Apparatus for forming horse shoes

Apparatus for forming horse shoes comprising a hydraulic press having a ram and a cylinder, means to operate said press, a horse shoe former securable to the outer end of the ram or cylinder of the press, the former to engage in use with at least one blank of a length of elongate metal to be formed into a horse shoe, an anvil of which comprises two parts longitudinally spaced apart by a limit block of length equal to a distance determined by the breadth of the plates, the parts being mounted in sliding engagement on a block for movement towards or away from each other and made fast in a selected position by a limit block and by two-length adjustable screws the, or each, blank is deformed into a substantial U-shape by extension of said ram, and means on each side of, and on movement toward, said anvil to cause the outer ends of the, or each, deformed blank to be bent around said former, the forming having at least one plate with a periphery over its forming peripheral surface to complementarily engage the face on a respective blank to locate and correctly position said blank relative thereto and to the anvil.

A method of making a pair of left and right horse shoes simultaneously from fullered horse shoe iron bar blanks each having a sloped back shaped face, comprising placing the blanks bottom face-to-bottom face on a hydraulic press having a ram and a cylinder, a horse shoe former securable to the outer end of the ram or cylinder of the press, an anvil and bending means positioned on each side of the anvil;

• operating the press to deform the blanks wherein the former engages the blanks forcing the blanks against the anvil into a substantial U-shape and bending the outer ends of the deformed blanks around said former by bending means positioned on each side of the anvil, the former having two similarly shaped plates, each plate having an angled periphery over its forming peripheral surface, the plates being arranged together in mirror image fashion to form a V-shaped cross section between the angled peripheries thereof engaging the inverted V-shape formed by the sloped back faces of the blanks to locate and correctly position said blanks relative to the former and to the anvil, forming in one operation a left and right horse shoe.