Hydraulic press

[Rick]

Yet another project i'm starting is a hydraulic press.

Just a simple bottle Jack press.

I picked up some 4" 6mm wall box today and some 3" box for the cross pieces. I've stick welded most of it together.

I also had a quick play with the bottle jack to get it to work upside down. It has 3 "ports" 2 are the 1 way valves, the other i'm not sure what it does. It seems to be connected to the reservoir rather than the ram side, but it doesn't draw fluid through.

I'm going to drill and tap the outter body of the jack and add the reservoir to that, hopefully this will work and the air of hydraulic will work as well so I can have both hands free.

The main reason i'm making this now is so I can fold some sheet metal for my parts washer project. From experience what will a 20 tonne press bend? I'm wanting to bend 1.6mm stainless the full width of the press, (800mm)

I'll post a few pictures up, cost a fair bit to make, but better than the cheap junk you buy and there simple enough. I'm all open to other ways (other than use the jack the normal way) to mod the jack and how to make the tooling to fold the metal etc.

 

[bigbadbugga]

My 20 tonne press (ebay purchase, not jack type) will actually bend it's own beam

It will bend your 1.6mm sheet like it is a piece of cardboard.

Best advice I can offer is to over engineer it as much as possible

 

[Rick]

My 20 tonne press (ebay purchase, not jack type) will actually bend it's own beam

It will bend your 1.6mm sheet like it is a piece of cardboard.

Best advice I can offer is to over engineer it as much as possible

Haha, thanks for that. I generally over engineer things. I nearly bought 8mm box but decided to downgrade as it would be another tool thats impossible to move!

 

[rtbcomp]

I was thinking along the lines of using RSJ for a similar device.

I would mount the jack on top and press down to save fiddling with the hydraulics.

 

[Dr pepper]

Making the jack work upside down does work, I made one after a year theres a couple of drops of oil under the jack as the seal at the top isnt meant to be under pressure evn the weight of the oil, but its still ok a couple of drops doesnt hurt, it would probably be better with a good jack instead of my nast clarke thing.
I've used it to press out suspension bushes and bend stuff, works well.
Heres my snorkel:

 

[Welderpaul]

From experience what will a 20 tonne press bend?

As an idea, our 25t pressbrake (1m long beam) will bend 3mm mild steel over its full length but only on wide bottom tooling.
20T over 800mm should easily bend 1.6mm ss in a tight V.

 

[astro_al]

Why are you using smaller section for the cross beams (which have to do all the work) than the vertical members?

Al.

 

[wyn]

As Al says, the horizontal piece that the jack mounts to doesn't sound like it will be strong enough.
Welding something like some 150 x 8 flat to it to give it some more resistance to bending could help.

This clarke one shows the sort of depth of material that is used as on the top and bottom members.

I made a little 10 ton press using 3" channel for the top beam and it was only 20" wide....it bent like a bannana on 10 tons.

 

[Rick]

Why are you using smaller section for the cross beams (which have to do all the work) than the vertical members?

Al.

Its all they had, I did want some channel, but box was the only option. Horizontals are thicker gauge. And I need a 4" gap in the bed, If i used 3" for the uprights i'd have to weld some spacers in.

Maybe it won't be strong enough though as the depth is only 70mm, but its 8mm thick and this will be 4x over. I'm not sure if theres a rough formula.

Making the jack work upside down does work, I made one after a year theres a couple of drops of oil under the jack as the seal at the top isnt meant to be under pressure evn the weight of the oil, but its still ok a couple of drops doesnt hurt, it would probably be better with a good jack instead of my nast clarke thing.
I've used it to press out suspension bushes and bend stuff, works well.
Heres my snorkel:

I thought of the snorkel idea but haven't stripped my jack yet, Mine has some kind of tamper proof pin and I had no real reason to strip it. If i drill and tap the body assuming I don't fill it with swarf it should be ok and not leak. If i do strip it i'll put some sealer around the top and hopefully it won't leak. Thanks for the help

As Al says, the horizontal piece that the jack mounts to doesn't sound like it will be strong enough.
Welding something like some 150 x 8 flat to it to give it some more resistance to bending could help.

This clarke one shows the sort of depth of material that is used as on the top and bottom members.

I made a little 10 ton press using 3" channel for the top beam and it was only 20" wide....it bent like a bannana on 10 tons.


View attachment 18920

When you say 3" channel, which way was it mounted? I'm using 2 x 70mm 8mm wall box on the tops. If its not sufficient I think i'll know right away.

Ideally i'd like to add a pressure gauge. But I don't think there is any way to "tap" into the actual ram. I'll go measure the jack now to see what the pressure will be.

 

[Rick]

Heres a picture of the press near complete. All seems to work ok, the top and lower beams will probably need some beefing up, I "dimple died" some 3mm sheet last night, pressed a crank and some other bits.

Using the air of hydraulic its hard to tell how much pressure is being applied i put some 10mm plate on the bed and "maxed" out the air of hydro for a couple of seconds and when releasing there was 5-10mm of flex in the top and bottom horizontals. Its more than strong enough for most things but i'll add some 10mm plate by 150mm deep across the front and back to be sure.

Not need to make something to fold the metal. I was thinking 10mm plate ground to 90 degrees into a piece of 50 x 6 angle welded onto some channel.

 

[Rick]

It stands over 2 meters high.

The little silver thing on the top is the ext resivour for the pump, it self bleeds and works great. The Ram returns fine with the springs.

I'm going to make a foot pedal on the air/hydraulic so both hands are free when operating. Then add some paint, to both the press, and the workshop walls!

 

[Dr pepper]

I didnt tap the hole for the snorkel, but I did drill it, the snorkel is held in by structural strength loctite.
You have to blw out as mush of the drillings as poss, I took my base apart and blasted it with the airline (in the pic).
I've seen one on the net where the geyser had drilled a hole right through the base, tapped it bsp and screwed in a pressure guage, before which he's marked up the scale with tonnage, its not hard to work out pressure to downforce.
Might be a good idea to double up the sides of the top and lower beams welding on some flat bar, its surprising just how much these will give, mines 5" bi 2 1/2" C section 3/8" thick and the 10 tone jack bends the hell out of it, I dont exceed the elastic limit however as it does go back to position again.

 

[Rick]

I didnt tap the hole for the snorkel, but I did drill it, the snorkel is held in by structural strength loctite.
You have to blw out as mush of the drillings as poss, I took my base apart and blasted it with the airline (in the pic).
I've seen one on the net where the geyser had drilled a hole right through the base, tapped it bsp and screwed in a pressure guage, before which he's marked up the scale with tonnage, its not hard to work out pressure to downforce.
Might be a good idea to double up the sides of the top and lower beams welding on some flat bar, its surprising just how much these will give, mines 5" bi 2 1/2" C section 3/8" thick and the 10 tone jack bends the hell out of it, I dont exceed the elastic limit however as it does go back to position again.

Mine seems to work ok now with the res. I worked out my press will be 880bar when on full pressure! I've not seen a pressure gauge that goes to 1000bar for reasonably money, but it would be a good idea I think to add the gauge as its hard to guess how much force your using. Mine flexes back, but the flexy means theres an awfull lot of kinetic energy waiting to injur you! I need to sort out the flex and add a gauge, then I know when I'm using X amount of force to be ready to duck

 

[Ed ke6bnl]

how do you plan to adapt a pressure gage?

 

[AdrianH]

If you know the ram diameter you can work out the area of the ram and therefore if you measure the hydraulic pressure you can make the gauge read in tons.

For example if the diameter is 1 1/2 inch (1.5) then this area is 1.767 inches.If the gauge was to read 100 bar, or 1450 Ib/square inch and you have 1.767 square inches then the force on the end of the ram is 145 *1.767 = 2560 Ib or 1.28 ton

Hope all the maths is correct?

Adrian