So a year or so ago I used my arbour press to fit some PEM nuts into some aluminium extrusion for an experiment for someone else and I was reading on the data sheet that really they should be inserted with a specific force. It got me thinking about how useful having some knowledge or control of the force my arbour press exerts would be. I also currently want to test how a couple of different designs of bulkhead react to force and what thickness I need for a particular design. So a quick mod has occurred! Above you can see the press (a 1 ton Clarke I picked up locally second hand a while back) but the handle you can see is actually my torque wrench connected to the opposite side from where a handle normally is.
The mod is really simple.. I removed the spindle which raises and lowers the ram and drilled and tapped a hole into the end of it on the lathe I then fitted a steel bolt to the hole. Now I can use the torque wrench with a socket on over the bolt as a handle to apply pressure, with the torque wrench breaking at the force required set on the torque wrench! Its handy in terms of pressing something with a known force but also for testing what force an object will reach its elastic limit with!
Couple of shots of the process for fun! Arbour press spindle in the lathe.
Needed to trim a bolt down to the right length so use my stud clamp I made ages ago on my engineering operations course!
Spindle all drilled and tapped. So I have seen lots of other mods for arbour presses, I definitely at some point want to drill a hole into the face of the ram and fit a grub screw to allow me to make different tools for the end.. some different punches for example and also perhaps some metal brake type set ups for folding small sections of sheet.
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