I just want to say thank you for this wonderful design. I finally built a prototype with cheap wood and it easily went under 810lbs theoretical force for 24h while pressing a cheddar.
Short story long I got in love with Andy's/awakephd's beautiful craftmanship and decided to build this press a long time ago. Sadly at some point I needed a press under short notice and put together a simple one with PVC that withstood 280 lbs which was enough for the cheeses I like to make, and is still going strong years later, so there was no reason to build this one.
Finally I found an excuse, as I am experimenting with Koji in cheese and wanted to make a cheddar subbing shio koji for dry salt... but that would take at least 600 lbs for the 6G make I do. At last I had a valid reason to build it! I made my plans, but was waiting to get a good bargain on hard maple or white oak, when I found myself with a "free weekend"... I didn't have the wood so I settled for going into Home Depot and getting whatever was available there (pine) to build a "prototype" that I would break but at least would get me ready to do the real thing later. I just used a coping handsaw, a hand sander, and a drill press, and honestly went through quickly as I was expecting to break it (e.g., I just sanded the joints I was going to glue not the whole thing). I built it with wood glue and dowels. It worked fine but the secondary lever burst open at 300 lbs... I built another one and the press went to 810lbs, which was enough for my needs. I've got them under that kind of pressure three times already with no issue.
So long story short, this design is GREAT. And I have a Frankenstein press that works so fine I don't know when I will find an excuse to finally build the "real" one and make it pretty