Make a 30tonne Hydraulic Press. Squash Anything!

This instructable will show you how to make a 30tonne hydraulic press. In my press i use some serious hardware, and the final press is going to end up weighing 86kg, which is 164lbs or 13.5 stone. I use M42 threaded rod which is 42mm wide and weighs a tonne. There is nothing to stop you using smaller hardware, I am told that M30 rod (which you can buy from RS for 10 quid will take 26 tonnes, so two of those would handle it fine.

However you build it, its a nice project, and the finished product is great fun to use.

Below are some damage photos. Theres also a video i made of a santa candle being crushed. I sped the video up so its not too long, the press does not operate at this speed...

Step 1: Gather Materials....

This is a relativly simple project, once you have the bits and peices its very straight foward to put it all together.

You need two upright supports. If you cant get rod as hefty as the stuff I managed to find, you could use four thinner threaded rods instead. You could also use smaller box section.

Anyway, if you want to build one just like mine, you need the following:

6ft of 150mm box section. I got mine from a local steel fabrication place for 50quid. It needs to be cut into three 2ft sections. You can either do this with a big angle grinder, hack saw or an oxy acentaline torch. I did mine the lazy way and i got the steel works to cut it for me.

Two 1m lengths of M42 (or similar sized) threaded rod. I got mine off a friend, the two meter peices with all the nuts and washers for £20.

8 M42 Nuts I got mine with the M42 rod.

12 M42 washers 16 washers would be ideal, but for non-load bearing points, you dont need a nut. My freind with the M42 rod only had 12 washers.

Some suitably sized steel bar - for use as feet, if a machine this heavy fell over it would break through the floor.

An appropriatly sized square steel plate - This is optional but is necessary if your box section is significantly smaller than the base of the jack.

30 Tonne bottle jack - This is obviously the component where all the power comes from. You dont have to use a 30t jack, you can use a 50 or a 15t if you want, you can use an air powered one too if you ahve a compressor, The jacks are compleatly inter-changable. Just make sure your steel can handle the load.

Now, the tools....

Step 2: Gather Tools...

For using hefty materials like this you need some pretty hardcore tools. Perhaps the most important would be a way of drilling a large bore hole in the steel. If you are using thinner rods you can get by with a large drill bit in a power drill. I was using 46mm rods so had to resort to a big bore cutter on a huge pillar drill to cut the holes for the rod. When you get the steel, ask the steel works if they would dril it for you.

If your steel works does not cut up the steel for you, or if you fish it out of a skip, you will need to cut the steel. You can do this the long, laborious way with a hacksaw, or you can have abit more fun and use a big angle grinder. Beware of the 15ft shower of sparks though!

For the feet, you would also need a saw. Either the grinder or a hacksaw. I used a powered reciprocating hacksaw. You will also need a way of joining the feet onto the base section. I welded it, but you could bolt it.

You also need a massive spanner for the M42 nuts. From RS a 65mm spanner is 250 quid, so that was out of the question. To be honist, the nuts dont have to be that tight, only the nuts on the base have to have any tension in them, the nuts that hold the top bar in dont have to be tight as the pressure from the jack will hold them there. I was not going to shell out 250 quid on a spanner so I quickly bodged one up from a sheet of aluminium which is more than enough to move the nuts.

A wire brush to clean out the threads and scrub the crap off the steel is also useful.

Step 3: Mark Up the Steel...

Now you need to make up your steel. The way you do this will vary depending on what size steel you use, but I did it by finding the centre of the steel section, then measuring 22mm out. I used a 90degree centre finder to mark a cross then measier 22mm up from the middle. You need to leave enough space between the edge of the hole and the edge of the steel. My holes are 46mm, and I have left 57 between the centre of the hole and the edge of the metal. This leaves:

57 - 23 (the radius of the hole) = 34mm.

Marking a thin, precise line on dull steel is quite hard, so I put afew inches of masking tape on the surface to give me something to draw on. I made the markings with a simple biro pen.

This is obviously a crucial stage, if yoru finished holes don;t line up, your press will be wonky and wont move!

Step 4: Cutting the Holes.

This is the hard bit. If you are using steel the size I used, you will find it very hard to cut the steel unless you have a fully equipped machine shop. You can buy hole saws but to be honist, cutting steel this size (especialy ten holes) is not really practicle with a hole saw. If you did decide to go the holesaw route, you would need a pillar drill, a hand held power drill would break your wrists!

The floating and the top section need four holes each, however the base section only needs two, as the nuts will be inside the section to allow more vertical pressing area, and also prevents needing very deep feet to accomodate the nuts.

You can also use 10mm rod and use 4 or 6 rods, which would make drilling the holes much easier, you could just use an 11mm bit.

I used a 46mm heavy duty hole saw in a massive 20 year old pillar drill. It took about 5mins to do each hole....

Its likely that either the floating or the top section will bind slightly. Thats not a good thing, so you can solve this with abit of filing to widern the holes in the appropriate direction.

Step 5: Making the Feet.

Obviously, this press weighs a lot and if it fell over, it would casue a lot of damage. I used two 450mm peices of 40mm box section. I cut the box section on a large reciprocating hack saw which took about five minuets per cut. After cutting the metal, it was welded onto the bottom section.

I arranged my feet so they were directly alligned with the vertical shafts.

Step 6: Strengthen the Sliding and Top Section With Concrete.

Oh dear. I tried my press on a tea spoon and after closer inspection it seems that the pressure of the jack has pushed and distorted the foating steel section. To be honist, this is not a **really** bad thing, since now there is a little dimple for the ram to sit in. To prevent this happening again, I decided it woudl be best to fill the floating and top sections in with concrete. This practicaly doubles the weight, so be careful!

you could do this many ways, but the way I came up with worked quite well. I covered over the holes and filled the section with sand up until the fill level. I then put a peice of tinfoil in the bottom to prevent too much water seeping into the sand and making it harden with the concrete. I then filled the box up with concrete to the second fill level. I stood the box section in a plastic bag so that when i lift it up, the sand underneath the concrete will be contained.

Because the top section is ment to be adjustable for height, I decided rather than to fill the whole thing with concrete, to just do a 8 inch block right int he middle. Anyway, most of the crushing will be in the middle, so this is not going to cause a problem. It also makes the top section more manovourable and lighter.

Not only does this strengthen the metal enormously, but it also makes it much easier to push the piston back into the jack body. Because this is designed to lift 30 tonnes, it takes a huge ammount of force to push he piston back into the jack. The extra weight of the concrete helps to push the piston back in. You might also find that standing on the floating section will push it back quicker than just waiting.

Dont forget you need to leave a big enough space for you to tigten the nuts up.

Step 7: Putting It All Together

So, you have drilled the holes in the metal, welded the feet on and filled the floating and top section with concrete for strength. Now you get to put it all together.

Dont forget the top and floating sections will weigh **a lot** with the concrete, be careful when lifting them, and whatever you do make sure your feet arnt ontop of the base section, if you drop it you wont have any toes left.

The putting it together stage is faily self explanitory, just make sure you do the nuts up on the base section.

You must be very very careful when lowering the concrete reinforced section down onto the rod. The thread in the rod can catch skin, and with that much weight behind it, esepecialy if you are hon your own is bad news. The sections weigh a lot, and if you drop them they can crush your toes or anything else delecate that may get in the way. Its best to get a frenid to help you.

Step 8: Tadaaa

Now you can crush, press and stress to 30t. Dont forget, if you are pressing things that could posibly break free and fly off, use eye and face protection. better still, erect a perspex screen infront of the press to catch any fall out.

Have fun squashing stuff, email me if you ahe any questions. [e-mail]

Please see my site at www.peter-hoare.co.uk .

I would like to thank my freind Tim at Fabrication Solutions who helped me cut the holes and weld the feet. My garage dosn't have that equipment (yet),

Any damage to life, limb or property as a result of using or following this instructable is purely the responsability of the builder and operator. I am not to be held responsable for any accidents including death, injury or damage to property through the use or misuse of the device featured in this instructable.