- Joined
- Feb 9, 2017
- Messages
- 5,249
If you are just doing pins, bushings and bearings you could get away with the small bench HF hydraulic press. It’s small light and more than powerful for what you’re doing. And in the meanwhile you can keep an eye out for a stray arbor press. I did that for many years until I ran into an ancient Jet 2tn arbor press. While I wanted something like a 3tn or bigger for the extra stoke for doing 3/8”/8mm broaching it did fine for <5/16” broaching.I have a little project for which having an arbor press would be useful. I need to press in some steel pins into aluminum. 1/4" pins into 0.001" undersized holes. From what I understand, bigger is always better (at least here on HM) but I also understand that arbor presses often end up taking valuable space and end up being a pain to tuck away. I have a small and cramped shop as it is. I could foresee pressing up to 1/2" pins. Don't own broaches at this point. This is not a paying job, so I can't write it off or otherwise amortize it. I am retired, but too young to get my (full) SS just yet, so I am living off savings, which is a real life style crimp... We get by, but I do have to watch the burn rate.
With that in mind, how should I size the arbor press? I have no idea what is needed. 1T, 2T, 3T? Cost is a constraint right now, can't ever see buying a nice Dake 3 Ton with ratcheting handle, not at retail prices. For that matter, it would be hard for me to even lift it! Locally not much has come up, as far as listings. I see a lot of altered, missing pieces and screwed up arbors, but nothing approaching a clean specimen at prices I'd be willing to pay. As for how much I'd pay, don't really know, I'd pay more to get more value.
A 1 Ton is available at HF, so that represents the bottom end. I'd have to travel to get it, as my local HF doesn't have it in stock. And, well, it is HF, so it can be a crap shoot. They claim the mechanical advantage is 20:1, so to get 1T of pressure, I'd have to apply 100 lbs of force on the dinky lever. Seems like that would be hard to use. But I have no idea how much force is needed to press in a pin, so I don't even know how to size the tonnage required. Can someone help me understand what is needed?
If you do go hydraulic please don’t try and do broaching with it. Unless you don’t mind launching HSS missiles around your shop. Arbor press is bad enough but hydraulic has no feedback to know if the broach is cocked and you won’t know until it shatters if it’s stuck.
I know it’s sacrilege but I just don’t get the fixation on Grenard arbor presses. They have a round press shank so have no gibs for wear adjustment. I’ve also seen many with the casting broken out at one time another because of this where I’ve never seen a square shank with the head casting broken. Donning flame proof suit now……