To meet more stringent quality requirements and the need for faster cutting and lower product cost, efforts have been made to improve the cutting process and to crease high-speed, energy-efficient machines for cutting metal sheet. This calls for the development of an easy-to-control hydraulic drive for the metal cutters, characterized by pressure monitoring and high efficiency, without the need for constant high pressure in the system. The problem with pump drives is that the power of the motors is not fully used when the working force is reduced. Analysis of the requirements on cutter drives and the characteristics of existing cutters shows that a drive with an intermediate hydraulic amplifier (a multiplier) must be created, in order to use relatively inexpensive, low-speed, low-pressure pumps. Investigation of sheet cutting reveals eccentricity of the load application, on account of difference in sheet thickness overt the width and the presence of dendrites formed as a result of oscillations of the frictional forces in constrictions and directional sections, which is especially apparent when using an inclined cutter. This eccentricity must not be large. However, the multicylinder power-unit design currently under development, which is the most efficient, requires synchronization of the working cylinders by the control system. With small load eccentricity, the cylinder motion may be synchronized by means of a double multiplier, which is also used to increase the pressure in the working line; this is expedient with a pump drive. However, the use of a double multiplier reduces the speed, which is acceptable in the working line, but inexpedient for synchronization with no load, since it intensifies the waste of motor power in the pump drive. This problem may be eliminated by introducing a double hydraulic reducing unit in the control system for synchronization of the cylinder motion with no load. As a result, the working-fluid flow rate is reduced, and the velocity is increased, with improvement in pump-drive operation. The hydraulic cutter drive developed for sheet cutting (Fig. 1) includes both reduction and multiplication units, permitting automatic operation of the system and the necessary setup operations. The coaxial design of the reduction and multiplication units, with mobile dosing cylinders, ensures favorable power loads of the carrying elements and facilitates loading of the supporting elements. It is simple to establish the required reduction and multiplication factors (Fig. 2). The framework of the multiplier is formed by two threaded rods 1 and three crosspieces: the lower 2 , middle 3 , and upper 4 crosspieces. A low-pressure cylinder is attached to the lower crosspiece, while the pistons 6 and 7 of the dosing cylinders 8 and 9 are connected to the middle and upper crosspieces; the dosing cylinders are connected together by supporting rods 10 . The lower dosing cylinder 8 also serves as the piston for the low-pressure cylinder, which reduces the length of the whole structure. The working pass of the multiplier corresponds to the supply of working fluid from the pipe in low-pressure cylinder 5 and the corresponding motion of dosing cylinders 8 and 9 , which displaces liquid to the working cylinders of the drive unit through the axial holes in pistons 6 and 7 . The calculated mean pressure p c in the working cylinders and the pressure p p created by the pump are related as