Small Hydraulic press - ideas

[BCC]

Hi,

Have a look in Super Cheap Auto at their press for a design idea with the bottle jack the right way up. I made my own ~20 years ago with a 6 ton jack and have done a vast array of jobs including axles (although you need to set it up higher to do axles). One of the main design criteria is minimising flex in the bed and in the top cross beam where the jack mounts. Effective pressing is lost if these flex much at all.

Bruce

[BobL]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

This morning I visited my former workplace and chewed the fat with a couple of former work mates and the issues of press design came up.
A minute later I was heading up the back to an old storage shed and guess what?
A 20T bench top press with a proper ram and a gauge was handed over to me for indefinite loan.
It's a little beat up and possibly not tall enough for some of what I do but it can easily be modified to suit.

Thanks again.

[KBs PensNmore]

Nice to hear that you got one at the best possible price.
Kryn

[issatree]

Hi to you all,
Not being Metal Man, but I made my press just like the one in the Photo, by Ch4iS.
There is no need to turn the Jack upside down, well my 2 Tonne job worked OK, & most of you wood know more about it than I certainly wood.

Justmy2senseworth.

[BobL]

Yeah lucky find indeed. I checked it last night and its definitely not tall enough.
I wasn't intending on using it for bending but now that I have access to this 20T jobbie it might be useful to be able to do this. One thing I noticed about some presses is the way they have two uprights on each side, presumably to allow for material to be held square to the press while bending? I might use that idea on the refurb.

[BobL]

I took another look at the press this morning and realised that by juggling various size tubular spacers and repeated up and down movement of the ram I could still utilise the 6mm keyway broach to cut a keyway.

So I pulled the whole thing apart and gave it a bit of a cleanup.
It's supposed to be at least 50 years old and hasn't been used for around 2 decades.
One of the welds looks like it might have broken and it has been rewelded.



Anyway it worked fine and the 6mm keyway cutting pressure was around 7-800 kgs with a bit of machine oil for a lube, and a bit more without.
The Ram must have a built-in internal spring because when the pressure is released it self retracts which is nice.

The juggling of the spacers and repeated pumping/releasing of the ram will drive me spare, plus I really like the look of the twin pillared uprights for bending materials so I will still be rebuilding it.

[Stustoys]

Is there a brand name on that pump Bob?

Stuart

[BobL]

Is there a brand name on that pump Bob?

Stuart

Nope, well nothing I can see with the naked eye. I will put my head mags on and take a closer look.
Do you have an idea what it might be?

[Toggy]

The hydraulics are identical to my porta-power copy.

Ken

[Stustoys]

Well not really Bob, just given its age I'm wondering if its a quality pump......though I have no idea how many brands of these sorts of pump are about. Enerpac pumps like that are good for 700bar(though the hose might not be), whats the gauge range?

Stuart

[BobL]

Shows you how blind I am without glasses.

This is the gauge - so 10 tons,not 20.



On the back under the black oil and gunk there was this label.
Made in AUS apparently and still around today according to the web - maybe the hydraulic ram and pump were an up grade.
Theres the remains of a uni sticker on it that has 1966 on it.
Hose is rated at 700 bar by the looks of it.

[ventureoverland]

Bob,
Not sure if this is any good to you... I kept it from an old magazine, thought I may give it a go one day.

Pic 1:
Arbour Press_Image 1 by Jon_Kelly, on Flickr


Pic 2:
Arbour Press_Image 2 by Jon_Kelly, on Flickr

[Ropetangler]

That is a nice gift that you have received Bob, at the place I worked for nearly 18 years they had one of the old Australian made Servex 60 ton presses. It had dual pumps, one fast acting with higher delivery, and when it got too hard to pump with that handle, you swapped to the other, which was slower, but pumped to a higher pressure, giving 60 tons of pressure fully loaded supposedly. A couple of times I had that thing working pretty hard, before there was a loud bang, and the bush or bearing moved. I was a bit happier when they fitted the press with heavy duty "flyscreen doors" which had 3/4 X 1/8" mesh to prevent larger pieces of any broken bits getting you in the event of part disintegration. The press also featured a large square threaded manual feed down to take up any slack, before you got to work on the hydraulic pump(s). I still live in hope that my fairy godmother or the tooth fairy will drop one off for me, knowing how much I would love to have it

[jatt]

Thats much better Bob.

Must confess some days pumping a standard upright bottle jack in mine is a PITA, but am comforted by the fact that my Falcon rear axle fitted in easily Damned broken wheel stud!!!!

[cava]

There's a 70 ton non-hydraulic press shown here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_LSPX8cNaE

I am suitably impressed with this press and am considering making one. It is small, compact and moderately cheap.

From the more knowledgeable here, if the thickness of the plate was increased to say 30-35mm, would the capacity of the press be increased? Or would it have to also include an increase in the diameter of the threaded screws? Curious minds etc...

Another thing, where would you buy thick plate in small quantities, and threaded rod from in the Melbourne area?