The "H" press (H is for Heavy)

[finley31]

I'm building a custom press at work for a field service job we have coming up in a couple weeks. We will be removing and replacing 72 large roller bearings, along with some gigantic hydraulic cylinders. We have been using a small 10 ten shop press that was close to it's limits on removing some of the more stubborn rollers. I asked my boss about purchasing or building a larger press for the job and he told me to use this framework pictured below that was laying out in our boneyard from another project. It is a little shorter than I would like and way overkill, but it's better than nothing.

I will be mounting a 20 ton enerpac jack on it with 10" of travel and powering it with a portable hydraulic unit.

I thought I would share some photos of the project as I went along.

What I started with. An approximately 5'x4' frame work of 10" x 5/8" I-Beam and 2" steel plates.

Cutting some 6" x 3/8" Channel for the working area.

The power tilt on the marvel saw makes cutting 45's easy.

Using the mag drill to drill a total of 20 1-7/16" diameter holes on 6" centers for the pins. I wish I would have just set it up on a big radial arm drill now, it took more work than I planned to do it this way.

Fitting the working platform. Those 48" Bessey "F" style bar clamps are one of the most handy tools in the shop.

Some of my chicken poop holding this thing together.

The current status of my project. I still need to make some retainers for the pins and figure out what I'm going to do for mounting the jack. I'm not sure if I want to be able to slide it back and forth under the beam or just make it stationary.

If anyone has any comments or ideas for changes please feel free to let me know.

 

[zkling]

O that little thing...... Why didn't you just head over to harbor freight and pick one up. Probably would have fit in the back of your car

All joking aside. That is going to be awesome. No such thing as over built when it comes to stationary shop tools. The more mass the better.

Looks like really good work, nice job.

 

[OccupantRJ]

Nice. Use a larger ram system and you can get more work by pressing on solid forklift tires.

 

[dirtmister16]

i know this post is old but did you ever complete this project? i am assuming so as it was a work project.

how did it turn out? how well does it work and where are the pictures? lol

 

[Brad54]

For the pins: Put a bull-nose on the far end, and on the bottom side of the pin, weld half a washer as a stop.
Makes finding the holes and sliding the pins home a snap when changing the work station height.

-Brad

 

[Strouty]

Updates? Looks awesome I am going to make one a little smaller than this one.

 

[littletoes]

Rig it so you can use a winch to move the working surface up and down. If it's beefy enough to move with the "work" on it...then it can be a life saver.

We welded an extension on ours, so we could position the 'work' around, before getting it over the opening for pressing.

We use an old 35 ton at work, me and a co-worker commandeered it out of a shop....nobody was using it, and it was going to go to auction, plus it was disassembled and needed hydraulic fluid and some gaskets replaced to hold fluid.

 

[fordbroncodave]

that thing looks so overkill but I would still like to own that

 

[Garage5.9]

damn what does it weigh ? 3k