Thread: The Ultimate how made tool A PRESS

Doing up all the screws will be a pain.
Specially if your glue sets fast.
Consider doing it pnuematically.
Turn a tap and its pressed.
Instead of rams use layflat fire hose in a channel.
You'll only get 1 to 2" movement but so what.

We are considering using a pneumatic / hyd set up but trying to keep it simple, possibility that we are looking at is using a series of 20t pneumatic jacks that will press against a frame, with movement of around 350mm.

Heck, for that matter you could use water pressure in the hose.

I had a though about jacks for an edge joint panel press, and I don't think you would need very many. Just a few evenly spaced. It's not the outright pressure applied, but over how much area and how well the whole mess stays flat when loaded up.

I think the good part about the hose would be that you could run a heap of it over the whole table area, making it fairly easy to avoid twisting (but flat could still pose a problem) and increase the specific pressure/area with a tiny $$ outlay and complication.

Looks interesting...

thanks for the ideas, i found this fire hose press on the net, it could be possible to modify the design for use in a table press application, the only things that will need to worked on is a adjustable height for the top table and the size of the air compressor to inflate that many hoses, also are the valves in the hoses one way ie pump up then turn compressor off or on a sensor where it maintains the pressure.

What are you going to clamp in the press???????
as that is a big press area


Phil

Don't get carried away with the pressure required mate, vacuum presses work extremely well with a pressure of something less than 14.7 lbs/sqr inch.

the ones I've seen use a car tube stem (complete with valve) to connect the air to the layflat hose.
So you blow the layflat up then you can turn the compressor off and the pressure remains.
You would need to fit an air release valve so you can deflate it easy

Originally Posted by Phil Mac

What are you going to clamp in the press???????
as that is a big press area


Phil

Its main propose is doing custom size multi layer internal doors and its secondary use is veneering table tops.

we are building it this big so we can do a 3600x1800 sheet which is the largest supplied generally.

A vacuum bag is not an option with the planned number of glue ups a day.

Today i cut the base steel to length (300 UC's) then placed these on the ground, we then clamped some LVL's (150x45) to hold the beams in place they are at about 660mm CC.

After the beams were clamped i used a laser level to level the steel frame, this required up to 25mm of packing under the steel beams to get them level.

To adjust the top table (put the hose in the bottom), attach a couple block and tackles to the roof frame (as long as it can take the weight, check first!) and have the uprights drilled to match the table at several heights. To adjust, crank the table up, insert a pin in the required hole and that's it. Make sure you use rated pins, and that it's all going to handle the pressure otherwise you might get little missiles running around the shop when the pins shear.

Might also elongate the holes which coule be a problem. Either double layer or weld in braces around each hole. Basically a thick washer.

Some spring pins to make sure the pins don't fall out might be a good idea too.

You could use good bolts too, but make sure there's no thread where they go through the holes.