller press you really cannot make a large set of combo dies for it. They make a set but in my opinion they are just too narrow to have enough of both die types. Not a deal breaker for me though, changing dies is not hard. Like I said in a full time shop I can see this being a negative.
The only other downside I can see is that I am now addicted to forge welding billets and canisters.
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