Pressing questions

[AdmiralDonSnider]

I´m unsure about a few points concerning hydraulic pressing of gerbs and rockets:

 

- is a tube supporting sleeve required?

- how thick do you press the choke? Perigrin suggests making a plug with a thickness equalling the ID; is that right?

- the agreement is to press increments as high as the tube is thick; but you can obviously compact more material with a higher pressure or less material with a lower pressure to fullfill this requirement. Is it really all about trial and error?

- a hydraulic press with no gauge or torque wrench attached makes consistent pressing difficult; any ideas how to optimize this?

 

Thanks!

[Ralph]

I personally use an arbour press but other than a hydraulic press being mind numbingly slow there isn't a huge amount of difference in the operation

 

tube support is handy but not required if you have strong tubes and don't over press its all good (you get less sensitivity in a hydro so be careful)

using kitty litter I have always had to do a little more than the ID (pre press days) using good bentonite around the id or a little less is all good with a good nozzle mix (like neds) 2/3 or 3/4 the id is plenty fine if its a slower gerb mix youll get away with even less.

 

I usually eye ball it to around an id once pressed .recently we had a build day and we did a Chinese sweat shop style rocket pressing (just small ones) by using 5 increments I had a single one fail by using only 3 increments one of the other guys had around 10 cato so I was going just over 1id (about 35mm of the tube is filled (from base of spindle) so 7mm on a 6mmID) per increment (thats 1 ID once pressed)