What can you do with an arbor press?

Modern IDC connectors have enough guides that you don't really need anything more than a downward motion for small scale production and prototypes. Even the cheapest arbor presses have gibs to keep the ram fairly closely in line. The only tricky one I've run into is the ribbon-to-DIP solder type and Michael's trick of using a stack of perf board works well on that. A good vise/vice, especially the small ones with plastic jaws, works too.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I've used a $5, 4 inch drill press vise with smooth jaws and the perfboard in a pinch. One like this:

but I picked it up from a tool dealer at a flea market to hold some connectors while I soldered cables to them.

Perhaps someone could describe an American? arbour press.

Here in the UK its got a square ram with teeth on it like a rack, onto the rack is a gear wheel. that then has a handle which you use to turn the gear which brings down or up the rack/ram. Not very powerful in my experience. Now what I have and have used for many years are what we call fly presses. Hand operated of course. the top arm flies round! These have a 2 to 4 start thread in the head on the top of which is a horizontal arm with heavy weights/balls of cast iron. We rate them in tonnage, from as little as 1 ton to big ones up to 10 tons.

Openthroat or closed gothic arch shape. I use them for allsortsof operations. More in due course on tooling etc if anyone is interested.

Ted Dorset UK.

Gunner: I have used a 1-ton arbor press to make 3/4" i.d. rockets. For anything much larger, a heavier press would be needed.

Estes-size rocket motors are fairly easy to make. The right size paper tubing is sold at

There are people out there who make 3" dia blackpowder rockets using

Best -- Terry

Yes. Just so. Some are ratcheting (as Iggys is).

Doesn't need to be very powerful for pressing bearings or blanking small parts.

How would one control depth? Could one use it to press a bearing into a hole?

Quite interested. Thanks!

--Len

Yup, that's an arbor press to us, too. Many blacksmiths use flypresses here. There are a couple of importers of blacksmithing tooling that have started importing several sizes recently (last 10 years). The difference, as I see it, is the the arbor press is usually used to apply steady pressure for driving broaches, pressing in and out bearings,etc. (within their range of power, of course) The flypress is usually used where the speed of the descending ram is used to impress a tool into the work. The flypresses that I have seen also have more fixturing capability. And yes, many of them scare the heck out of me with the big swirling weight. Get your head in the way and bye-bye life on earth.

Pete Stanaitis

--------------------

Pressing mandrels in and out of lathe turned work.

Pete Stanaitis

-------------------------

I was lucky to come across a T&B Ainsley press with several sets of dies and presser bars at a hamfest, and we had a cheaper one at work with dies for different connectors which I was able to machine up duplicates for -- and stamp matching ID numbers into them so I could tell what was for what.

The DIP ones (I only had the dies for the 0.600 center rows IIRC) had slots milled into the die at the proper spacing -- and the thickness of the die was critical. (The press had an over-center toggle lever and a micrometer adjustment for the proper compression depth, while the one which was at work was simply preset for a precise 1.000" depth fully closed.)

The dies for the ribbon cable IDC connectors had a slot just the right width milled to just he right depth, and a second slot at right angles to allow the key to center whatever length in the die.

There were three presser bars. One for most things. Another for thicker connectors (which also had to touch the baseplate through a milled slot in the die), and a third with notches milled in it to clear the ears on the DC-15, DB-25, D?-37 and DD-50 connectors, since the ears stuck up over the back bar just a bit when it was fully closed.

I also picked up at the same hamfest (or perhaps the next one) another cable press which did not handle nearly as many connectors, but which had something that the other did not -- a blade for a clean cut-off of the ribbon cable at a proper 90 degrees. Needless to say, I still have both.

But there was a tool before that from Vector made from what looked like a 1/2 scale model of a 1/2" arbor press which was normally used for installing rows of wire-wrap pins into pre-drilled 0.100" grid boards to make IDC male connectors. And there were female dies for it too -- not nearly as good, but a way to do things until the nice tools came along. As an indication of the relative prices, I actually bought that *new*. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

The only cables I make these days are to replace damaged or missing cables in donated computers. Considering that i have a couple 55 gal drums full of salvaged cables, I rarely have to dig out those home made dies.

Press bearings? Yes, no problem but the action is somewhat different. Theres no load applied till the moving part meets the bearing or press tool . then the stored energy in the rotating ball weights do the work. Depending on how fast you pull the handle which hangsdown from the upper cross arm, determines how much energy you get out of the moving part.

So a 1 ton fly press worked fast will give you a working load of 1 ton, before it stops rotating a 10 ton is the same.BUT you nee to have it fixed more than securely yo a wall or floor otherwise it will turn itself off a bench!! As for tooling, one can use whats called a die set. this is a male moving part, located by pair of upright guides and a fixed female part below it n a base plate.. The upper part has a 1in dia spigot which is located in the sliding part of the fly press. The bottom part is fixed to the flypress base usually over a hole.

or use whats called open tooling. This works fine if the fly press is a good one with the sliding part set justso as theres no free movemnt in the x y planes but free to mov up or dowm. The female die is held in whats called here a bolster. this isof cast iron with a coupleof set screws 3/8th in which hold the die in place. the bolster is bolted again to the base plate of the fly press. Nowto align open tooling what you do is fix the male die in the sliding part , lower it into the female die then bolt up the bolster in this position.

then away you go. you can blank out hundreds of parts without the dies losing alignment. On my 10tonner, I can blank 1/8th annealed brass 3in by 2in ovals However given full power you need to be careful. If you happen to slip and the arm hits you in the chest it will break your ribs and knock you down, Happened to me.

Ted Dorset UK

Ted Frater wrote: (...)

(...)

Based on the potential excitement of this tool, I think I will opt for a hydraulic press. Thanks for the info.

--Winston

Well ... I wind up having to make cables for less common styles of computers or drive boxes, so a drum full of cables from Intel boxes for Windows will often not do what I need -- either because of really strange routing, or because the drives are 50-pin or 68-pin SCSI instead of IDE.

Enjoy, DoN.

I have a five gallon bucket of SCSI cables and controllers. Some of these computers were high end graphics design systems. Some 50 pin, and several of the newer SCSI types. I still have a couple new, small SCSI hard drives, and a few CDROM drives. I think I still have a new dual external SCSI CDROM enclosure, somewhere. I scrapped a lot of NCR and other minicomputers over the years, and kept plenty of spare cables. I even had a NCR SCSI controller for the older larger minicomputer hard drives, but the thing drew more power than my computer, and the drives would have heated my house.

Fun Fact: Black walnut, is one of the toughest nuts to crack open. You might need an arbor press, but id go with the hydrolic.

I use a 1/2 ton which is marginal, 1 ton would be better. If it was hydraulic, I couldn't use it on my dining room table.

I crack black walnuts in my big-mutha bench vise. They are amazingly tough; I'm amazed that the squirrels can chop through the shells.

Try picking a squirrel up sometime. HSS has nothing on their chompers ;-)

My Dad use to whack them with a small hammer. Had a block of wood with plastic skirt attached around the perimeter. Did this in the kitchen, drove my Mom crazy. Glad I was away at work...

Ha! That's how I started. I put a piece of heavy canvas over the walnut and gave it a moderate bang with my 3-pound maul. Those little bits of shell can really dig into your feet, if you don't vacuum them up!

The big vise is much neater.

I haven't tried them but have seen at least two special crackers that are suppose to work good with black walnuts.

I bought a half-ton arbor press with Dad and walnuts in mind. He liked his method better. I think he enjoyed Mom's distress. She would mumble, talk to herself as she swept up after his cracking sessions...