PICTURES -- Hydraulic assist for the arbor press

I'd just get a hydraulic shop press. You can buy them fully assembled, as kits, or weld up one yourself. Since they directly transmit the force from the jack to the part, they don't have as many engineering-critical parts. Measure up a commercial unit, to get an idea of the appropriate sizes, thicknesses, etc. of the steel channel elements, and have a field day.

I'd use it as intended and you are close enough to Harbor Freight that a hydraulic press is cheap enough since you can pick it up if you really need it. For some automotive applications, you really need a hyd press.

When pushing a broach, that feel, the ability to back up quickly to make sure you aren't pushing the broach off center (I broke one with a hyd press once) is sweet. Also nice when you pushing in bushings and dowel pins, your hand tells you if something isn't right.

Arbor Press = sensitive press Hydraulic Press = Brute force

Wes

I wonder if the design engineers figured the bending point of the rod one puts the cheater on as the 'shear pin'. Hey, is there a shear pin in these things?

Wes

my take is that it looks like the jack is about to spit out forward into the operator. Your using friction of the 2/4's and the bottom of the jack to hold it all together. If it was mine, I would weld up a frame over the top of the arbor press and use the hydraulic jack to push directly down on the arbor. Just my two cents worth... but as you have it, its fairly dangerous....

It's all moot by now, but there is not much energy stored in this system.

"Larry Jaques" wrote: (clip) heavy-dutiness (new

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Why coin a new word when an old one will do: heavy dutility.

First time Ive ever seen anyone build a hydraulic powered time delayed IED.

Gunner

Half the machine shops I work in that have a press like this, have bent handles.

A goodly number have cleaner spots where a press used to be, and a cheater pipe in the corner.

Gunner

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:54:48 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, Gunner quickly quoth:

Hey, if it had shifted wrong, it might have become an IUD!

-- It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars. -- Garrison Keillor