Hyfraulic press from Harbor freight

I might as well chime in since everyone else in the Hydraulic press
business is. I make the Potter press, but besides that I have used
other presses as well to operate dies and make domes and bend
shapes. The harbor freight press will do some of what most people
want but they are not designed to do it, I can modify one and make my
tooling fit them but in the end it is not worth the trouble. If you
have the skills and equipment to do it yourself then it probably is
worth doing. I have been trying for a couple of years to build these
presses for less money and I have mine about as low as it can go I
sell it with a jack or without a jack I made the frame fit any jack
on the market with no modifications so if you want to use a 20 dollar
harbor freight jack you can and it will work fine if you want to
spend a couple thousand on an enerpac system great that will work as
well. The platen system on my press is guided and locked to the frame
so it cant tip even if you dont center the work, but you have to
center the work so dont even try to put it out of center. The harbor
frieght presses dont have provisions for tooling or platens and they
are down acting not up acting like mine or the BD. I make a 12 ton
for 450 dollars that will do pancake and forming dies it uses a
Harbor frieght jack and if you need a gauge I make a torque handle
that will fit any bottle jack so that you can get repeatable results.

The 12 ton looks just like my 20 ton only it is smaller but it still
has the guided platen and takes most of the tooling that I make. I
know that having a press is an expensive proposition to most people,
same as getting a rolling mill but if making jewelry and
metalsmithing is something you are going to do for a while it is a
great investment. As to the great exposed spring debate I use springs
that are from trampolines and hobby horses they are only stretched a
couple of inches they are designed to stretch 6. If a spring were to
break it would have to come detached from the hooks that hold it to
the platen, so for it to fly free it would have to fail in 2 places
at the same time and somehow detach itself as well, that wont happen.

As I have said before you wont be dissapointed if you buy either of
our presses they are both high quality products with owners who
stand behind what they make.

Thanks
Kevin Potter