1/2 ton arbor press

[esantoro]

I'm slowly moving away from the Belgium made jiffy rivets and toward the use of semi-tubular rivets, for strength.

I recently bought this 1/2 ton arbor press that has been modified for leatherworking (though the link seems to be broken at the moment):

http://www.metalworkingusa.com

It works wonderfully and also has the ability to be used for other things requiring the use of an arbor press .

The dies it comes with work well with many Tandy rivets, as well as other brands of jiffy and rapid rivets. I bought a bottom universal peening die from OTB that works satisfactorily in one of the slots of the arbor presses OEM base plate. I think I'll put a little bit of duct tape around the spindle of the die to make the fit more snug.

Ed

[whinewine]

Ed:

I have exactly the same press & it does a great job. I use it to set rivets with the dies that are included; plus you get the original anvil that comes with it. It also uses the Tandy dies, too. I purchased tandy's dies for line 20 & line 24 snaps. The only thing I don't like is with only 1000lbs of pressure, if you try to use it as a machine to impress images (like with the 3-D stamps), you don't get a deep impression (in all fairness, I haven't bolted it down & used an extension handle for more leverage, so it might be possible after all- I need to try that once I clear off part of my woodworking work bench)

(One word of caution- tandy's domed cap component to the line 20 dies (the rounded part that the domed cap sits in) isn't machined properly, so in all probability, you'll get your caps stuck- as in big-time-wedged-super-tight- in the die & you'll need to use side cutters or pliers to get them out= which means you've ruined the cap. I use the cap component for the line 24 snap die in conjunction with the rest of the line 20 components. That's the only way they'll work properly. BTW, if you have access to a machine shop, they can machine out the cap component so that the caps don't get stuck & wedge in there.)