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GENERAL CHEESE MAKING BOARDS (Specific Cheese Making in Boards above) => STANDARD METHODS - Forming Cheese => Topic started by: smolt1 on June 13, 2012, 12:12:10 AM
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I have been making the sturdy press for almost 3 years but I have never tried to break one. This should be interesting for the press designers and makers among us. Today being a beautiful spring day was the perfect time for breaking a cheese press. I tied a sling under a garbage can and tied it to the press.
I put water in the garbage can 5 gallons at a time. Lots of creaking noises! At 15 gallons ( pressing weight about 1100 lbs ) only creaky noises.
I thought the lever arm would break but no. At 20 gallons ( 170 lbs on the lever arm and about 1500 lbs pressing weight ) the lever arm was bowed but the failure point was the 5/16 pin in the 9X pin position. Now I can stop thinking about it and go back to weeding my vegetable garden.
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Now that is impressive ;)
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Trial & error is one way to check how things work.
Each cheese press I build per customer's specs, I design and calculate relying on mechanical engineering formulas as well as considering the strength of material, i.e. the type of wood used.
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I think you might want to blow it up... a la mythbusters.
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I think you might want to blow it up... a la mythbusters.
LOL, or shoot it with Edam cheeses as cannon balls...
But seriously, this experiment gives me great confidence in my own oak-made dutch press!
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Alex, My customer's specs are " the best press for under $100 ". The real test is 386 happy curd pressers. Because of very high shipping costs, I send the plans to many cheese makers outside the US so they can make there own. If you would like, I can send the plans to you and you can check out the design.
linuxboy, I was wearing safety glasses just in case.
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Good show, smolt1!
Who would be pressing what kind of cheese with that much power? I think the Edam cannonball is a great idea...or cheese diamonds. ::)
Tubular steel, baby! 8)
-Boofer-
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Boofer, Maybe a new class of cheese called " rock cheese", and the title " breaking news " was inspired by the creative titles of some of your recent posts.
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Catching the reader's attention. That's what your title did for me. ;)
Then the story too is fascinating....
-Boofer-
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Alex, My customer's specs are " the best press for under $100 ". The real test is 386 happy curd pressers. Because of very high shipping costs, I send the plans to many cheese makers outside the US so they can make there own. If you would like, I can send the plans to you and you can check out the design.
smolt1,
That's exactly the point I'm trying to attract your attention. If you didn't design the press for a certain pressing ability, it's OK to test it's extreme, but if you do not want to make a press that it's sturdiness is an overshoot, I would calculate the structure's strength according to the desired pressure to be applied. For so many presses you might save a lot of money at least on the materials.
Any way, thanks for your kind offer for sending me the plans, I have my own.
386 happy curd pressers? Great success! Congrats!
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Alex, I think you and he are approaching this from two different perspectives.
From what I read, you say:
- Determine specifications based on usage needs
- Arrive at modularized design that accommodates changes, or 3-5 designs for various customer personnas
- Optimize the linear input equation for cost, to avoid overdesign based on customer specs
- Build, verify, ship
I think smolt1 looks at the engineering approach from a different set of parameters:
- Given the following constraints, not taking into account customer specifications, build the optimum design:
- Under $100 retail (internal COGS calc, margin, etc)
- Portable/lightweight, say <15 lbs., footprint to fit on standard 24" counter
- Natural/food safe materials
- As much PSI as possible, min threshold 5-6 PSI on 6" mold
- So his linear equation begins with very different constraints due to an alternative workflow.
Both have their merits. Your approach delivers a solution. His approach delivers more of a product/quasi-commodity, though hand made. It is standardized for defined customer personnas as a one-size-fits-most. And his approach has the possibility to benefit from economies of scale, given the standardized production.
IMHO, many ways out there to make people happy. Some people just want to click buy and don't even know what they want or how to explain it.
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Alex, I think you and he are approaching this from two different perspectives.
I agree with you LB.
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IMHO, Smolt makes a very nice lever press for the money.
Nobody would ever subject his press to that kind of stress. I looked at this as his "crash test dummy" experiment to see what might fail under extreme conditions.
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You're right Sailor, this "crash test " was to satisfy my own curiosity. I thought that the lever arm would break first. At least now I know what the margin of safety is.
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I have enjoyed this entry like I am watching one of those IPad destroying videos. >:D
If Archimedes was reading this entry, he could lift/press the entire universe with Smolt's press. :P