My 1976 Opel Kadett C GT/E had also forged Fuchs aluminum rims

Hi Udo

I think Lazarus is correct ; please tell us what you mean by forge. Perhaps by describing what you understand the word forge to mean we can all come to a common understanding. It may be something as simple as vocabulary, this thread is good stuff, and even better, there is more to come still.

I feel the need to read, over to you all.

Kind Regards
Johan Buchner

it is not vocabulary , this stuff is my daily business . Over 90 % of my customers speak english . Vernacular , people say forge . But make it easy . Take a aluminium rod , make it hot and forge it with a hammer .

Then you are wrong Udo.Aluminium forgings are necessary especially in aircraft work.Usually done in dies in a very large press which stamps out the part.We call this forging.

I am in the aircraft business .
And like you say , " with a very large PRESS " .
Forgings are made with a hammer , look in youtube for forge machines .
Forging and pressing is not the same . Forging has an impact .

Dear Udo,

you are right, but you are also a HAARSPALTER. Tell me, who really cares?

bietbert

My Professor did care about it . And if I send a drawing with , Aluminium must be forged , I get an answer from the company like , do you mean pressed ?
If you design an aircraft part . At the drawing must be exact how to make it , and what kind of heat treatment. So the industry cares a lot about it . For a forum it is maybe the same .

Gentlemen.

That I'm still confused is not remarkable - that I'm still enjoying this thread is. One question : Is the next step blueprints at dawn or conrods at dawn? I can never tell.

With much joy
Johan Buchner

I allways thought that this forum is about Bugatti relevant questions! Tell me where the wizzard lives who can build a tool to press or forge, or whatever you like, a Bugatti wheel in a moulding press??
I will go there and buy a set.
The question that will be interesting to be answered is which type of wheel is the best and who is casting them?
I have experiances with different wheels original and new made, and I did not find a satisfying answer yet. The only thing that I found out is that the car runs better with 80 year old wheels than with some of the brand new ones. But original wheels have often, not allways, stress cracks that have been caused while beeing casted.
On the other hand there are some of the most older chaps around with their cars using them for 4 or 5 decades with sometimes repaired original wheels.
I'm quite shure that it is a better idea to use 51 wheels instead of 35 ones.
For example have a look on the picture of the fatal accident of Louis Trintignant in the Raffaeli book. It looks very similar to the accident of that odd Pur Sang. And this is not the only period fotograph of a GP car standing on its brakedrums. So it is not a new problem.

bietbert

On forging:

Look at you people. You start arguments on something as simple as forging. I am sure you are arguing over nothing more than different definitions of simple processes.
I really recommend setting definitions straight before hitting each other. And accept each others different view on these processes.

On the wheels:
Bugatti surely did develop the T35 into the T51 wheel for a reason. You might have discovered why...

_________________
Vive la Marque !!

I am familiar with these processes for shaping metal :

Casting ; pour molten metal into a mould; wait to cool; break mould. (Nothing to do with cars, but this is how I made bronze sculptures at art school.)

Stamping : One female mould, one male mould, a sheet of metal in between and press together with great speed and force.

I also know how a horseshoe is made but I do not know what this process is called.

How is forging different from the above?

Kind Regards
Johan Buchner

As far as I know, forging can be done by "free forging", this is with a (mechanized) hammer forging metal into shape. This is how Johan's horseshoe's were originally made, and how my grandfather did it. This is difficult with aluminium.

Then there is "die forging", where the metal is stamped between two shaped dies and gets its final shape, sometimes in more steps with different dies and possibly heat treatments in between. This is quite common for aluminium (the right grade of course!)

In English there is also a term "wrought metal" or "wrought iron", which translates identical into Dutch. Is there a difference?

Forging metal can give it specific capabilities. For example for the first series of Bugatti engines at Duesenberg, the crankshafts were machined from solid. (this was done to speed up start of production, forging the crankshafts was intended from the beginning. These all broke, after which production had to wait for the forging tools to be made...

For the French built U16 engines a similar problem arose; all parts for 80 engines were ready, except for the crankshafts. These had to be made at Westinghouse, who never delivered them, probably because they did not feel like investing in the tools for forging, as the war had already ended.

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In everyday conversation between engineers forging means THE HAMMERING OR PRESSING OF METAL OF WHATEVER TEMPERATURE TO A DESIRED SHAPE AS PART OF THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS.

to press aluminium . You need a big hydraulic cylinder . You put a piece aluminium in the negativ mold and start presseing . The aluminium get`s hot from the presser and starts to flow . The aluminium part made this way has a little higher density and is stronger compare to a casting .Better molecular structure . But the tools are to expensive for only some wheels . We made a machine to press alu pistons .
All replica wheels I did look had a very low quality . All are made the cheapest way .
Alloy 239b , preheated mold . The mold can be oilsand .Every 12 cm a riser. Bevor puring the alloy in the mold , ad some strontium . And you have the best Bugatti wheel ever made . But who will pay for ?
It is not a problem to make quality wheels today , but my experience is , people go for the cheapest possibility .

Far be it for me to pollute a good argument with some good old fashioned facts, far less for me to suggest that a multilingual web-site (English-German-French-Dutch) from the European Aluminium Association may be a reputable source for such facts as they pertain to the forging of aluminium.

However, just in case it is of interest to anyone:

In English:

http://aluminium.matter.org.uk/content/html/eng/default.asp?catid=198&pageid=2144416770

In German:

http://aluminium.matter.org.uk/content/html/ger/default.asp?catid=198&pageid=2144416770



And in case anybody has a lump of aluminium lying around that they would like squeezed / formed / forged (but not pressed as that is usually a very dissimilar process not competing for the same vocabulary in English), here is a world leader in the art with sites all over the world:

http://www.doncasters.com/index.php?s=0

Hope this is helpful!