Harbor Freight 20 Ton Press Mods

[Tmate]

I Just made some changes to my newly acquired Harbor Freight press. My first move was to substitute an air/hydraulic bottle jack for the one that came with the press. I followed the example of several others here and installed dowel pins to keep the support plates from falling off the table. An old timing pulley I had lying around was easily converted into a release knob. Some slotted brackets were CNC plasma cut to install 3/4" cam followers that ride along the frame uprights. This eliminates any slop when the ram descends. I plan to install nylon bolts in the holes that can be seen in the brackets to take care of any sideways movement. Some casters on the base raised the press to a more comfortable working height, as well as making it easy to move around. I am waiting for a winch to arrive to raise and lower the table.

My next project will be to do some mods to the little 4 x 6 horizontal bandsaw I have used for 25 plus years. It still works perfectly, amazingly enough.

 

[Winegrower]

Nice. I did some of these steps too, but not the slop fix, did not seem like a big problem, and not the air cylinder. To avoid all the tedious pumping, i turned and polished up an assortment of cylinders, 2 to 8” long and 1.5 to 3” diameter. I bored out one end of about a 2”x 6” rod and put a bolt through the top wall to hold it in place down from the ram. And, made a bunch of rings of similar diameters and iDs. I can generally find some combination of pins that keep the bram from npmore than an inch or two of movement.

This pretty minor investment has added a lot of problem solving capability, though I also have a small 1 ton bench arbor press. I use them both surprisingly often.

i envy the castors.

 

[Tmate]

Update on the 20 ton press: I added the nylon bolts to prevent lateral movement when the ram descends. I also added a winch to raise and lower the table. I had to do some figuring as to how to run the cables and connect them to the winch. I ended up using two equal length cables, and running one over the top of the spool, and the other under the bottom of the spool. When the handle is cranked, both are wound up in the same direction. Both cables are secured in the slots provided in the side of the spool for that purpose. My cables were both 6' in length, which permits me to lower the table to the third position from the bottom. That is all the room I will ever need. If more clearance is needed, longer cables could be easily substituted.

At first I was going to weld the pulley brackets and the winch bracket to the frame. After some consideration, I decided to drill the brackets and frame and bolt everything together. This seemed like a formidable task with a cordless drill, but I purchased a set of rotabroach bits which made the job a breeze. I used 5/16" bolts throughout.

 

[Alcap]

Great idea of the pulley setup ! Do you think it will be strong enough to raise and lower with the plates and a job on it ?

 

[FOMOGO]

I think that size cable should should be fine. Nice build. Mike

 

[Tmate]

The cable is vinyl coated with a 1/8" core. It is advertised as having a 2,000 lb. breaking strength, and a 500 lb. working load capacity, which includes a large safety margin. Not sure about the pulleys. They are all steel, and each would support only half the load.

 

[Tmate]

On second thought, each cable would support only half the load, as well.

 

[Tmate]

Minor update - I added 20mm shaft collars to the ends of the table pins to keep them from sliding all the way through. I drilled detents for the set screws.