Conclusion of Hydralic Press Story

[hotshot]

So, before I traveled to a larger town to find a place that could help me with my hydraulic hose connection, I took the advice of one of the members here and called around to a few auto-parts stores. The stores I called didn't do that kind of thing, however they directed me to a store here in town that did. Carquest is another less know autoparts store here in town, and that was their suggestion.

So, it turns out, that CarQuest is literally, 2 or 3 hundred yards from my house. I was aware of the store, and have been there several times, but it never occurred to me that they might do hydraulics, but evidently, they are the goto place for that in our town. They ended up just re-pressing the existing end, and that stopped the leak.

I wanted to test the press, but didnt really have anything ready to go. One of my Aluminum dies that I cut out on the scrollsaw was laying by the press, so I decided to "go random" and see what happens if I press that into wood.

So, here is my 50 ton homemade press, and the piece of wood I just squashed with it. I found it interesting, the wood immediately below the die did not split or tear, it just compressed to less that half it's original thickness.



50TonPRess.jpg

PressedWood.jpg

[Jim McDonald]

Glad you got repaired and I am intrigued by the embossing idea.

[Rolf]

What do you do that you may need such a powerful press? I have a small benchtop for U-joints, bearings etc.
How did you make the embossing die?

[hotshot]

What do you do that you may need such a powerful press? I have a small benchtop for U-joints, bearings etc.
How did you make the embossing die?

I dont' really need 50 tons, but I was hoping to come across some coin dies and play with that, and 50 ton would do a small coin. And the more honest answer would be, I was curious if I could build it, and you know me, I overkill everything. For projects like I list below, not sure I ever get above 15 to 20 tons, If I try to go high, it splits my material and could wreck my dies.

For my dies, I have a quarter inch of Aluminum that I cut patterns out on the scrollsaw, just like you would with wood. I am using the strongest aluminum I could find, to hold up to the high pressure. I then put a copper sheet on the die, then put inner tube rubber over that to push the copper into the die. You can see on the bottom left how the thin parts of the die are not holding up, but this is the hardest thing I found that I could reasonably cut on a scrollsaw.

IMG_1014.jpg

IMG_1015.jpg

[jim_mex]

Nice to hear that you got the issue sorted out Randy.

Like Rolf, admit to having my curiosity peeked to see what you were using the press for and yep, I fully understand the curiosity of wanting to know if you could build something.

I think there is definitely a satisfaction element of 'been there, done it and got the T-shirt' in a good number of members of this forum and long may it reign.