Lots of guys mill off the top tooth (or is it the bottom tooth) which allows
you to move the ram, adjust the handle to the right place, and press. It's a
"poor man's ratcheting" setup. On the other hand, I have a 2-ton ratcheting
arbor press in Kirkland, Washington that is brand new but right after I got
it 2 things happened. J&L moved out of the area, so now nobody carries these
locally anymore so now you have to pay big bucks to ship them, and also I
found a nice Dake ratcheting #1½ at Boeing Surplus. So I can offer a 2-ton
ratcheting arbor press for $75 for pickup in the Kirkland, Washington area.

Many people bore a hole in the end of their ram and then make punches and
dies. If they need a blunt end they make up one of those too. I was going
to do that but then I found a Whitney Jensen 10-ton bench punch and shortly
afterwards found a 30-ton Scotchman ironworker. So now I punch little stuff
with one and bigger stuff with the other. Punching beats the crap out of
drilling. I sure wish I could punch square tubing, though. I've nearly tripled
the money I spent on that ironworker doing jobs with it, wish I could say the
same about my other tools.

Grant Erwin
Kirkland, Washington
To email me see http://www.tinyisland.com/email.html

Steven wrote:

A recent posting on arbor presses got me thinking again about my arbor
press. It seems to me that the working end of the ram needs tooling.
My ram is plain on the end, just square stock with a rack cut into the
side.

What if anything have you fellows done to make your press more
useuable? Would one drill and thread the ram on the centerline or
make a clamp arrangement to hold tooling or punches, etc?

Maybe do one end of the ram with "?" and leave the other end plain?

I haven't had any real need to do much more that pressing a arbor and
such, but I'm always looking to "improve" these types of basic tools.

Thanks,

Steven Harris
Everson, WA