Thread: Opinion of hydraulic presses available

I just finished welding up a tray that was a bit tighter than intended, but when I put some additional metal in it's pulled the angle frame in such that it won't fit. I've been considering a hydraulic press for a while, but I've always been able to bodge something up. However this job was the final straw as I'll need to press the angle iron straight again. In this case I should once again be able to bodge up a solution, but the message is clear in my mind; life sure would be easier with a press!!!

A 20 tonne press should be enough for what I need and am considering this one from H&F P143 | PP-20 Workshop Hydraulic Press | machineryhouse.com.au yes I know I could build one, but in all honesty I have quite a bit on my plate at the moment, and by the time I source a ram and steel, my time is worth more than the 50 bucks I may save to build one.

I'm curious as to what type of presses other members are using, and if there are any particular features they feel are worthwhile. I'd considered buying a hydraulic power pack and ram and building a powered press with a bit wider frame, but as above, just a bit too much on my plate, and I figured I could always modify this one at a later date if required. I do like the powered ones, but can't justify the cost of buying one, so a manual jobby will need to do for now.

Pete

Hi Pete, The one that you gave the link to would be an excellent one, as it appears to use a "PortaPower" unit to make it work. The beauty of this type of power unit is that other size rams can be attached to do different jobs, and as you said, you could make a larger framed unit if/when you have time or one is required. I have a 20tonne unit made from a long ram jack. I know this type of jack is available as an air/hydraulic unit, am going to look for one for my pipe bender, as having one arm that looks like it belongs to Popeye doesn't quite look right!!!
Kryn

Yep, you pretty much nailed some of the advantages I could see with this particular press, and the ram etc pops out as you say. I think it would be a lot more versatile than the cheaper alternative, and in a short while the hundred dollar difference will soon be forgotten. Yes air over hydraulic would be good, but I rarely use it with the engine lifter, and just go the Armstrong method.

Hydraulic power packs like this are what I was considering 240 Volt 2200Watt Electric Hydraulic Pump W 10L OIL Tank Horizontal | eBay also available in vertical for the same price. However buying all components new would be quite expensive by the time I bought the power pack, ram, controlling valve, and some hoses. It's the type of thing where a keen eye may be able to discover appropriate components off junked machinery, so it's something to keep an eye out for. Quite apart from the far greater speed, going down this path it's easier to get much longer travel rams, and I could often see an advantage in having that available.

Pete

Pete just make sure that your oil volume capacity on the pump is not exceeded by the ram capacity
Kryn

Pete,

I have the same press in my workshop. Like anything you get what you pay for and it depends what you want to use it for.

The main issues I have with the unit are:

The ram is not located tight in its bore. If you grab hold of the ram you can wiggle it from side to side. This has been an issue as I used the press to stamp 50mm dimples in 1.0mm steel sheet and had a lot of trouble getting the punch and die aligned. There might be a simple fix for this but I have not had the time to pull it apart.

The second issue was that the ram was not square to the table. I in part fixed this by shimming the ram mounts.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Piers

Ok thanks very much. I'll keep an eye out for those issues.

Pete

For the job in hand at present thought about a piece of railway line and 2 chains and a bottle jack can push lots of things straight with that 5ton bottle jack ps they dont work lying down.
When you are ready to lash out collect some heavy duty channel and bar angle iron I built mine 25 yrs ago like that out of scrounging and bought a manual 25 ton Jack that works vertically ie up side down.It has pushed some might tight jobs.Old garage presses Servex are usually old leaking and always expensive at auction or sale. 60 ton and up wards with a sneaker 2 stage manual pump if you want to go 2nd hand.
If you have seen any of Keith Fenner you tube series he has a ripper press he made[I want 1 ]so started collecting some bits to replicate his or similar have thought about going bigger for years now and seeing that press and the way he has made it clinched my mind that that is the way to go. Time is money we all know that but with the far eastern crap available yous gets what yer pay for. look well ask lots of questions and dont let your pocket dictate as these items are a 1 off capital purchase.0.02cents worth John.

John, I did something similar to what you suggested earlier this afternoon. Used a bottle jack and put a bit of a belly in the frame. I didn't fuss over it, it's just a tray to sit under the T&C grinder so I can attach wheels to it.

As I said, I don't have the time to build a press at this stage, and will buy a complete one. I would much rather use my time to fabricate things I can't otherwise buy in the design I need, and unless I later went down the powered path, a press is just a bog-standard component to me. The steel alone is about 70-80 kg, and that by itself would cost me almost the asking price of a purchased press!!! Sadly the cost of steel isn't like it used to be. I get a 25% discount most times, yet am still surprised at how much it's gone up. With this type of thing I consider a store bought product as a kit and am prepared to spend a while fettling something. It's still a fraction of the time it takes to scratch build something.

Yes I've seen Keith's press, and it's a beauty.

Pete

I've got one of these:

Workshop Press 20 TON AIR Hydraulic Side Shift Head | eBay

Fairly similar to the one you linked from H&F, except that its air over hydraulic as well. Good for those occasions when you'd rather be hiding somewhere around the corner in case of kerplosion. You can also sit the trigger for the air control on the ground, and operate it with your foot - useful if you're trying to hold things in place with both hands. The manual pump works up to about 10 ton, after that you'd need to be heavier than my massive 70kg (after being rained on), or find a longer handle.

Overall I don't think it's particularly any better or worse than the two presses we've got at work, one being an old Ritch, the other being a Bluepoint. The frame twists about as much under load as the other two... It is however somewhat weaker in the bed itself, at about 15 ton it tends to start bowing in the middle. Easily fixed with a bit of scrap plate and some welding, but as yet I haven't bothered. Could always just slide the head over to one side too... Looking at the H&F one you linked, I think the guide system on their sliding head is better than the crappy bent tags on mine - again, easily fixed with some scrap and a mill. The pump handle drove me nuts for a short while, as when you turned the tap to release the pressure the lever would drop down, and the handle would fall out onto your foot. Ended up dropping a rare earth magnet inside the lever, handle now stays in until you remove it. The ram return spring is a bit weak and it tends to go up pretty slowly, I usually heave on it to get it to go up a little faster. I may add some external return springs like the Bluepoint press at work....

Probably the biggest issue with it is the uprights themselves. I think the channel has deformed a bit, maybe during transit, with the result that the holes for the pins to go through don't seem to really be square. Which means you can kind of rock the bed a bit, depending on where it is. Given that it's all bolted together, some realigning might fix it... The other slightly annoying thing is that since the uprights are channel, you can't stick things out the side, but that is generally offset by having the sliding head.

I haven't really bothered with fixing any of this stuff. One reason is simply that it's done everything I've wanted to do as it is, so I don't see any need. Sure, I'm not doing any high precision work with it, like punch work etc - but if I do, more than likely I'll build some self contained framework to keep every thing aligned, so the press just supplies the muscle. (I do want to build a press brake attachment for it...)

The other reason is that, like you, I spent quite a bit of time looking around for power packs and rams and cylinders, and came to the conclusion that for my expected use, I may as well just buy this press as a donor for the ram and pump, and as a bonus it had the press frame with it. So I came into it with the point of view that if I set it up, tried to use it and the frame wasn't really up to my needs, I'd build a new one and just reuse the hydraulic components. So far, as I said, it's done what I asked, but I'm still not sure whether one day I may build a bigger frame (particularly in width of work envelope) - which makes me hesitant to waste steel beefing this one up at the moment.

*EDIT*

Originally Posted by Pete F

The steel alone is about 70-80 kg, and that by itself would cost me almost the asking price of a purchased press!!! Sadly the cost of steel isn't like it used to be. I get a 25% discount most times, yet am still surprised at how much it's gone up.

I find the same thing - as much as I'd like to build my own over engineered whatever it is at the time, invariably the steel alone seems to cost as much as a finished product out of another country. It makes it pretty hard to justify building your own a lot of the time...

I have one of those Hafco 20 tonne presses but I consider it as and only use it as a 10 tonne press. Anything over 10 tonnes and the frame starts to assume a rather alarming oval shape.

The home made job here would weigh 2- 300 kg its heavy but have had it jump off the floor with a tight bearing under it my uprights are 6'' x1'' flat bar with 2 5/8 pins .that gives you a big window and no channel to worry 4x4 a iron at bottom and 12x4 channel on top all held together with 1 inch gd 8 bolts. spose would be expensive now to scratch build had porta power ones not worth a knob of goat proverbial.
On a lighter note re the handle where i finished my time we had a 100 ton servex a monster we used to do lots of straightening jobs there as was the biggest in town Bendigo.One day one of our junior apprentices not me was pumping away on the press 2 lever 1 sneaker 1 fast rate had a lever on both and a bored hole for a 1 inch bar to go through well he used the 2 pumps forgot 1 lever was up in the air let the valve go ad bang down he went for the count knocked him clean out and if you never seen an emu egg well this kid had an instant 1 on the top of his head well didn.t knock any sense into him he was still a dozy kid when i left for army service.

Hi Pete

I have said press in the pic. Bought it from MachineryHouse in Perth. My only complaint with the press, was a week after purchase the hand pump failed. As I had purchased a fair bit of equipment off them, I took it back, showed them the fault and it was replaced promptly with a new hand pump from another press. The whole thing is a bit flimsy in design, the two support bars in the middle flex when pressing any kind of job. Have pressed 5mm solid rod using my own jig and seen the bars flex. Have beefed up everything on mine now.

DD

Ok, thanks guys. It sounds like it's a bit flimsy then, but it should be able to provide the "bones" for beefing up if I need to later. I've seen many presses flex alarmingly at times, but I guess at the end of the day it's steel and if it flexes a little (within reason!) it should be ok. I guess if I get it from H&amp;F and it's absolute crap I can just take it back. At the end of the day a big hefty press may be nice, but as I said at the beginning, I have been able to get away all these years without a press of my own at all, so a wimpy 20T press I can hide away in the corner is certainly going to be better than what I've had so far. In the unlikely event I am wearing it out I'll reconsider my options&nbsp;<img src="http://www.woodworkforums.com/images/smilies/happy/biggrin.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Biggrin" smilieid="308" class="inlineimg"><br><br>Yes when some stuff lets go it's terrifying isn't it! Maybe not so much at 20T, Chinese Tonnes at that, probably more like half that in true metric, but there's nothing like the Pants-Poo that comes from something letting go. You know it's coming, but it doesn't seem to help!<br><br>Pete

Mines just a H & F 30 tonnne (HP-30). Havent seen any noticable deformation under stress thus far. Maybe I havent pushed it hard enough
Biggest issue is the clearance under jack when bending long lengths of flat.

Can do up to 5 mm (not to full width of press of course) with an offcut of a 60 deg die from a stand alone press brake. Damn handy, 4 sided V's of various sizes. No doubt its hardened. Looks to be of decent manufacture. I'll never wear it out. For the top just a bit of mild, milled to a vee. pipe welded to it.

Will have to mount setup into a frame to improve quality of bend, but so far good enough for my needs.

Originally Posted by Piers037

The main issues I have with the unit are:

The ram is not located tight in its bore. If you grab hold of the ram you can wiggle it from side to side. This has been an issue as I used the press to stamp 50mm dimples in 1.0mm steel sheet and had a lot of trouble getting the punch and die aligned. There might be a simple fix for this but I have not had the time to pull it apart.

Piers you probably want to get yourself a small die set and adapt that if you want accurate locations between a top and bottom die. While the one at work had to be tuned for a non square ram, they are not meant to be in the same league as a stamping press. Another alternative is to find an old fly press. Again, they are designed with a slide for good location.

Michael