Tandy's New Clicker Press

[bikermutt07]

@erikdemelo thanks for the r and d insight. From what I see (in my hobby shop) is a need for a clicker priced in the 5-700 dollar range.

I'm not knocking development costs or profit margins, but some of the designs out there have been paid off for decades. I recently contacted Wuta leather about bringing one to the American market. Haven't heard back yet.

When you look at a 4 ton swing arm press objectively, there just isn't a whole lot of materials going into them. If it wasn't for the tooling needed to process them we would all be making our own.

Sure they speed up the process, if you have another 500-1000 to put into dyes.

You see the predicament? This is a lot of up front investment for a hobbyist or small business.

[bermudahwin]

Shame its at the equivalent of $1600 in the UK

[alpha2]

The belt strap cutter one is fine, but if that's all it does it's very limiting. The clicker, if there was an opening in one side or the other, just enough to slip a strap through, it could function as a belt strap cutter too! That should leave plenty of steel to take the 4 tons of force.

Jeff

[Matt S]

1 hour ago, bikermutt07 said:

From what I see (in my hobby shop) is a need for a clicker priced in the 5-700 dollar range.

When you look at a 4 ton swing arm press objectively, there just isn't a whole lot of materials going into them. If it wasn't for the tooling needed to process them we would all be making our own.

Sure they speed up the process, if you have another 500-1000 to put into dyes.

You see the predicament? This is a lot of up front investment for a hobbyist or small business.

I use a 6 ton hydraulic bearing press as my clicker. It's not as fast as a "real" one, nor is it a C-frame. However for £60 delivered I can't complain -- and it's still a damn sight faster than cutting by hand. I've been talking with a welder friend about building a C-frame with a swing-away top arm that holds the hydraulic jack. He's a bit leery about the forces involved. I'll probably just pony up for one of the Weaver/Lucris/Noya/Cowboy type swing-arm clickers. A single stroke (rather than 3-4 plus release) would be handy.

I've got about a dozen cutting dies, which I designed myself with a vector-drawing package. Mainly from one supplier, but recently emailed the top dozen Google UK results for a quote for two simple dies that I needed quickly. Quotes varied from £60 to over £400. Now admittedly I think the top quote was for a forged feed-through die and the lowest a standard strip knife but that's fine for the relatively small volume I produce. Shop around, find an inexpensive supplier and $1000 would buy you a lot of dies if you're not looking for something too complicated.

58 minutes ago, hwinbermuda said:

Shame its at the equivalent of $1600 in the UK

Even with business pricing it's £1100. That's most of the way towards buying a Lucris.

[bikermutt07]

@Matt S, I hear what you are saying. And, I have considered that route. But, with my current leather room size, even a smaller bearing press is going to be too big.

And I may have to go that route. Eating in front of the TV every night, my wife doesn't really need the dining room, right???