Max,

I have a Fly press that I find more practical particularly with the ball weight, I find arbor presses need a lot of effort to use.

Martin P

to get any real pain on the object in question they need to be very firmly bolted down to a VERY rigid and strong bench / location.

They only have a 2' lever arm which, IMHO , can not deliver the presses stated max even with my 16 st hanging on the end. to get punch type pressures you need to extend that with bar or pipe to 4' ish.

If you have space and can find one as Martin says a fly press is better. They require much less effort to use.

Although heavy and needing a solid bench they are self contained and there is a lot less leverage being applied in the direction to try and tip it over or off the bench.

The pressure is infinitely variable by a) how hard you swing it and b0 how many and how heavy are the balls you add to the arms.

If you are only doing light stuff like pressing bearings out of shells or 200 mm thin sheet bending then an arbour press is the cheaper more compact route.

I hope that helps you make a decision as to what you go for.

Regards Clive

One trick I didn't mention for arbour presses is the use of impact vs steady handle pressure when punching. Sometimes just lifting your hand 8-10" above the handle and bringing your hand down with force and speed on the handle is enough to punch the hole if steady pressure isn't getting it done. Other times a 1/2 lb dead blow hammer (plastic, filled with lead shot) brought down on the handle is effective. I don't recommend handle extensions for arbour presses as a rule, I have seen a few broken press frames and broken pinions doing that.

I usually grind my punches with a faceted face, like an inverted crown, angling from the edges toward the depressed centre of the end of the punch. If the faceting is done, and the tips of the facets vary a few thousandths in length off the stock, cutting is progressive through the stock rather than cutting the entire perimeter at once. This reduces tonnage required for cut and also reduces concentration of stresses in the punch. It is an old trick transferred over from my days designing punch press tooling and progressive dies.

JD

Hi Max, I recently bought a 500kg abor press from machine mart ,I originally wanted the 1 ton abor press but they didn't have them in stock and I needed one ASAP, it has shimm adjustment on the front and adjustment on either side by the way of nut and bolt ,once set up I found the quality to be good for the price ,everything I saw in machine mart was porley assembled which kind of put me off ,but I took the risk and I'm pleased with my purchase .