I am curious what others use for a shop press. I bought a cheap 20 ton Harbor Freight press. After reading some reviews I knew about what to expect and to make sure I inspected for all the parts (the one I got did not have all the parts so we pulled the missing part from another one before I left the store). Most of the fabrication is fine. The welds are ugly but it it is steel, no complaints here on the welds.

The one complaint I do have is that the fitment of the jack between the jack plate and the top frame is crooked. So much so that I am thinking I may cut the jack mounting flange off and re-weld it before I start in to my job. I am hoping the press pin under it is centered at least, otherwise I may still not get straight vertical pressure even with the jack straightened.

The frame took a ratchet strap diagonally across to hold pressure while the bolts were secured. The overall frame is nice and straight now.

What I hope is this will cover all my power train jobs. I have done some metal fabrication in the past also so I want to set this one up with a brake of some kind for bending steel. I have a small lever style sheet metal brake but it is very light duty and I overload it too much (I usually bend what I can then take the piece to an anvil and hammer out the rest, ugly bends but they work).

What tonnage press do you use and for what? Power train work? Fabrication? Everything? Do you find it has a limit with something you can't do with it (pressure-wise, as opposed to size - height or width between the frame rails)?

 

i have the same press, and did the same while putting it together to make sure it was square.
then i replaced the jack with a 30 ton HF air over hydraulic jack. i also built a larger table for it to fit large items securely under the press pin.
been using this setup since 2005.

mine is mostly used these days to straighten snow plow frames after the drivers hit manhole covers.

 

Same here. 20 Ton Harbor Freight unit. On mine everything was straight but mine is 20+ years old so maybe they were a little more careful back then. I made a few additional press plates out of 3/4 and 1 inch steel plate with various sized holes bored in them. I also made up two spacer bars that span the height adjusting pins. The thickness of the bars is 1/2 the vertical spacing of the pin holes. Sometimes you just need a bit more reach and moving the support beam up one whole pin hole is just too much. The bars are aluminum so I don't get a hernia moving them.

I use my press for everything. Repairs, fabrication, etc. I also machined up a bunch of plugs for pressing bearings into housings (think electric motor bearings). Also made a small bending brake for use on the press.

 

Do you have a picture or two of your set up? I'd be curious to see.

Awesome. What did you make the brake out of? Picture?

One of these days I'll get a lathe and a mill. They would be amazing for making things.

I am thinking through how I am going to make some dies right now. There is a tool for pressing the hub seals, not with a press but a hammer, that would be real easy to make with a lathe. Then I need an adapter for ball joints. That should cover me for this round. There is a local fab shop that I get my steel from. They usually charge me for cutting plus the steel. I'd rather not have them do the tooling otherwise that will crank the $ way up.

 

no i don't have any pics, the kids" borrowed" my digital camara and never returned it.
basically i took 2 pieces of I beams 4 foot long and 4 inch wide, and joined then at the ends with a 12 inch long piece at each end.
this gave me a 4 foot long table i can clamp to the small center table of the press, giving me a 12 inch wide opening that is very stable for long pieces of metal that need to be "unbent"

 

I wish I had the room for a good press. That would be handy for all sorts of things.

 

I see I didn't update my original info on the press I got. I rotated the jack plate around 180deg and it took the crookedness out of it. The press is nice and straight (well... almost). Thing is, its steel. There is nothing precise about it - its just meant to allow pressure to be placed to push, pull, and bend parts. To that point it works just fine.




I ordered steel Friday to make some adapters for ball joints ect. I will have to do some fabrication with them. Unless I want to pay a premium to the fab shop to machine the dies I need to order stock size steel and make stuff work. I got 1.9" OD tubing with a bit less than 3/16" wall. My idea is to cut down one side of the pipe then adjust the gap to tune the diameter to what I need and re-weld it.