Compound Lever Press Design

[cbenner33]

I'm sorry to dig up an old thread, but I'm planning on building a press, and this is the exact design I want to use!

NW Fromager, if you're still around, could you tell me the dimensions you came up with for this press?

Thanks!

EDIT: Actually I came across this one: https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,14493.msg122479.html#msg122479 and I think I'd rather build it.

I don't mean to hijack this thread I just wanted to respond to this comment

That's my press that I built using plans provided by AwakePHD. If you read the entire thread you will see his original design based on antique metal presses. I didn't have the ability to make a custom metal down shaft so he provided the plans for an all wood version. I believe they are in thread as well. I made mine from pine as a mock up and was able to achieve almost 700 pounds of force on the down rod with a 50 pound weight on the end (50 x 14(multiplier) = 700 lbs). It should be made from hardwood such as maple or oak and in theory may be able to generate up to 1000 lbs of force because of the compounding feature.

I think the press in this thread is a bit easier to build and should get great results nonetheless.

[awakephd]

I realize this thread is very old - I've been away from the forum for a year or so, and have just been back in the last month or two, so I missed a bunch of threads. I happened to see this, and as it is a topic of interest to me, wanted to put in a comment. (Also I see that Chris referenced me, so naturally I MUST need to comment, right? )

I love, love, love the elegant simplicity of the design referred to at the beginning of this thread. It is such a dead-simple design, so easy to build ... but it does suffer from one flaw, a flaw that for me was a fatal flaw.

Even though it is possible to adjust the MA, even at the lowest MA the range of movement at the ram is severely limited. This will not only make it need frequent adjustment in the early stages of pressing, when the cheese can shrink quite a bit; it will also make it difficult even to get the mold under the ram. The result is going to be a lot of adjusting, fiddling, adding shims to the follower, etc.

I have thought long and hard about whether it would be possible to modify the design to include a moveable pivot point between the upper and lower levels - this would allow lower overall MA, which in principle translates to greater range of movement - but still the stacked design sets a hard limit on the range of movement. One could greatly extend the distance between the upper and lower levers to attempt to increase the range, but still there will be some limits, and you begin to lose the elegant simplicity of the design. I keep pondering this from time to time, because I do so love the ease of building this, but thus far, I haven't come up with a practical solution.