It was finally warm enough to wheel the bandsaw out on the driveway. I went from memory on the design then kept adding stuff till it worked. Its rather crude in that the downward arm doesn't have adjustable height. I can adjust the size with wood pieces under the mold though. I'm getting roughly 1.5x the weight on the arm, I tapered it enough to hold up to 3 free weights. Its pictured with 30lb on it, giving 45lb of pressure. I need to build some side stabilizers for the weight arm, using a bucket and some chocks in the meantime. In any case, I was tired of fighting to keep my free weights from slipping off the side of my cheese, and this developed. This will develop into something more sophisticated eventually, but it works as it is and only took me an hour and some scrap lumber.
My wife says its always a challenge navigating our kitchen. On any given day there might be three or four buckets of wine or beer, my 5gal aluminum pot half-filled with water for a double boiler, and/or a few cases of bottles or a kornelius keg. She's got a good sense of humor about it, one of many of her endearing qualities.
Lennie, looks good and you can always store it away when not in use. FYI to calibrate it you could put bathroom scales underneath to measure before and after press & weights applied to measure the effect of the press.
I'll do that John, thanks. I know that 30lb of weight is pressing the heck out of my cheddar. I figure its equivalent to 45-50lb which is what the recipe called for.
Great job Lennie! That should do you proud!