Shop Press

[Lowly]

I'm thinking of buying a shop press and I don't know what size I should be looking for. I do pretty much all the repair work on my farm and I have gotten by without a press long enough. At some point I will need to pin and bush my 420C, will a fifty ton press handle that? If it won't is there any reason to have that big a press for the other stuff I do? Bearings, bushings, universals, water pumps, things like that? There seems to be quite a price jump from 50 ton to 100 ton. If a smaller press is all I really need I would rather buy a smaller, higher quality (maybe even made in this country) one rather than a big piece of crap made you know where.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks

[Lavoy]

20 ton will do 90% or more of what you need to do, so maybe not worth the money for a 50 ton. I would say get one quickly, we went without for many years, couldn't believe how handy it was once we got one.
Regardless of tonnage, you can not do pins and bushings, that requires a track press.
Lavoy

[doc40c]

hi Lowly, in my shop and most of the shops i've visited , a 20 ton press will handle pretty much all the general press needs. i'm not sure but i think most track presses are 50-100 ton. i've tried doing track pins on a regular press, very scarey! in my opinion, the extra cost of a huge press just to do a set of tracks once in my lifetime (not to mention the safety risk) doesn't justify the purchase. personally, i'll leave the track work to those with the right equipment ( sometimes that's hard for a do-it -yourself kind of guy, but probably the wiser move). hope this might help, good luck! randy from michigan.

[jim420]

i have a 50 ton press and tried to press out a bushing once just to see if it would do it. i maxed out the press and then BANG the bushing came out and i couldnt hear for an hour. very dangerous!

[Lowly]

Thanks for the info, guys. I'm going to go ahead and get a nice 20 ton model and firmly forget about trying to do the tracks myself.

Thanks again

[mini kahuna]

track pins need alot of pressure but more importantly they need to be held straight in a fixture.
I had a taper bearing cage shatter on me because I didn't have the right bite on it....that was an eye opener!!!
a 20 ton press will allow you to do all the bearing and shaft work you will come across.

[Lowly]

My press arrived today! For some reason the outfit I bought it from was offering free shipping on the 30 ton model and not on the twenty. That made the price difference small enough that I went with the 30. I know what you mean about the bearing cage. Especially when you're in a hurry to make a repair and get going again taking the time to study how you need to set things up is hard... but critical.

Thanks, guys