Upgrade Series II Press To S-Press

Owners of the Series II swaging press, produced from 1998 to early 2002, can upgrade to the new S-Press design with a conversion service from Corbin Manufacturing. By returning the press to the Corbin factory, owners can have the ram upgraded to use an ejection system with a long stop pin, supported on both sides of the ram, which virtually eliminates bending and breaking of the earlier, short stop pin. At the same time, a handle retainer clip assembly can be installed which snaps the ram and handle firmly in the ram down, handle up position at the end of the stroke. This prevents the handle from falling if the bench is bumped.

The ram is removed, put into a precision jig on a vertical mill, and a second slot is put into the opposite side of the ram, which allows the stop pin to pass completely through the ram. The press frame is machined so that the stop pin will be supported by a hole on the opposite side, thus holding the stop pin on either side of the ram. The ram is put into a lathe and the center hole is slightly enlarged to accept larger diameter internal punches, with a hole through the punch head similar to the larger Hydro-Press type -H punches. The press is reassembled and tested, and a long stop pin is provided.

When shipping a press for this upgrade, be sure to wrap it securely with packing material that won't shift and let the press poke through the box. The best packaging is to double-box the press, using a larger box with foam peanuts or newspaper packed around a smaller box inside it, and the press wrapped with bubble wrap and put into the inner box. When the shipping people drop-kick the box half way across the state to get it into the truck, the press may not pierce through the box walls as it otherwise would a single wall without any padding around it. To save space and weight, the floating punch holder and the handle can be removed, as they do not play any part in the conversion.

After conversion to the S-Press design, the press will still accept the original sets of swage dies and punches, and will work just as it did before with early die sets, except that punches for all dies except the point form and tubing jacket end round dies will now be supported by a more solid ejection system. The internal punch for the point form and end round dies originally used a slot in the punch head, which fits the end of the short stop pin. The new style punch has a hole through it, so that the longer stop pin can pass all the way through. To get full benefit from the conversion, the internal punches that have a slotted head should be replaced with punches having a hole. But the older punches still work, with the short stop pin, as they did before.

The conversion pricing can be found on the Corbin web store at www.Swagedies.com