Press machine which can stamp a large dye?

[BMadz]

Hi,

I have been crafting leather straps for replica wrestling belts for the last year and couldnt be any prouder of taking the plunge into doing something Ive always wanted to do! Some styles of belts use a small standard background stamp for the snapbox area of the belt, however some customers request for the exact style of a particular belt they have seen used on TV, some of which have a one piece stamp pressed into the leather to create a pattern. 

I have had a 4x8" dye made to emulate this style put Im having trouble successfully stamping this area using an arbor press as the arm is narrow and am having to try and stamp different areas of the dye multiple times. Is there another machine anybody can reccomend to me. Any help would be greatfully appreciated.

The below image is the style im trying to recreate which is done using one large stamp.

[Rahere]

Geordie Leather uses a 1 tonne arbour press to put its logo, a 1" roundel, into cased leather. It can also impress their name, about the same width. This, however, is about twenty times taller, and twice as deep. Although arbour presses go to 3 tonnes, that won't do the job, so I think they've moved up to a hydralic press for the control: it's not about annihilating the matrix between, just reducing it.

[toxo]

I use a 1 ton arbor press with a longer bar for die cutting and stamping and it works quite well. Of course I have to "walk" the material under the ram on bigger stamps and sometimes I dampen the leather but I don't have a production line going on. There are various types of strong "G clamp" types or engineers vices out there that will work or you can buy a hydraulic press or make one using a car "bottle jack".

[rleather]

3 hours ago, toxo said:

I use a 1 ton arbor press with a longer bar for die cutting and stamping and it works quite well. Of course I have to "walk" the material under the ram on bigger stamps and sometimes I dampen the leather but I don't have a production line going on. There are various types of strong "G clamp" types or engineers vices out there that will work or you can buy a hydraulic press or make one using a car "bottle jack".

I'm in need of a longer arm for my arbor press, if you don't mind me asking, where did you get your's?

[toxo]

22 minutes ago, rleather said:

I'm in need of a longer arm for my arbor press, if you don't mind me asking, where did you get your's?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221946532591

[Rahere]

The usual kludge is a mild steel tube just long enough to fit over the arm. I did once see someone land on his butt doing that when the fulcrum casting broke, though - I guess that's what they meant by a 1 tonne rating!

[toxo]

9 hours ago, Rahere said:

The usual kludge is a mild steel tube just long enough to fit over the arm. I did once see someone land on his butt doing that when the fulcrum casting broke, though - I guess that's what they meant by a 1 tonne rating!

I do have a 4ft tube that goes over the 2ft arm and being an engineer I have a feel for how far I can go but where it does come in handy is when you're using cased leather and you can hang a heavy weight on the end of it and leave it to dry.

[johnv474]

If you are able to save up to afford it, Weaver's 4 ton hand operated clicker called the Mighty Wonder is pretty awesome.  Even though it is more expensive than an arbor press, it takes a lot less extra work to make it do what you want to.  You wind up with an area about 8"x11" or so that can be pressed.  Of course, an extremely intricate stamp using the entire area requires maximum force, but I have had success with it in all sorts of belts, etc., using 6" stamps and larger.