Yet another simple press

[OlJarhead]

I decided that since so many were making these presses and since they appeared to be very basic lever presses that worked well, I would make my own.


I quickly browsed some others presses, took some measurements from one, cut some lumber and mocked up mine (I combined two of the ones I saw here).

I then made a few changes, cut, drilled, bolted and tested.

My first test was with no weights and the scale read 6.5lbs

My second was with a jug of water hanging off the end of the press arms -- the jug weighed 6.5lbs on the scale and 36.5 once on the press.

I then weighed the jug on my kitchen scale and saw it actually weighed over 7lbs so I reduced it's content until it reached 5lbs and tried the press again.

Our old bathroom scale is clearly not functioning well but it did give me some idea of where I was at with the 5lbs jug hitting 27.5lbs on the scale when hung on the press.

So roughly 4x the weight of the jug plus the initial 6.5lbs of free press weight.

Not bad I'm thinking.

Couple of issues right off were that the scale had to put on blocks because this press is narrow and this resulted in the press lifting when in operation.  Thus it will likely need to be clamped to a table for use (I have a food prep table for grinding meat, dehydrating etc that will work nicely).

All in all I'm happy and will have to begin the process of cleaning up the scale (doing some trimming and sanding) and with luck in a couple week (as I don't have a lot of time after this weekend) I'll have it both presentable and functional

I plan to buy a 25lbs weight to give me 100lbs of pressing weight and maybe 2.5, 5 and 10lbs weights so I can adjust the pressing weight.

At this point my main interest is cheddar and once I have the press fully functioning I plan to move to larger cheeses (4lbs+) -- of course I'll need that Turkey Roaster too...

[OlJarhead]

Hardware:

2 1/4" Oak flooring (my brother used to work for a company delivering flooring and they through out scraps all the time -- which he grabbed and gave to me ) cut to 32" for the arms and 18" for the plunger

2x4x96" Doug Fir studs -- cut to 26" for the legs and 18"x2 for the uprights with a 20" center reduced to 1" in width at the top 3"  (the 18"ers were cut on 45's to give clearance for the press arms).

brass 1/4-20 hardware and deck screws to hold it all firm.

I may do some gluing later once it's completely sanded, stained and coated but for now it'll do.  I may also make a pressing platform out of oak flooring (which I can coat with butcher Block oil I'm thinking -- or just poly coat it and use cheesecloth etc above it -- not sure yet).

[OlJarhead]

After working on calculations I managed to get my press calibrated 

OK at least it was as close I care to be (within a 10th of a pound or two) using the kitchen scale -- however the calcs should be right on based on math rather then a poor scale

I've started another thread to talk about how I calculated my pivot point and fulcrum point as well as where to hang the weights in case anyone is interested.  I should not be able to get 9.92PSI on my cheddar using a 25lbs weight

I'm very happy with that!