To solve problems encountered in manufacturing forging die used on large-scale hydraulic press with traditional method, such as poor forging penetration, long cycle, high cost, etc, a new method of mold making was put forward, which adopted casting steel as substrate and used two surfacing layers– the bimetal-gradient-layer(BGL)– on the working area of die cavity to make forging die. Firstly, the processes and materials were chosen according to the operating requirements of equipment and BGL surfacing samples were prepared. Then, properties analyses of samples were conducted. The application experiment was done on 50MN hydraulic press. The results showed that this method could shorten the manufacturing cycle and reduce cost apparently; properties between substrate and surfacing layers transited smoothly; the properties of die manufactured by BGL surfacing method could meet the requirements of 50 MN hydraulic press well, which justified the new method's effectiveness
