America's Iron Giants - The World's Most Powerful Metalworkers
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters recommend it as an excellent introduction to massive forging presses, especially in threads about gigacasting and large manufacturing machines.
What it is
Machine Thinking tells the story of the Cold War Heavy Press Program, the giant forging presses that make parts for aircraft, missiles and turbines.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2019 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec rendall · 2024-08 · on “How to build a 50k ton forging press”
I first learned about these presses several years ago from the YouTube channel Machine Thinking which is excellent and unfortunately infrequent. The linked video has some excellent footage of these beasts in action. "America's Iron Giants" [this video]
Recommends alecco · 2021-03 · on “Tesla orders its first 8k-ton Cybertruck casting machine”
The Machine Thinking channel has a very interesting video on this [this video] I wonder if these modern high pressure casting produce results closer to forging.
Recommends mvidal01 · 2023-02 · on “The giant die casts reshaping car manufacturing”
This youtube video seems related. [this video] This is the story of America's massive forging presses built during the cold war used to build America's most advanced machinery - the Heavy Press Program. Modern airplanes, missiles, helicopters, turbines - all have parts made on these giant machines! The Machine Thinking channel seems interesting.
Cites jbay808 · 2019-03 · on “US to build six nuclear power plants in India”
Those heavy presses themselves seem to be nation-state level engineering projects, so it's unlikely that anyone would build more of them than they absolutely need. [this video]
Cites mrcode007 · 2024-05 · on “Tesla retreats from one-piece "gigacasting" manufacturing process”
It’s the same principle just scaled up. What are we talking about here? This is not some ground breaking tech. It just got a Tesla PR spin. [this video]