hst45 Posted October 6, 2006 Posted October 6, 2006 cplmac, point taken about the horizontal plane. My particular splitter is an MTD 25ton unit which can be tilted to vertical.
cplmac Posted October 7, 2006 Author Posted October 7, 2006 I bet it would work just fine then. Keep us posted, literally.
ewest Posted October 25, 2006 Posted October 25, 2006 Ok everyone with the Harbor Freight 12 ton press, still have problems with it throwing your rammers off center under pressure? Well I just fixed mine with a couple of modifications. Attached to this post you'll find a picture of some custom adapters I had Rich Wolter make me, he charged me about $40 for both. There is a set screw on one side that holds it onto the vertical bar under the bottle jack and the opposite end just has a 1/2" hole for 4oz rocket rammers and the other has a 3/4" hole for 1lb rocket rammers. I use these to help hold the rammers in place while pressing. Second, I loosened all the bolts on the press and pulled it back as square as it would go. It won't get totally square but I got it as close as I could. Third, if you look at the picture of my press earlier in this post, you'll see that the legs of the press are a C channel and the horizontal press bar under the bottle jack has a plate bent into the shape of a C that rides up and down the leg. Well, there's quite a bit of play in there so I took a white polyethylene cutting board and cut 1" wide strips about 12" long then cut these on a band saw very thin like 1/8"-1/4" depending on the gap. I cut 3 for each leg to go between the leg and horizontal bar under the jack filling the gap as snug as I could get it. I just duct taped them in place to hold them and that works just fine. The polyethylene is slippery enough that the metal bar slides up and down quite nicely without pulling on them or needing lubricant. Fourth, (I already had done this but thought I should throw it in) I cut some new pressing sleeves 1" longer than the rocket body I'm using, then cut a spare tube into 1" segments and place this shim on top of my rocket motor and slide the new longer sleeve over the whole thing. this also gives you the added benefit of loading the rocket motor all the way to the top if desired. I just pressed a 4oz and 1lb rocket and the rammers went perfectly up and down and did not cock to the side one bit. What a deal
h&k machineguns Posted October 28, 2006 Posted October 28, 2006 I have a 12 ton press I bought at Harbor Freight. You just bolt it all together. The only thing I added was a blast shield. I bought 5 sheets of Lexan from Home depot and using a little creativity just bolted them to the frame. I wore out a 3/8" drill bit drilling through the steel but it wasn't so bad. I have this same press and actually like it now that I added a shim to the left side to make it finally level. Anyway,I'd like to know if anyone makes an electric bottle jack that I could put in the place of the manual one Harbor frieghts comes with. I'd do a hydrolic bottle jack,but I don't own an air compressor and am thinking if I were to add the air jack and compressor and tank,that my work space would get that much smaller. The jack takes up a lot already if you know what I mean.Next home I buy will have a 3 car garage instead of this crowded 2 car garage I got now.
ewest Posted October 30, 2006 Posted October 30, 2006 Harbor Freight sells a hydraulic/pneumatic bottle jackt and I thought of using it. I mentioned it on the forum (sorry I can't remember who mentioned it right now) someone told me that hooking up a compressor to the air side doesn't give a constant pressure, it'll hammer and thus is an extremely bad idea for pressing whistle rockets with. The true solution would be to use an HPU Hydraulic Power Unit to supply the jack with hydraulic fluid instead of pumping the jack handle. However cheapest HPU I could find (once again from trusty old Harbor Freight) was about $400. I decided that was too expensive for me. But I do know that it'll work if you want to invest in something like that. It'd certainly speed production
FrankRizzo Posted October 30, 2006 Posted October 30, 2006 Ewest, If you're serious about wanting a hydraulic power unit, I've got an extra 24V unit that I'll sell for $175 + shipping.
cplmac Posted October 30, 2006 Author Posted October 30, 2006 Using the air over hydraulic is perfectly fine. It presses incrementally but does not hammer anything. The increments are so small that it makes no difference. I have pressed the hottest whistle mix I could make with it (70/30 Sally with 2%Iron), at very high pressure (bad math on the conversion had me press a whistle rocket at 30,000PSI). If it does not blow at that pressure with the "hammering" motion, I can't imagine that it is hazardous in a normal situation. Frank what pressure does your HPU run at and how much flow? New/Used? Off a snow plow? I'm thinking about switching mine over from air because the air is to slow. Send me a PM if you don't mind, I'm interested in your HPU.
ewest Posted October 30, 2006 Posted October 30, 2006 Ewest, If you're serious about wanting a hydraulic power unit, I've got an extra 24V unit that I'll sell for $175 + shipping. Sort of interested; I sent you an email explaining.
h&k machineguns Posted October 31, 2006 Posted October 31, 2006 Using the air over hydraulic is perfectly fine. It presses incrementally but does not hammer anything. The increments are so small that it makes no difference. I have pressed the hottest whistle mix I could make with it (70/30 Sally with 2%Iron), at very high pressure (bad math on the conversion had me press a whistle rocket at 30,000PSI). If it does not blow at that pressure with the "hammering" motion, I can't imagine that it is hazardous in a normal situation. Frank what pressure does your HPU run at and how much flow? New/Used? Off a snow plow? I'm thinking about switching mine over from air because the air is to slow. Send me a PM if you don't mind, I'm interested in your HPU.I'm still very new to whislte rockets,but isn't 76/23/1 hotter than 70/30/2 ? Thanks
cplmac Posted October 31, 2006 Author Posted October 31, 2006 No. And my comp is actually pink from the red iron oxide. I started with the 76/23/1 a couple of batches of that and I decided to try the "hotter" mix and it was noticeably faster.
h&k machineguns Posted October 31, 2006 Posted October 31, 2006 No. And my comp is actually pink from the red iron oxide. I started with the 76/23/1 a couple of batches of that and I decided to try the "hotter" mix and it was noticeably faster. I think I alwats assumed t he 76/23/1 was t he hottest since that's what Steve Laduke uses in his. I'll have to try the 70/30 since I want my rockets to be the fastest they can be
cplmac Posted November 1, 2006 Author Posted November 1, 2006 I think you will notice a difference, but I've heard people have trouble with CATO's running straight 70/30/1 Salycilate.
FrankRizzo Posted November 2, 2006 Posted November 2, 2006 Cpl, I sent you a PM regarding the HPU specs.
Phildo Posted November 7, 2006 Posted November 7, 2006 I'm using the cheap Harbor Freight 6 Ton log splitter & I'm running 70:30:1 Potassium Benzoate. I use very strong and cheap spiral tubes with a 1/8" wall . http://www.ihaveadotcom.com/Pyro/Whistle.wmv The press needs to be cross braced to stiffen it and I really need to get a guage, but I'm thinking I got pretty good results for my first whistlers.
ewest Posted November 7, 2006 Posted November 7, 2006 Nice job! Especially for a first whistler. It sounds exactly like mine, but I use Sodium Benzoate not Potssium. You should submit that in the rocket competition area or also post a link to it in the thread titled "Please Post VIDEO'S if you got em" We have a few other whistle rocket video links in there and it'd be nice to keep them together. Keep pressing and keep filming.
Phildo Posted November 10, 2006 Posted November 10, 2006 Harbor Freight has their 12 Ton Press on sale for $109. It's on page 20 of the Thanksgiving catalog. My local store honors web site prices. Harbor Freight
RUUUUUN Posted November 12, 2006 Posted November 12, 2006 Here is pic one Sorry Mods for the next 7 septuple posts....... This bloody thing weighs like 250 stinking pounds! The rods are 5/8 inch thick the paltes are 3/4 inch the mottle jack is 20 tons... it took me ~2 saturdays to make, I could easily have made it in 1/2 a saturday if I had a drill press that was strong enough!!!!
RUUUUUN Posted November 12, 2006 Posted November 12, 2006 here is pic number 2 Hehehe 150 posts WOOT!!!
RUUUUUN Posted November 12, 2006 Posted November 12, 2006 and Finally pic number 7!! Sorry mods, please don't fry me mumbles!!!!
Rocket007 Posted November 12, 2006 Posted November 12, 2006 realy some nice stafe. I will make this weekend a press. why you all need a 20t jack (i think thats a lot of to much. i will make a 2 or 5t press, so what do you do with 20t :S.
50caliber Posted December 7, 2006 Posted December 7, 2006 I'm going to make a press this weekend, I have already got a 20ton bottle jack and M16 threaded rod and can get some steel plate. I have some acrylic sheet at home it has bayar makrolon on it, I was wondering if I could use this because in my country its very hard to find lexan sheet or similar
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