How to make a press for moulding leather pouches and such

[RockyAussie]

13 hours ago, LumpenDoodle2 said:

Great job with the press, it's certainly going to do the job for you, but I must ask.

You fence to entertain the cows?   Competition sparring, or just old fashioned duels.

Mightn't be competition sparing but here a couple of pics of my Molly (The quality inspector/guard dog) trying it on with Jet the brangus bull.  Here below she's thinkin (not real smartly) to scare Jet.

A big leap into the air should do it.

Woooops where is the brakes....up here?

Actully I was just goin this a way.

Bit busy right now I'll take care of that matter some other day.

Now my new dog in training is a bit worried about the size of these critters so Molly shows him that they aint all that bad.

So far he has shown a great willingness to be a taste tester for staff at lunch times. I guess his got a lot of growing to catch up here.

End of story. Brian

[RockyAussie]

3 hours ago, plinkercases said:

Are you going rig it to be driven by a drill and socket? if you could do that for the major movement then use a tire iron for the final pressure....

Never thought about using it as a clicker but there you go... I think I will look for a second hand jack now.

Nice pictures and step by step as usual and I am looking forward for the molding tests. Curious to see how the 3D printed mold parts work out.

That is my plan indeed. I hope to be able to inset a bolt head and use a socket in the battery drill and if needed I can then just switch to a hand ratchet to finish off.

I'm thinking that if I wanted it to do clicking more so (I don't as I have 2 hydraulic machines already) I would be tempted to put in 2 jacks side by side and use one jack for small jobs and 2 when the knife is larger. Bit slow but way faster and better than doing by hand.

11 hours ago, TxLeather said:

Great job!

Thank you

[RockyAussie]

12 hours ago, Dwight said:

Yessir, . . . good lookin job, . . . and it looks like it "will do the job".

Also, . . . for everyone here, . . . thanks for the detailed instruction.

May God bless,

Dwight

Thanks Dwight.... as I said I hope it helps some.

[RockyAussie]

On 13/10/2017 at 9:06 AM, Itch said:

Whenever I go about something like this I will stack leather to make a mould .. A lot of the time I will take scrap leather pieces and stack ,glue ,and a few brad nails to make any shape that I am looking for . Hope this helps .. 

Thanks for the thought there Itch. I have done similar in the past and I may need to do something like that but fingers crossed .....I can get it to work. Having the printer do it over and over while I do something else would be great.

[gigi]

Go Molly!  

My clicker press is similar, but uses hydraulic (bottle) jack and return springs. I think your design is better because the scissor jack is acting both ways (up and down) and you have more flexibility (bigger range).

Thanks for sharing!

[LumpenDoodle2]

Awww.....  Molly showing off (and almost mucking up), but the young'un will have learned something.    

Doing metal detecting, I've met many bulls of all temprement and size.   On one farm, it used to be fine to go on the field with the bull (I came up to his kneecaps).   He was a lovely canny chap.   When their new bull arrived,  my request to detect was greeted from the farmer's wife by "any field but the one with the bull, this ones a wee bit full of energy".  Farm speak for hyper aggressive.

Anyhoo, the press certainly seems to have the 'oomph' for the job. 

[RockyAussie]

On 16/10/2017 at 5:45 AM, gigi said:

Go Molly!  

My clicker press is similar, but uses hydraulic (bottle) jack and return springs. I think your design is better because the scissor jack is acting both ways (up and down) and you have more flexibility (bigger range).

Thanks for sharing!

@gigi although it works it is a little catchy as yet. I'm thinking I might go for a pneumatic ram on top possibly. I made one awhile back out of a 4" aluminium pipe and and some other stuff. Other than just wanting to learn how to do it I never really had a use for it but this might be it. Time will tell I guess. Brian

[RockyAussie]

For those interested to see the 3D printed mould for the handcuffs here are some pictures to see. The first 2 pictures show the inner mould printed OK but did take nearly a full day to print. I will point out that this is not a veg tan leather and is a retan of some sort. It would have been a bit easier on a unpainted smooth veg.

These next pictures show the printing of the outer mould which failed. Where I had put a 6mm(1/4")wide hollow to give the leather some relief on the fold it got caught up at the top of the hollow. It gets a bit funny when you print in the air without supports some times. Fussy B things.

Went back to the drawing board and made a few changes as follows. Note: I decided to leave out a few of the support holes and made the top and the bottom of the mould splayed more on one side and reduced the hollow to 5mm wide. One side of the mould can now do a bit of pre shaping if needed.

Oh and for you 3D people the fill is 30% and the wall thicknesses and top and bottom etc are 2mm. The tube holes are to give extra resistance to crushing as they as well get a 2mm wall. Next one I will try 20% fill and 1.6mm wall thicknesses to save some printing time.

Had to watch this layer to make sure it didn't fail again and I did have to push some raising spots down a couple of times. Turned out alright.

Next pic shows the press had no trouble pushing the leather in to shape. Did the jack turning down by hand mostly.

Notice the water being squeezed out of the edge of the leather. 

I left the mould in the press overnight in this case to dry as this mould was made to test my sizing and design first before making the more elaborate moulds that will have allowances for clamps to be clipped into whilst in the press.

As usual I should not have worried so much as it came out pretty well as the next round of pics I load should show. Can't fit any more pics in this load so I'll be back later.

 

 

[RockyAussie]

In the next lot of pictures you can see the making of the handcuff pouch after the moulding. This is about 27mm deep (1 1/8")

For you Aussies it is black Allaska (buffalo I think) from East coast Leather. Reckon they'll give me a discount on the next order for the plug ???

The inner mould came out most easily first.

Here you can see where I did not sand down my hardwood all that well on the press and it left a few grain marks in the top. Blunt sandpaper and too far from town.

This picture shows I could have reduced the leather overhand a fair amount on my first cutting.

The next picture shows that I have trimmed the overhang off neat with the relief line and cut out the back as well.

Now I have stitched a strap to the back which I forgot to photo and proceeded to glue the pieces together. I did some edging first as well.

following pics show it stitched and edged and polished and this prototype is now ready to check if the handcuffs will fit.

With a bit of luck I will find out tomorrow. 

That's it for now. Brian

 

[Dwight]

Excellent, Brian, . . . I would have had to go with wood, . . . chisels, . . . files, . . . etc, . . . and it would have taken at least a day to produce the same type product.

Computer printing it sure is a lot less physical labor, . . . 

How many to you expect to produce in a day with that setup??

May God bless,

Dwight