Super Cheap Press

[harlan]

Thought everyone might appreciate a gander at the press I made for 15$.

The press is made around a pair of fridge door assist springs I pulled out of a junked appliance. Suppose it would be worth looking in any device that has an assisted, vertically opening door (although in a lot of cases it will likely be pneumatic rams e.g. van hatches). There's usually a ton of things with door assist springs at the dump if you want to scrounge although be careful to remove the load before trying to pull them out or you could get hurt.

Anyway, apart from the springs the press is made from lumber I got out of a dumpster, two 3 foot, 5/8" threaded rods, two 5/8" wing nuts and a few large washers. The piston is a heavy duty plastic canister, the mold is bought from new england cheese making supply and the receiver is a 5 lb bucket of one step sanitizer (which you will probably need anyway if you brew like me and or want to sanitize your cheese equipment).

I estimate the pressure being applied by how easily I can lift the cross member.

All in all, a cheap, fun project and it works perfectly.

[Cheese Head]

harlan, welcome to the forum, sounds and looks great, and environmentally friendly/sustainable development, poster is nice too, adds to the antique/artisan look!

I never knew standard kitchin fridge has springs like that to help close door.

If you want, you could put a bathroom scale beneath your starsan whey collection bucket to get a more accurate estimate of the pressing weight/pressure.

When I was a kid and my Dad was doing some construction job, we would sometimes go to the dump to drop off construction garbage, us boys used to search all over for old prams and steal the wheels off for making street go-carts to ride down hills in North Vancouver , happy memories (except for the dump smell on a hot day ).

[harlan]

Thanks for the welcome.

It's mostly chest freezers, and toy boxes and such or any door that helps lift itself open (as long as you don't hear that air wooshing sound from pistons).

They are usually bolted onto the back of the appliance in a long rectangular box with a hinged top that hooks on to the door.

I'll try that bathroom scale thing next time and see if I can count the number of rotations for various useful weights.

I think they are 100lb springs because the door they were attached to was truly colossal and they didn't have very much purchase but lifted the door with little effort. I don't know if you can get an idea of scale from the picture but the springs are about 2 inches in exterior diameter and weigh about a pound each.

I wanted to find a way to leave them in their housings, but I couldn't think of a press design that could take advantage of the circular (door swinging) motion they were designed for. That and the housings weighed about 4 lbs each 

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Welcome to the forum Harlan,

Nice press, I am planning the same one but had a difficulty finding the springs. Local hardware store here has got some but they are huge.

Once you put the scale at the bottom, you can calibrate your press by measuring the distance between the two lumbers. And if you attache a small piece of ruler to the bottom lumber vertically and mark it for the important weights, you don't have to use the scale all the time. Here is the modified picture.

[harlan]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to break out the scale tomorrow!

It is hard to find the springs, that's why I jumped on those when I found them. I always carry around some vice grips and a couple of screw drivers just in case the opportunity presents itself. After all, the boss doesn't know the difference between curb-side appliance surgery and getting a swine flu vaccine if I roll in late 

Another place I've seen these springs in in laboratory incubator / shakers. If a university in the area has just built new lab space or is relocating a department these kinds of devices often get kicked to the curb. If you're looking for weird equipment you can't get anywhere else, check the loading dock / dumpster behind a biomedical building. Once stumbled upon a tissue culture incubator (humidity and temp control, like 30,000 new) but it was too heavy to move easily. Would have been the ultimate cheese cave.

Happy hunting.

[harlan]

So I put the bathroom scale in the press this evening with the intention of making a graded scale as per the suggestion.

Welp, it turns out that the difference between 15lbs and 50lbs is about 1mm of additional spring compression so I can't really mark off the useful weights.

Springs are stiffer than I thought.

I suppose I can figure out some way to exaggerate the difference, could be a fun thought project...

[DeejayDebi]

Nice job Harlan! I bought a cheap digital scale on eBay to canabilize to put into a press. Just set another board on top and slip the scale in between.

[harlan]

That's a great idea.

I need one anyway for weighing grain.