Arbor Press

"Bob La Londe" fired this volley in news:li4dm5$fl0$1 @dont-email.me:

Got three, Bob. A 3-ton, a 1-ton, and a 1/2-ton. Even the cheap Chinese ones work just fine, although you may want to add gib plates where the take-up screws bear on the ram. (not all come with them).

Lloyd

I bought the 1 ton Harbor Freight arbor press several years ago to push in various pins, and was also surprised how hard I had to lean on the handle. That lead to actually reading the manual, where I found out the leverage ratio was only 20:1. That means to get the rated 1 ton you have to apply

2000/20 or 100 lbs of force to the handle. Didn't match my vision of gently pulling on the handle and mashing cars flat :-) :-), but I have gotten some good exercise out of it. I bet your 3 ton unit is only 50 or 60:1, so you will need to apply 6000/60=100 lbs to get the rated 3 tons, as well.

----- Regards, Carl Ijames

"Carl Ijames" fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@news4.newsguy.com:

But only by virtue of the handle being about twice as long as on the one- ton. The gear/rack ratio is only slightly different.

I modified my 3-ton with a pneumatic 'helper' cylinder that aids when I need to dwell under pressure for a long time.

Lloyd

Leverage is certainly king. I use 3 (or sometimes 4) screwless vises on my mill table, and I have had a work piece thrown once or twice with a high hold when tightened down with the hex key that came with them. (Unless I tighten it with a mallet) The other day I was going through my drawer full of assorted hex keys (looking for a different size) and I ran across one that is a few inches longer in the size for the vises. I have been using it ever since. I am amazed at how much tighter a few inches of leverage makes them. I was doing some facing a couple days ago aggressive enough to bog the 5HP spindle slightly, and nothing moved.

I've a small 1/2 or 1 tonne Chinese unit. I used some shim as gib plates which made it much smoother & tighter.

To cut wire, heat-shrink tubing etc I've made up a tool that holds utility knife blades. Much easier when doing batch runs cutting stuff to a required length.

I've been using an old delta bench drill press with a pin punch in the chuck to press 3/16" dowells into aluminum plate for many many years now...very nice to have the handle raise back up automatically. Guessing we typically press 100 pins or so per day using this method, it goes pretty quick.

Nice old drill press, much better than a lot of the crap around these days.

I stuck a gas strut scavenged from a large old photocopier on the side of my arbor press for the auto return. Beats lifting the lever back up every time.

I tried that with my much newer much cheaper (of course modern Delta stuff isn't that great either) drill press, and I was never happy with the results. I think my drill press just isn't rigid enough for good results. I think you suggested it before when I tried it.

I got a feeling it wouldnt work as well if I was pressing pins much larger than 3/16" diameter