Things happen for a reason I guess

[Kevin54]

Sumbitchin' CL people at times just rip my ***. Yesterday, I was looking to buy a hydraulic press. Three presses on CL. Three different people, three different presses. I called, left a message, I e-mailed, I texted. 2 presses were 12 ton presses, and one was a 20 ton. This was all late morning early afternoon. So between 10 and 11 last night, I get two text messages. "SORRY, I JUST SOLD IT". WTF!!!!! One of the presses is still on there. So I figured I would go to HF and just pick one up tomorrow.

I decided to look one more time on CL today and see if anyone had one close for a good price. I saw one. So I e-mailed the guy. He gave a very vague description, says it's still for sale. This **** went on all day, He's answer one question at a time, then I'd ask him again and wait. I figured he's just dickin' around. I finally told him, look, I want a press, this is what I'll pay, and will it fit in my truck. Finally about 5:00 this afternoon I hear back and he says to come and get it. So now I'm thinking, he's waited all day for a better offer. Wrong...he was over at his girlfriends. The guys retired and was doing some outside work at her place. I got there and couldn't get away. He was trying to sell me everything. The pisser is, I really could have lowballed him and probably got it for a stupid low price.

But I ended up with a 30 ton Carolina CP100 press for $100. It needs some paint but works great and no leaks. I may just get it sandblasted and powdercoated.

I wouldn't have had a need for one really other than I need something with some *** to smash some rivets. I have a three ton Famco arbor press and it won't budge a 3/16" dia. cold rolled steel rivet. Either that or I just don't have any *** to me anymore.

Things all happen for a reason.

 

[Tack]

Great story! Post a picture!

 

[RV77]

Yea I feel your pain Kevin.....Seems when I see something Im really interested in,they dont post a phone number or dont check their messages often.Drives me fargin crazy !If I have something listed I check at least once an hour,cause most people are afraid to call and/or tire kickin'

 

[NC-Fordguy]

Great story! Post a picture!

x2.......

Pics please

 

[firebox40dash5]

Yea I feel your pain Kevin.....Seems when I see something Im really interested in,they dont post a phone number or dont check their messages often.Drives me fargin crazy !If I have something listed I check at least once an hour,cause most people are afraid to call and/or tire kickin'

I've been having the same experience, except I don't bother checking every hour, precisely because everyone's just tire kicking. You wanna buy, make me a real offer, if you'd like to know how much I want, I'll restate the price in my ad.

One guy emailed me last Friday night at damn near midnight, saw it on my phone sitting at the bar. I called him back around 10am, he says "Oh, thanks, but I needed them right now, so I went out and bought new ones an hour ago."

 

[cheechi]

people at times just rip my ***... I just don't have any *** to me anymore.

Great story! Post a picture!

Yeah show us pics. We're all eager to see that.

 

[Kevin54]

the pics are on my other computer. I'll post them up in the morning.

 

[Motofixxer]

Eh gotta be careful bout this kinda issue. Many guys selling shop type stuff are older either in years or generation and not really into the technology thing. So they might throw the ad up there but not really pay much attention for a day or two. ***** but just kinda the way it is.

 

[Kevin54]

Here's the pics of the press. I have to find someone around that does sandblasting, and I'll paint it instead of going to the trouble and cost of powdercoating. If I put a nice gloss paint job on it, it will last me as it's not something that will be used all the time anyways.

This tyhing isn't as large as it looks. It's only 30" wide, 12" deep, and 65" tall. At least it won't take up a lot of floor space.

 

[4x4gearhead]

Hmm...30 ton press...$100, Im going to honor you sir with a YOU ****!

 

[Kevin54]

Hmm...30 ton press...$100, Im going to honor you sir with a YOU ****!

Thank you but I will have to politely decline receiving the above mentioned "YOU ****" Award.

The goddamned press is racked somewhere I made a nest to rivet (4) 3/16" Cold Rolled Steel rivets. Oh yea, 30 tons will smash them to where I need them, but the damn press is racked somewhere and it let all four rivets slide off center. Either the adjustable horizontal bars are racked from front to back, or the portion that has the ram is racked. So the way it is now, it isn't worth a ****. But you don't know those things until they crop up. Before I bought it I looked online at what they were going for used and they were upwards of $300-$400+. If I had know that this was racked and most likely abused, I'd have offered him $25 for the thing.

Oh well, like they say, **** happens!!! I'll have me another cold one, stare it down for a little bit before I get pissed, then tear into it and find out whats wrong with it.

And for others out there that do need a hydraulic press, I'll take dimensions off of this, whip up a blueprint, and post it for anyone that wants to build one. After looking at this one, it is just stupid simple. Damn I need to learn to weld

 

[Kevin54]

Here's a Cliff Note version of what happened. While forming all four rivets at once, to keep all at the same height, and to also keep things square or perpendicular, the ram on the press is out of parallel to the guide pins by 4 degrees. Although that doesn't seem like much, in actuality it is a lot. Once you get to the required pressure to form / smash the rivets, it's too late because it gives all at once.

To make a nest for the rivet heads, I took a block of scrap material and at the required depth made the pockets for the heads of the rivets. You never want to make the nest deeper because it will leave a mark around the rivet heads. It also would not let the parent materials to go together tight. With leaving the head above the nest by a few thousandths, it insures that everything goes together tight,

But pictures are worth a thousand words. I found the problem with the ram on the press, it's not a hard job to drill the rivets out and redo them although I have to make two more.....But it is just a pain that things show up AFTER the fact instead of before. So as a warning to others.....If you ever buy a press from someone, take a precision square with you to check how perpendicular the ram is to the table or horizontal bars. Precision squares can be had rather cheap. Even a Chinese square will work, and everyone really needs to own at least one small precision square anyways. A new lesson learned today on my part

So here are the pics.

 

[Kevin54]

I also wanted to add....the pic with me holding the rivet, it has Prussian Blue on it so I could compare the pocket with the rivet head. The rivet head is a ******* size, so I had to root through my cutters to find the appropriate male and female matching cutters. Luckily I still had some from when I was working, and they didn't get ripped off.

Now it's just a matter of making the ram square with the two guide pins and we'll be good to go, or at least I hope so.

 

[4xdog]

Kevin -- I think I have a hint to what you're working on, and the project is lookin' good! We'll post some before-after photos when you're finished.

Do you think all four rivets need to be peened at the same time? Would it work to peen them sequentially?

Don

 

[rharman]

No way to get it back in alignment? Looks like it would clean up really nicely.

Too bad if it's not salvageable.....

 

[Kevin54]

Kevin -- I think I have a hint to what you're working on, and the project is lookin' good! We'll post some before-after photos when you're finished.

Do you think all four rivets need to be peened at the same time? Would it work to peen them sequentially?

Don

The only thing about doing them one at a time is a VERY good chance of them going crooked. The rivets are all the same length, so theoretically by pushing down on all four at the same time, the height after forming them will keep them all the same height on the backside, plus eliminating what has already happened. Also by doing one at a time, the punch size would more than likely be smaller than what the block is, therefore creating a potential hazard. And to sit with a punch and a hammer to peen them over would just take too long and leaves way too much room for error.

Ideally, the way to do it would to be to use an Orbital Riveter. With an orbital, once you have your fixture set on center, the head comes down, and basically spin peen the rivet over. But for me to buy an Orbital Riveter is out of my reach right now. Maybe someday, but not any day close

I have to pull the vise off of my mill. Once I pull the vise off I'll clamp down the two guide pins to the table and keep the upper ram assembly square to the back of the table. After I do that, I can take a cut off of the ram itself to square it up with the guide pins.

What has happened is either someone really horsed the press and used the ram off center, or it could be the fact that when it was made, it was never welded or machined correctly afterwards for the final product. One good thing, I'm very used to screw-ups and repairing screw-ups like this. It just takes me a little longer today than it did a few years ago to sort the problems out.

With the way the press is made, and actually I am shocked as to the cheapness of it, for something that sells for or sold for three times or more than a Harbor Freight press. But thankfully, I found what was wrong with it and will now remedy the situation.

I'm waiting on a return call to see about getting it sandblasted locally so I can get it repainted. One thing is and it's fact, that by the time I get done with it, it will be better than new and it will do what I anticipated it to do. The next owner will have a good press to work with.

 

[nine4gmc]

looks like you know your rivets, how did you make them?

 

[Kevin54]

looks like you know your rivets, how did you make them?

I turned them in the lathe out of 1018 cold rolled steel. I measured the head height of the old rivets and turned the diameter of the head and held it to the correct height. Then I used a corner rounding end mill that I just by luck had, clamped it up in the holder, squared it to the chuck, then went in and cut the radius on the head of the rivet.

Life would have been good if I could have just bought an off the shelf rivet, but everything was a ******* size on these. The closest rivet I could find had a 3/16" body diameter, whereas the ones I had to replicate had a body diameter of .202 which is .015 larger. And even though, .015 doesn't sound like a lot, that is .0075 slop per side in the hole. When you have that much room and say for instance you're stacking a bunch of washers to rivet together to slide into a tube. If the tubes hole diameter would be such that one washer would go into the hole with maybe only .002 tolerance, the stack of washers you put together would look like a snake because they would be shifted this way and that way. That is why on every drawing you will see a tolerance block that shows what is allowable on each and every part so the components can go together properly. And even designing something, you have to keep in mind which way to put a tolerance on those components.

Just like with a washer going into a hole, the washer would have a +.000 / -.005 tolerance. The hole in the tube would have a +.005 / -.000 tolerance as an example. That is your guarantee that the washer would fit in the hole. But if those tolerances were reversed, the hole could be undersize, then the washer would be oversize. If you took and machined the parts to the maximum dimensions, the assembly would not go together because there is now a .010 difference in size. But if you machined them to the correct tolerance I first listed, the hole could actually be .010 larger in diameter than the washer, allowing the washer to fit. Clear as mud, huh???

Anytime I make anything, I try to make each and every part on the "mean dimension" which is the center dimension between the high and low tolerance. It's a good practice to get into. In a factory type of setting, where there is a multitude of parts going together to make an "assembly" of a final part, when the parts are first made or prototyped, almost always, they have to work the bugs out and the largest problem is getting things to fit together and it usually falls back to the tolerances. A typical person that may get to see a blueprint of component parts may see a "revision block" with letters beside it. A, B, C, and so on. This is how many times they had to revise that component to get it to the point that it is finally correct.