Home › Forums › Explore Media › Printmaking › Hydraulic jack press at Harbor Freight
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July 16, 2016 at 7:53 pm #994260
There are a 20 ton and 120 ton hydraulic Jack presses for sale at Harbor Freight stores. I was looking at them and thinking that maybe they could be modified a little to work as a printing press.
I don’t need one but I thought I would post this for anyone interested.
Please post if you use this as a printing press, I am very curious to see how it would work!Teresa
Saint RagdollJuly 17, 2016 at 6:50 am #1254623Hello
I received a request from a Dutch assiciation “Drukwerk in de Marge” to help them develop a so colled “budget-press”. It should be an A4 platen press that allows to print led type, lino, woodcut and photopolymer plates. I have been thinking about inserting a hydraulic Jack, because it is cheap. There may be a problem however; it requires a pumping motion on the lever. There is a press like this around somewhere; a very simple press with thick py wood platens, and a hydraulic jack on the top platen. This will work for woodcut and lino, perhaps, but the platens are not rigid enough (wood) and there should be a knee joint mechanism in it somewhere, to allow at every movement of the lever (knee-joint-lever) the same pressure on the platen. It is a work in progress, to find the best solutions. Any idea’s are welcomeAugust 19, 2017 at 3:30 am #1254622I am using a 12-ton shop press from harbor freight to print intaglio-etching,engraving, drypoint, mezzotint – works great. I bought 12×16″ (3/8″ thick) plate steel for the bed and top plate. To more evenly distribute the pressure I add a couple smaller plates in a pyramid type arrangement. Largest print so far is 8×12…could go up to 15 or 16 inches – but wouldn’t have much room left for a border. The 20-ton version is wider and would increase the print size.
The whole arrangement, including plates and press blankets, cost about $200. -
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