Patent ID: 8256119

Claim:
A method for manufacturing forks for lift trucks comprising the steps of: providing a straight metal bar designed to make the fork, heating the bar at a segment thereof where the fork knee is to be formed, bending the bar at the heated segment in order to form the knee by carrying out bending in a closed-die press provided with containment walls that, when bending has been completed, enclose the fork knee so as to define surface contours thereof, wherein the fork is heated in a furnace and then transferred to a hardening apparatus where the fork is submitted to hardening, and wherein hardening is carried out by keeping the fork in an apparatus for deformation containment adapted to tightly hold the fork along the longitudinal extension of two arms of the fork during hardening, holding of the fork taking place by a plurality of positioning elements disposed in approached relationship on opposite sides of the fork in a plane containing the fork.