Home Made 2 Ton Arbor Press

[glens5]

By far the hardest part of this build was cutting the rack and pinion gears with a fly cutter in the lathe.
I added slide out base extensions if a little more leverage is needed on the arm and interchangeable dies for the end of the rack. An arched brass shim behind the rack and a shim in front keeps back lash to a minimum.

 

[davidh]

there is something about cutting the bottom tooth (the one that is on the gear when the rack is all the way up) so you can reposition the hand lever for the best leverage advantage without needing to put spacers under the part your pressing. . . does this make sense. ? i have not done mine yet but i intend to when i have a couple spare shop moments. very nice job. how did you come up with the 2 ton ratio ? i have never figured out my actual leverage. i just know that mine needs to be bolted to the bench to keep it from crashing on my feet. . .

 

[CraigB1960]

Very nice indeed!

 

[FOMOGO]

Great job on the press, especially the rack and pinion. Just goes to show once again, where there's a will there's a way. Cheers, Mike

 

[glens5]

there is something about cutting the bottom tooth (the one that is on the gear when the rack is all the way up) so you can reposition the hand lever for the best leverage advantage without needing to put spacers under the part your pressing. . . does this make sense. ? i have not done mine yet but i intend to when i have a couple spare shop moments. very nice job. how did you come up with the 2 ton ratio ? i have never figured out my actual leverage. i just know that mine needs to be bolted to the bench to keep it from crashing on my feet. . .

I have seen references to that as well but after all the work it took cutting the rack I just couldn't see myself grinding any of them out. May look at that some day.

 

[glens5]

The engineering department, , came up with the 2 ton figure with just some basic math/ratios and what I figured was a moderate force on the arm extended about 2/3 out.
The press didn't seem stressed at that point.

 

[Winegrower]

The outrigger feet are terrific!

 

[davidh]

i finally did grind the end tooth off the rack a few years ago, i should have done it back in 20012 when i last posted about it. makes the machine SOOO much more versatile. took me all of about 15 minutes. . . . nice job by the way

 

[Billh51]

By far the hardest part of this build was cutting the rack and pinion gears with a fly cutter in the lathe.
I added slide out base extensions if a little more leverage is needed on the arm and interchangeable dies for the end of the rack. An arched brass shim behind the rack and a shim in front keeps back lash to a minimum.View attachment 133954View attachment 133955View attachment 133956

Excellent job on the press, should serve you well for many years.

 

[Weldo]

This is pretty rad!

You wouldn’t happen to have any pics of your lathe set up to cut the teeth would you? I was just thinking about maybe possibly considering looking at building an arbor press.