I bought an arbor press - at last.

[dikman]

This is what I ended up with. The "inserts" are pretty easy to make from cylindrical scrap bits and I'll make a few with different size holes which should take most punches, rivet setters etc. As you can see similar to jimi's and Rocky's.

 

[Bert51]

Looks like your life is going to get a little easy when doing studs and a like.

I like.

Bert.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Bert51

[dikman]

Found a video on youtube where a chap fitted a drill chuck to the bottom of the ram to hold tools, looks like a good use for an old chuck. Got me thinking, as I have an old chuck that is a bit too worn for the drill press but would be fine for this. Looks like I'm back to drilling a hole in the end of the ram!!

[NCFD]

For Magnets and all manner of things ---- www.McMastercarr.com they have just about anything industrial related or material related

[dikman]

I've finally finished messing around with this (I think). I replaced the round anvil thingy with a thick steel plate and cut an old chopping board to fit. A piece of angle iron will serve as a fence, with a couple of quick and nasty screw clamps welded from scrap offcuts, and I made five inserts to handle different thickness tools. The biggest problem I could see was the handle needing re-positioning with different length tools. One common solution is to grind off the lower two teeth on the ram, and when it is raised the handle can keep turning when it hits where the teeth were. Nice, but I didn't want to remove the teeth. After coming up with all sorts of ideas for a removable (tool-less) locking design for the shaft the obvious finally dawned on me - I replaced the collar locking screw with a bolt, ground down the head and loc-tited a wingnut to it. Now I can remove the collar, slide out the handle and rotate it to a new position then re-tighten the collar, without tools. Simples.

Oh, and I finally drilled a hole in the other end of the ram (only 'cos I could) with a locking screw. At the right of the photo is a block of steel with a pin, if I need to use the ram for anything heavy I'll invert the ram and this block will fit on to save the end of the ram from any wear.

 

[Lil Doodler]

I went the way of buying a Harbor Freight 1/2 ton press. I found that the 1/2" square ram is reversible, you can turn the ram upside down and it will work just fine. I went the way of drilling holes in the ram. 1/4" on one end, 3/8" on the other end. I drilled and tapped for a small set screw with a hex/allen to tighten the tool on each end. Because the 1/2 ton press doesn't have a lot of clearance, I shortened the set screws so that they would be beneath the front of the ram so you could have a bit/tool still tightened up while the ram is up in the gear area.

I also removed the locking ring holding the toothed shaft that rotates. It makes it easier to remove the ram and more importantly to me, lets me pull the shaft out quickly, move the ram to the approximate height I want it, then reinsert the shaft. I figure if I need a little more pressure, I could put a piece of longer pipe over the lever and get get more leverage.

 

Edited August 14, 2020 by Lil Doodler

[Lil Doodler]

The round anvil that came with the press was thick, so there wasn't as much clearance as I wanted.  I made this little table out of cutting board material. I added some wood below to support the cutting board material and put in a little dowel rod that fit in the anvil's center hole to hold it in place.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Lil Doodler

[Lil Doodler]

The guide is for a sewing machine. I drilled a hole for the screw and the screw self-tapped into the softish material.

Cutting the side of the arm for the guide might cause a little loss of strength, but there's lots of other material in the arm and on the other side. I don't think there's been very much loss of strength in the arm.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Lil Doodler

[Lil Doodler]

I use a piece of steel over the top if using a rivet setting tool or for snaps.

I use stamps in the arbor press too.

With the pressure of the press, there's no need to case the leather first.

For the smallest diameter stamps, I put a vinyl tubing as a sleeve over the stamp, then tighten in the ram.

 

For big 3D stamps and letters, used a lathe to reduce the diameter of the holder so it fit

 

Edited August 14, 2020 by Lil Doodler

[Lil Doodler]

I also cut short the handles of a 1 1/2" and 1" oblong punches to use in the press. After cutting them, I drilled and inserted a 1/4" shaft to be held in the ram. No more hammering! Because the bag cutters do leave a mark in the bottom support, I use a scrap piece of cutting board or a piece of pine as a backstop.

 

Because I have very limited space, I mounted the 1/2 ton arbor press on the backside of my Artisan Toro-4000 sewing machine.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Lil Doodler

[dikman]

Nice solutions. Using the sewing machine guide is neat and a good idea with the slot cutters, might have to pinch that one.

[Lil Doodler]

Thanks dikman,

Good to share ideas, learn from each other

[Spyros]

It seems to me for all those things you can find an old drill press and just mount stuff in the chuck.  Drill presses have a huge throat opening, you can press a stud right in the middle of a finished bag.  

[RockyAussie]

2 hours ago, Lil Doodler said:

I also cut short the handles of a 1 1/2" and 1" oblong punches to use in the press. After cutting them, I drilled and inserted a 1/4" shaft to be held in the ram. No more hammering! Because the bag cutters do leave a mark in the bottom support, I use a scrap piece of cutting board or a piece of pine as a backstop.

 

Because I have very limited space, I mounted the 1/2 ton arbor press on the backside of my Artisan Toro-4000 sewing machine.

Great thinking there @Lil Doodler and thank you for sharing it as well. Getting a crew punch to come down even let alone in the right direction is challenging and having a fence to line up to as well ........

 

[Lil Doodler]

Spyros,

That sounds like a good idea if it works. For an eyelet or rivet it might work very well.

But have you seen the teeth on a drill press quill, or the spines on the shaft that rotates to pull the quill down? For the inexpensive drill presses anyway, they are quite shallow and light duty compared to an arbor press. If they should break under stress, it might be very difficult to find cheap replacement parts

Might I suggest another way, without a hammer or a press, much cheaper to set / press eyelets or rivets?

This is off subject a bit for this thread . . .

I have used a deep throat "C" or "U" clamp very successfully. Use the inclined plane of the screw to tighten/close exactly the eyelet or rivet where you want. Of course it's not as fast as using a hammer

Of course you would have to adapt the closing ends of the clamp for what you wanted to squeeze together.

Here is a picture of a modified deep throat C clamp I use for rivets

Edited August 15, 2020 by Lil Doodler

[Lil Doodler]

Close up of lower

Close up of upper

You could use a drill on the torque setting to close it quickly

This is how I use it, with a longer lever. I did also modify the back of the lower end to get into a small place.

I wouldn't be too afraid to trim more off of the bottom if I needed to. It doesn't take that much pressure to set most rivets or eyelets.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Lil Doodler

[Lil Doodler]

Here is a much longer / deeper clamp, over 300mm /  12 ".

You would be hard pressed (pun intended) to find a drill press that would give you that kind of clearance

It's very cheap compared to the price of a drill press or an arbor press.

[Spyros]

Lil D I have the same Milwaukee hand drill, they're awesome those 12 volt ones

Those modifications you did to your C clamp, I also did them to a screw bolt to make the clamp for the table mounting of my home made stitching pony...same principle 

Look fundamentally an arbor press is not much more than a drill press without the motor and the chuck, isnt it? with more pressing power probably.  But in a drill press all those specs, throat clearance, durability of the shaft, pressing power, is simply a question of size.   Typically an old school floor mounted home-shop type of drill press will easily have a 50cm (20 inch) swing.  When their motor goes (especially the belt drive ones) they are usually sold for scrap prices.  My old one, I'm sad to say, I just put it out on the nature strip and someone picked it up.  But there some very solid ones with a dead motor out there sold for next to nothing.  I mean at the end of the day they're meant to go through wood and steel, leather is soft.

Then it's just a question of adding a $10 quick release chuck for your bits, and you you can build any manner of tables with fences and jigs for any application, that's what woodworkers do with their drill presses.

Having said all that, I haven't done it so I can't tell for sure, just theorising.    Maybe there's a catch somewhere.

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by Spyros

[Lil Doodler]

Spyros,

Yep, you are right, it should work fine and I did say . . ..

2 hours ago, Lil Doodler said:

That sounds like a good idea if it works. For an eyelet or rivet it might work very well. 

Personally, I've never seen any drill press with a bad motor, much less a big floor drill press model with a bad motor.

I was thinking more about the much smaller bench drill presses that are much lighter duty and much less expensive.

Heck yeah, if I had an old floor model drill press with a bad motor, I wouldn't hesitate to use it as much as I could as an arbor for leather work

[Spyros]

1 hour ago, Lil Doodler said:

Heck yeah, if I had an old floor model drill press with a bad motor, I wouldn't hesitate to use it as much as I could as an arbor for leather work

Little did I know at the time... I was all about woodworking

[RockyAussie]

Starting to look like a bunch of mad inventors here what? Here one post I did on a drill press for embossing as well -

 

[dikman]

I have a drill press similar to yours, Brian (had it for about 40 years) but the "newer" ones I've seen don't look like they're as strongly built. I've recently been using my arbor press to crack Macadamia nuts (!) and I know the drill press couldn't do it. Nevertheless, it's a good idea for using on lighter studs and rivets.

[Lil Doodler]

I've been thinking . . .

As Spyros pointed out, a real advantage of the drill press is the throat and table size.

Using a basket weave stamp on the arbor press with a guide/fence I was able to quickly put down an accurate, almost flawless pattern on a leather project. However, because my arbor press is small and the work area is small between the ram (where the tool was being held) and the supporting arm, I was limited in how large an area I could work.

If I had a floor drill press with a large table that had a material guide and a "pinned"/stationary chuck that couldn't rotate, putting basket weave on a larger project would be quick and easy.

Set up a stool, so the table is a foot or so below eye level, add good lighting and work the handle! I'd case the leather so the drill press doesn't have to apply much pressure.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Lil Doodler

[Spyros]

So what are the jobs that require a lot of pressure from the arbor press?

Edited August 15, 2020 by Spyros

[Lil Doodler]

from the web . . .

• Inserting or removing bearings, seals, studs, and bushings – probably the most common use
• Installing dowels, alignments pins, threaded (key) inserts, t-nuts, and roll pins,
• Bending, joggling, and forming small sheet metal parts in combination with custom made dies
• Die cutting
• ***Embossing or punching holes in leather, cloth, plastic, gaskets, and thin sheet metal – this is a cool and underutilized use
• Broaching (keyways and other misc.)
• Flattening or straightening out small bumps in metal
• Pressing inlays
• Pressing guitar frets – this is another cool one
• Light riveting
• Inserting and removing gears and pulleys
• Compressing springs – careful here
• Tie rod ends and Ball joints
• Crimping cables and wires into a die
• u-joints

Some use a pointed die in the arbor press to destroy hard drives

Blacksmith work in forging

cracking nuts has been noted lol

In the jewelry industry, the arbor press is also commonly used as a cutting, punching, and pattern embossing tool. The force an arbor press provides has the ability to punch through some metals without damaging the surface, unlike other pressing options.

In the automobile industry, the arbor press also features as a mandril press. Here, the arbor press is used for press-fitting bearings and embossing metal objects that fit in its throat. The arbor press is also used in woodworking for creating patterns and metalwork that enhance the functions or aesthetics of a woodworker’s piece.

And I found this in a different thread on using an arbor for leather work

  On 1/15/2018 at 2:13 PM, Double Daddy said:

I used a bench top drill press for a long time for lots of pressing and setting functions...as well as spinning my sanding drums and my cocobolo burnisher. It worked well right up until all of the pressing/setting stress finally weakened the knuckle arm where the table connected to the vertical post and it cracked and failed...now I just use the press as a sander and burnisher (no sense in tossing it when the motor still works great). I have a 1-ton arbor press and a keyless chuck adapter with powerful magnet built into it...it just grabs right onto the ram and I can use the short/cheap line20/24 snap setters or take it off and use the ram face to press my brass maker's mark. Here's the link to the keyless chuck that I have:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Arbor-Press-Magnetic-Pin-Press-1-2-Chuck-Tool-APMT0-5/252843022376?hash=item3ade9e5828:g:PJoAAOSwc-tY4oNz

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It looks like there's a lot of stress on the table that it wasn't intended to have

But using the old drill press without a motor that wouldn't matter I guess

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by Lil Doodler